Screwed Over

“What percent are you on?” I asked, ready to plug in my battery-drained phone. I reached to swap our phones for the plug.

“Back the fuck off,” was his only response.

I tried to ignore the pang of hurt I felt when his deep voice rang through my ears. I felt his warm sticky breath travel down my neck. My eyes darted from his pinched up face to his sleek silver iPhone 4 and confusion swept over me. We were having such a great night, was he kidding or being serious? I reached again, more playfully this time. My arm fell hard to my side as he gripped my shoulders between his strong hands and told me to leave it alone.

I just wanted to plug in my phone, I thought. I was on five percent. But now, his reaction peaked my interest. The lock button on the phone was barely exposed as it was enclosed in his left hand. I could hear the vibrating text messages flooding his inbox. Anger swept over me and a red haze clouded my head. I knew this was going to escalate.

I continuously kept insisting to see who he was communicating with. I reached again and again, demanding that he hand it over, but my fury only provoked him further. Finally, he had enough. He stepped closer to me, towering over my small stature of five feet. His posture made him look twice as big as he usually was.

I noticed small things from that point on: the way his chest rose and fell in short precise movements, the way his eyes turned from blue to a cloudy grey, and especially the way his lips snarled at me with every upcoming word.

I saw it all unfolding right before me, yet I was frozen solid. Standing upright, trying to keep my dignity, ended up leaving me helpless and fully exposed to his surmounting anger. I braced for the inevitable. The dark shadow of his defined arm, illustrated by the lamp on the coffee table, rose up as a swift movement of his knuckles pummeled into me. I felt my knees give out as his arm fell across my face. I felt the wind of my hair, brushing past the granite counter top. Then I heard my skull slam into the ground.

I felt nothing. I saw nothing.

Once the initial shock wore off, pins and needles swarmed by body, burning the right side of my head. The adrenaline helped slightly, but the rattling from inside out seemed to intensify. I opened my tightly shut eyes and the blur of the living room came into focus. The white marble floor was cool and refreshing next to my hot, swollen face. I don’t know how long I lay there. It could have been minutes or what felt like hours. I couldn’t find the will to stand up.

What the fuck just happened?

I peeked up through my tangled mane-like hair and did not see him anywhere. I pushed myself onto my feet with whatever will I had left and began my clumsy walk to the car. I could not process what had just taken place. Seriously, what the fuck just happened?

He didn’t appear or stop me from leaving. What the fuck? That was my only response to what had just unfolded.

Once reaching the safe haven of my car, I opened the door and let myself slump against the steering wheel. Hot tears poured down my cheeks. My ever increasing curiosity as to what he was hiding from me began to gnaw at my heart. I was scared of course, he had never hit me like that, but for some god forsaken reason I couldn’t even focus on what had happened. I was baffled by what he had done and completely mind blown that he would go to that extreme to hide what was on his phone. I don’t know if it was the red haze that clouded my judgment or the guilt I felt for causing a scene over his phone, but I knew I had to see what was on it.

I was extremely conflicted, full of emotions and still recovering from the pulsating pressure I felt in my right temple. I drove back and forth from the end of his neighborhood back to his house, and then again from my house to his. I was miserable. I did not know what to do and that is what drove me crazy. Finally, I decided to just go in and see for myself.

I crept up to the sliding glass door, making myself as small as possible, and peered inside. He was now almost half way through the Jack Daniel’s bottle that was teetering on the island in the kitchen. Alcohol enhanced his emotional reactions. It had been a problem for a while. His deep voice brought my attention snapping back to where he was in the house. He was overpowering the song “Lifestyle,” sung by Rich Gang, as he moved towards the family room. His heavy footsteps echoed through the house as he climbed the tile stairs, calling “KC.” She was the innocent bystander to our fight, a fragile, fluffy puppy.

At last, this was my perfect opportunity.

The phone lay perfectly still on the high countertop that my head missed by a couple centimeters in the previous hour. I swung the chilled handle on the door, lunged for his phone, and bolted.

I could hear him flying down the iron railing, grunting a low, horrific sound. I felt the wind swipe across my back as he tried to pull me into his grasp. The heavy breath from behind me, swarmed my ear drums, as he grew closer I let my body succumb to the only instincts I had. I launched my body up and over the locked, black barred gate, ripping my yoga pants in the process. His presence behind me pushed me faster and further, reminding me of the events that would come next if he caught me.

My heart rate never slowed down, my anxiety spiked as I took my last step towards the car. Within seconds I was speeding down the residential street. I finally had the answer to my pounding questions lying in the crevice of my shaking legs.

I had to remind myself to breathe. My heart was in my throat and my trembling body would not relax. My shallow breathing turned from panic to anger, then evolved into intense depression that consumed my mind and body. I knew I was sinking.

I drove down Pacific Coast Highway completely bewildered. I followed the empty, dark road, letting my sobs fill the car. The street lights above dazzled into brilliant star shapes through my tears. I was finally forced to stop in order to clear the salty pools suffocating my sight. Peeking through the dark clouds was my only company on the road: the sliver of a half smirking moon gave me enough piece of mind to make it down to the one spot I felt safe.

