“I made him mad in January. Actually I remember the date, ironically enough it was my mom’s birthday, the nineteenth. He was angry for the usual reasons, but he lost it when he punished me. He punched me in my stomach over and over again. I’m not sure how many times he hit me, but by the end I was spitting up blood and I could hardly breathe. I’m fairly certain that I had at least two broken ribs.” She kept her eyes away from Katie, waiting for her reaction, but Katie held all of her chaotic emotions in check.
“What happened then, Jess?” She asked gently, knowing that sometimes the things you least wanted people to hear, were the things that you needed to say most. Jessie sighed, a small sound of disgust escaping her.
“I thought he was going to kill me, he had threatened me with death often enough. He was always threatening me, it wasn’t unusual to hear violent warnings. Do you want to know what the worst part of it is?” She asked, looking Katie in the eyes for the first time in since she had started to talk. She couldn’t bear to wait for an answer. Katie nodded encouragingly, not really wanting to know, but knowing how important it was to let Jessie talk.
“The most terrible, sickest thing is, I wanted him to kill me. I wanted to die so that I wouldn’t have to face the pity and sympathy in the eyes of everybody I know when they found out. I could just imagine it, Poor Jessie, did you hear what he did to her? How could she be so stupid? I was so hurt and ashamed that I thought it would be better if I was dead, then I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore.” Tears streamed down her face as she tried to explain how death would have been preferable to living with this shame. Katie reached out to her and took her hand comfortingly. Jessie looked into those bottomless blue eyes and realized that there was at least one person who didn’t pity her. She could see that Katie was upset, on the verge of breaking down herself, but not mad at Jessie, more at the idea of what she’d been through.
“Instead of killing me though, he threw a damp wash cloth at me and told me to clean myself up. There was blood all over the front of my shirt, and I was wondering how I could possibly get past my mom without her noticing that. He thought of that, too. He went out and found one of his sister Candy’s shirts that was similar, and told me to put it on. I had to stay at his house for almost two hours, until I finally stopped coughing up blood, before he would let me go home.” Her voice was barely a whisper as she paused.
“After that, I felt so trapped, and the bastard knew it. He knew that I could no more tell my mom about what he was doing, then I could leave him. I was too ashamed, and honestly terrified of him. He’s so much stronger then I am, and he constantly reminded me what would happen if I tried to leave or tell anyone.” She stopped then, and Katie waited. After a time it was clear to Katie that she would have to push a little.
“What did he tell you would happen if you left him?” Katie asked gently, taking Jessie’s hand comfortingly.
“He said that he would kill me. I knew that he would, eventually. It was just a matter of time. I used to try to imagine how it would finally happen. Would it be with his bare hands, or would he use a knife? I used to hope that I would get lucky and he’d just lose control and I’d be dead before I could feel too much pain.” Jessie answered, her voice completely devoid of emotion. It chilled Katie to the bone, hearing her flat decided tone.
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