It Ends with Her

by Brianna Labuskes

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. —Ernest Hemingway

That’s how they fought. Not with wild gestures and unleashed voices, but with tiny slashes and cruel jabs that hit already-bruised places so that full punches weren’t necessary.

There was an anger she needed to hold on to that the alcohol was already starting to numb.

“You just don’t know what you’ll do with yourself if I’m not the center of your life.”

He was avoiding using contractions and self-validating his own lies by repeating the same wording multiple times, which were both clear signs of deception.

“Did I help?” The question was pitiful, not contentious. His voice had reverted to that of a little boy.

Bess vowed to say the girl’s name as much as possible. She deserved to remember who she was.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.

“He wants me to be smart enough to catch him,” she mused. “But I’m not.” That shook Sam out of the depths he had sunk into, as she knew it would. “That’s bullshit, kid. You figured this out.” “Only took me three dead girls.” When in doubt, fall back to self-deprecation and dark sarcasm. It was her MO.

She wondered where the pain and frustration seeped out. Or if it didn’t. If it just lurked in his veins like a just barely toxic venom that was slowly poisoning him.

When she hurt, she wanted those around her to hurt. To feel the cuts and bruises as deeply as she did. When she’d skinned her knee, falling off a bike, she wanted her best friend to fall off his so they could share in the pain and cry together. That was the only way it felt real. Valid.

What hurt her the most wasn’t the rape. It wasn’t. It was that he’d completely ruined her memories. The good ones, the ones touched with shimmering molten gold.

She looked so small, swallowed up by the cold, harsh room.

It was how she functioned. Block feelings. Redirect. Lash out. Rinse and repeat, as needed.

It took strength to survive.

It was about who woke up every day in a world that made that decision a painful one, but did it anyway. It was about who made the choice to live when giving up would be so much easier.

Just know in the end . . . in the end, I’ll be here. I’ll keep you safe. I promise you that.” She had absolutely no reason to believe him. But she did anyway.

“Abusers do that, you know? Manipulate fear and sadness into self-hatred. Soon you’re blaming yourself for things you had no control over. Soon you’re believing you’re responsible for something you could never have stopped in the first place.”

Everything was through my lens, and I never saw him as a real person with flaws and a history and a life of his own.”