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April 26 - April 27, 2023
The jobs she loved, the ones she gravitated to the most didn’t require a degree, but folks couldn’t seem to understand why she wasn’t aiming for higher, because apparently, happiness wasn’t enough.
“Just…more silences. I’m probably imagining things.” Kelly’s lips thinned. Out of anything, those words stopped her cold. Because it wasn’t the harsh words or the fights with Natalia that had ravaged her the most. It was the barbed silences that infiltrated like a sickness.
She cast one more glance at the invite, noting the glorious two-month window before she got inundated with the sort of family shit that would torque her self-esteem for years to come.
Kelly swallowed her irritation and plastered a fake smile on again, one that felt like habit at this point. She didn’t need handling, didn’t need to push people away—if anything, she wanted to lose herself in something new, something different for a night. Something that didn’t resurrect the jagged slices of her past.
Plenty of girls wanted to warm her bed, but most just liked the image of the rough and tough butch girl—not the secretly nerdy accountant who’d rather watch a comic book movie than a football game. And the few who might actually bridge both worlds never seemed interested in her. And as for guys—apart from the occasional bi guy or trans man who wasn’t afraid of a more masculine woman, she’d given up on them years ago. Not worth the heartache.
“You’re one strong-as-fuck woman.” The admiration in her tone summoned shame that dripped through Kelly like wet paint. She didn’t deserve any of that. If she’d been strong, she wouldn’t have still been dating Natalia. She would’ve broken up with her the moment the barbs began. The moment those sharp touches started, not often to leave bruises but to sting. The moment Nat slung a vase to the floor, the first of many casualties to her temper. Instead, she’d stayed. She’d stayed even as her apartment had begun to feel like a prison.
“That wasn’t your fault at all. Do…you ever get told something often enough that even a mention of it makes you brace or need to lash out?”
Tabby understood the marks words left—and how after years of repetition it became hard to find yourself outside of them. The quietness starching the air between them was deadly, insidious, the sort that would kill this arrangement between them before it had even begun.
“You seriously don’t have to make anything. Look, I know me being all out of commission wasn’t what you banked on. You don’t have to stay.” Kelly crossed her arms over her chest. Her heart hurt at the vulnerable way Tabby pleaded with her to go, like she wasn’t worth taking care of. “I know our arrangement is only ever going to be casual, but you’re more than some piece of meat, Tabitha Reynolds. I wouldn’t spend time with you if I didn’t enjoy it, and I want to be here.”
Kelly had noticed the way Tabby got protective about anything geeky, as if she needed to hide it. Her chest squeezed tight. She understood the impulse far too well—after someone ripped you apart over the things you loved, eventually you started hiding them.
Kelly relaxed into the spot beside her, letting the events of the day drip off her. While a host of problems waited for her beyond this door, for tonight, she’d bask in feeling useful, feeling valued. Feeling safe.
“Fuck, Eli, they told me I might not play again.” Those words hit the air like a crack of thunder, a finality she wasn’t ready to face. “That fucking sucks,” Eli said. He hunched forward, gripping the bottle tight. “I know roller derby was a really good outlet.” The unsaid lingered in the air between them because he knew it had become more than that for her. It had been a life raft for her crushed self-esteem, something that built her up after her brother had battered her down for years. Having a gang of her rabid teammates at her back bolstered her in a way she’d always longed for. Losing
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Her heart spasmed hard. Sure, she hated shit like bridal and baby showers anyway—she didn’t enjoy the games, or the sheer volume of pastel colors, or ooh-ing and aah-ing over crap she’d never give a good goddamn about. Yet the part of her that had still wanted to be included, accepted by her family at large flinched at the realization that she might never be.
From the start, Tabby’s sexy confidence had lured her in. But somewhere along the way, she’d come to enjoy the woman she’d discovered beneath the bravado, one who understood what it was like to carry the scars others inflicted.
The most insidious part about emotional abuse was the invisibility.
Even now when Jake got in her head, when he tore her down over and over again, she questioned if she was being too sensitive. If she should just get over her issues with him and keep the peace in her family. Make life easier for everyone. Well, everyone except her. Nat had systematically separated Kelly from her friends and family, had destroyed her self-esteem with barbs and then had scared her into staying.
After all the sobbing she’d been through earlier today, the last thing she’d expected was for her libido to perk up, but this traveled a bit deeper. The need to be filled, to be consumed, to be completed drove her a little harder right now after everything she’d emptied out.
Nerves prickled through her—this was a position she never would’ve done with Nat near the end of their relationship. It put her thighs on full display, and after the constant pinches and comments, she couldn’t bear that scrutiny during sex. However, Tabby didn’t just seem to enjoy Kelly’s thighs—she fucking worshipped them.
A bitter laugh escaped Kelly’s throat. The barbs were the exact ones Nat used to lob at her, and it was clearer than ever where they’d originated from. Except her ex-girlfriend had twisted them up with the occasional fond gesture, the occasional compliment, the occasional sweet kiss. And Kelly had grown so starved for love that she’d swallowed those drops as if they’d make up for going parched for far too long. Fuck this entire family.
The misery that settled over her had crept in gradually—each blow stealing another piece of her self-esteem until she’d been stripped down completely. People could talk about how it was better to be alone than around toxic people all they liked, but the piece of posterboard wisdom never sank in for her. Loneliness was a shadow that she’d never been able to shake.
“I’m over the hookup scene.” She was too. However, admitting anything out loud tempted this glass situation to shatter.
The words that still haunted her—lucky that you’re pretty, failure, waste of time, aimless, vapid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It wasn’t until she started seeing Tabby that she realized just how horribly Natalia had treated her. She’d known her situation was bad, but she’d spent three years justifying, making herself smaller, hacking off pieces of herself to fit into the box Nat expected her to fit inside. And yet no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she compromised, how often she soothed Nat’s temper, none of her efforts were good enough. She was never good enough.
She’d been keeping them at a distance for far longer than Natalia’s death, terrified to tell them what had been happening in her relationship. Terrified they’d think of her differently. That they’d view her the same way she viewed herself. Because when she’d looked in the mirror, all she’d felt was shame.
