The Sound of Us

by Jen Samson

When you’ve been stripped of every teenage dream of love and romance, every hope for a happy future, stripped of every shred of the person you once were and thought you’d become, all you have left are the splinters––deeply embedded reminders of everything you’ve lost even before you had a chance to have any of it.

I don’t know a more devastating feeling, knowing that I’ll never see him again. Never again.

If mirrors and showers and linoleum floors could speak, they would tell tales of unstoppable tears and unspeakable anguish. Only the cascading waters from the showerhead truly understood the brokenness of my heart in those minutes taking us from Friday night into the dawn of Saturday.

In the absence of the usual stench of alcohol, it occurs to me how much worse it is when he’s not drunk enough. That there is an element of clarity in Frank’s actions. That he wants to do this.

Tears during a beating have long since dried up, stolen years ago by hopelessness. By helplessness. Tears are now reserved for the unjudging toilet seat and the all-forgiving shower, where the only one to judge me for what my life is, is me.

don’t know what I hate more: Frank’s beatings or his affection afterwards. Acquiescing to his affection always feels like I’m betraying myself. Betraying all the secret tears.

This small window of freedom to say how I feel will last only as long as the smile on his face.

And before he gets tired of pretending and his eyes turn black

The deeply hidden rebellious part of me refuses to die at Frank’s hand. I would rather fall into this lake during the spring than die just because Frank declared it so.

I’ve come to hate Frank’s tenderness. His tenderness, like his kindness, comes at too high a cost.

I wonder if this is why compliments and gentle touch make me so uncomfortable . I know tht i dont trust it to be true but i think i also feel its manipulative

He thinks his smile means he’s innocent. I know his smile means he knows he was fully in charge of his faculties last night, but he’s really going to sit there and actually act like nothing happened,

I hate getting lost in love stories I can never have for myself. Happy endings, not written in the stars for me. Fantasies that run away with all my secret dreams, only to return with the crushing reality of my life.

“She’s failing every single one of her classes. You wanna know why? ‘Cause all she does is read. She doesn’t study. And last week, she pretended to be sick so she didn’t have to go to her uncle’s birthday party—”

Shes me!!!

Two weeks ago, I noticed the first bruise on his cheek, and that was when I decided I didn’t care that Axel was married.

I’ve never seen him—or anyone ever in my life—look so sad. He’s not crying. There’s just… nothing… nothing but sadness.

It may look like Axel has ended something, but it feels like he’s started something. And if he’ll let me, I’ll be the homewrecker. I’ll be the bad guy as long as I can take away all this sadness he keeps inside him. Fuck Frank.

I wanted to be all the nothingness he accused me of being. All the uselessness. If I was ugly, then I wanted to be the ugliest one of all. If I was worthless, I wanted to be as worthless as they come.

I wanted to embrace this nightmare. Become its loyal companion, so I wouldn’t have to be this powerless bystander, watching my life disintegrate before my eyes.

I want to lie on the couch and talk with someone about books and life and art. Make love on the carpet in front of the fire.

I’m sorry. About last night.” I smile. His eyes drop to my lips. He’s as unsorry as I am, but I’ve gotten over the mandatory guilt trip. I’m not, I type on my phone. “I’m married.” His lips tremble after that declaration. I nod, indicating that I know. “I won’t do it again.” I nod again. But his eyes devour my face. His lips tell me one thing, but his eyes speak a language we both understand. His lips are lying. His eyes tell me a hundred truths. So,

want to touch you. I want to taste you. I want to own every inch of your body. I don’t care about that ring on your finger. I don’t care about the vows you made. I care nothing for a piece of paper that says you can’t be mine.

How is it possible that this man, who cannot hear me, is now listening to me like no one else ever has?

When you’ve never known safety, it’s easy to navigate through the world. You just keep your guard up.

Also, if I knew how to make myself do it, I’d run so far away from you, you’d never be able to find me.

I refuse to satisfy him and his sick need to control me. I can’t let him inflict wounds, only to come back later and try to heal them as if he hadn’t been the one to cause them. Not this time.

I just need to figure out how to not die at the hand of my husband.

“What’re you, deaf and dumb, like that neighbor of ours?” Without speaking, I lift a forkful of eggs to my mouth. That deaf and dumb neighbor’s dick was inside me just a few hours ago, is what I tell Frank inside my head.

If I thought Frank’s open palm slicing across my cheek was awful, this is worse. Frank’s ‘love’ for me is worse than anything I can imagine. I’d begged and pleaded for ten years for him to love me. Yet now, it feels vile.

And it will feel that way with every person you meet after

But the thing I’m most terrified of is how much I might love him if I let myself.

That thing about couples who fight just for the make-up afterward? It’s true for abused spouses too. Before Eli, I saw the fights with Frank as a way for him to prove he cared about me and felt remorseful. That his efforts in making it up to me were his way of showing his care or regret for what he’d done. I held onto the hope that his moments of kindness would turn into something more, and the abuse would stop. It’s possible for someone to break you, destroy your spirit, and still offer you enough kindness to keep you in a constant state of confusion and hope. This has been my life for nearly ten years.

If I can remember that this person I’ve become isn’t really me, but rather someone I had to create to survive, I’ll be okay. I’ll be fine as long as I remember there is a world out there—a

Leaving your abusive spouse doesn’t make you immune to feeling sadness for him, too.

How many times can an already dying warrior get up and fight before his body abandons him, leaving him lost for the strength to even breathe?

And then I realized there was nothing extraordinary about Frank at all. Without my desperate need to be loved by him, he is nothing but a monster.

He kept me away from my friends and people I cared about, and I didn’t mind at first because it meant he wanted me all to himself and that’s all I ever wanted too, to be wanted. It’s

I’d fought a war I hadn’t even known I’d been in. I fought my enemy while I fed him every ounce of myself, and he ate and became so strong with my kindness, my compassion, my endless supply of second chances. He almost destroyed me with everything good about me. But I’m still here. Almost broken, but not quite. Almost driven mad, but not quite. Almost dead, but not quite.

I’m taken by surprise at how this kind of possessiveness doesn’t feel the same as with Frank. With Eli, I’m his, but I’m still me. With Frank, there was no space for me.

Sometimes, the guilt over what Frank would be eating, how he’d be coping, overwhelms me. But I try to remember all the reasons I had to leave. And not only that, but the way I had to leave. Sometimes, I feel like I let him down. Like I abandoned him. But I know now it’s my loyalty talking. My empathetic nature. It has nothing to do with Frank, except the part where he exploited that part of me to control me. I see the difference now.

Honor your feelings. They deserve to be acknowledged. And then find words to describe them.

I suffered narcissistic abuse at Frank’s hand. He doesn’t love me. He loves the control he used to have over me. He misses the control, not me. His abusive nature will do and say anything to get me back so he can get that control back. His primary goal is to control me. Nothing more.

No contact. Mrs. Dalton, and my therapist, too, had said no contact is how you deal with this type of abuser after leaving them.

I swear i need these reminders even years later

I’ll love him until his last breath and even after that, I’ll love him. If there is an afterlife, I’ll search for him there, and when I find him, I’ll never let him go. Then I’ll collude with death to let me have him forever.

She also said I must allow myself to grieve for the person I was when I was with Frank because leaving that version of me behind will feel like I’ve lost someone close to me. That the old me deserves as much grieving as if someone had actually died.

We are sound and silence, and when we are together like this, those two things are the same.

If you've suffered abuse of any kind, know that it's not you. It was never you. May you find the child in you and love yourself back to the raging inferno you were always meant to be.