Sitting in the low clouds, overlooking the ocean, I now was able to discover the answer that drove me to such extreme measures. I swiped the illuminated screen and typed in the four-digit code. It unlocked and released all of the tucked away lies that had been accumulating throughout the night. Staring into Kobe Bryant’s hollow eyes in the brightly lit up screen saver, my entire body convulsed with fear in anticipation of what was about to be exposed. He fought so hard to hide his phone and now it was in my hand.

I swiped up and opened an application called Tinder, an “easy access” dating app. I scrolled through his pictures, seeing repulsive images that burned into my memory, one thing I wish I never came across. The green and white message app read a small “9" in a red bubble in the top right corner.

I braced myself and clicked the icon. With every new message, I died a little inside. My world was turned upside down. My heart felt like someone had inserted sharp, black daggers to tear it apart piece by piece.

“How do you like your sex little girl,” read one of the texts I opened.

My sadness bled into anger, I was slipping into a deep dark trench of quick sand. I couldn’t breath let alone slow my heart down. It was sickening and as I continued to look I felt a churning inside my stomach.

The texts with “Icey” and Nicole enlightened me to the fact that these women were the reason why he was so defensive with simply interchanging our phones for a charger. He was with me, yet felt the need to stay connected to different women.

I continued to stare out of my fogged up window, trying to collect my thoughts, knowing that this could not get any worse. Breaking the silence of the still night, vibrations rang through my thighs, forcing my attention back down to his phone. Looking at the illuminated screen, I saw it was someone named Nicole calling. My anxiety accelerated and before I knew it I had picked up. “Hello,” my voice cracked under pressure. Words spewed from my mouth, pleading for her to tell me what was going on.

I could not take it. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I wanted to throw his piece of shit phone in the ocean or shatter it into a million pieces. Multiple times I thought about running it over with my car. I sat for a long time listening to the waves crash on the shore, contemplating what to do. As I watched the black water roll up and down I realized that life would somehow move on, but I could not imagine how. He had hit me, and hard. Reaching up and feeling my swollen cheek, I let myself unravel all over again. He cheated on me too, what the hell. Why? What did I do wrong? This was the man that promised to protect me, who swore to be faithful, why the fuck was this happening to me?

Completely drained and mentally exhausted, I found enough courage, or maybe stupidity, to drive back to his house. I no longer wished to be in possession of his phone and deemed it necessary to formally break up with him in person. It seemed so essential and I wanted him to know how badly I was hurting.

I pulled up slowly and parked behind his silver mustang. A shiver ran down my spine and I quietly prayed that he would be calm when I saw him. The impulses I had to scream or yell left me, my mouth was dry. I was shaking as I walked through the garage, not knowing what to expect. As I approached the garage door I could hear music and loud voices coming from the kitchen. Holding his phone away from my body I emerged from the hallway. Mortified is the only word that can express what I had felt when I saw what was going on: he was partying with his friends.

I flushed a scarlet red under all of his friend’s stares and could barely shuffle my feet enough to hand him back his phone.

“You guys ready for a show?” was his only acknowledgement of my presence.

They all laughed, looking nervously from me to him. I bowed my head and took painfully heavy steps towards the couch, he made no motion to move. I handed him his god-awful “sexting” device and before I could let anyone see the burning tears streaming down my cheeks, I turned sharply, heading back to the door. He didn’t try to apologize, he didn’t hug me and he didn’t even follow me outside.

The days following were grave. I stopped eating. I could barley sleep. I went completely mute to everyone I loved. There was nothing. Pure emptiness.

At the time, I rationalized his actions by thinking that without this device the cheating and violence would not have happened. In my state of insanity after he hit me, I actually hated the phone more than I hated him. I was scared and completely lost since everything I had hoped would be my future was slammed down in front of me.

In reality, the device was insignificant. He was a person that thought it was acceptable to hit the one person that needed him most and did so just to hide his shitty behavior. He was fucked up not only for cheating on me but also for his violent reaction. The intuition was there all along, yet I never trusted myself enough to leave. I knew long before this incident that verbal abuse was happening during our fights, but I never believed it would escalate into him physically hurting me.

I don’t know why I went back to his house the first time, let alone the second. He was the first person I had fallen in love with. I was fifteen years old when we started dating and I thought he was my whole world. Plus, my parents were high school sweethearts and I think their story helped me imagine that this man could be my only future. I loved his family. Most of the time I loved hanging out with him. It was only the occasional weekend night that ended in such a fucked up mess.

I would be lying if I said it was easy to walk away. I was so invested. Confusion was the hardest aspect to move past. No one expects the one they love to hurt them.

Looking back now, I know that his actions were inexcusable, and I can rest knowing that I would never let anyone touch me the way he did. I needed to value myself more and not settle for anything less. I forgave myself, I forgave him, and I was able to move forward. I converted my energy into practicing yoga, into bettering myself, into working myself back up after years of being torn down.