Breaking the Cycle (17 page)

Two weeks later, he threw—Umm, maybe threw is the wrong word to use. It sounds a bit harsh. Let’s use his words, he accidentally pushed—me down the stairs, causing me to break my arm and ankle. When he drove me to the hospital, I lied about my injuries. I told them I had fallen down the stairs. The doctor looked hard at me, then shot a look over at the nurse, but neither said a word to contradict my story. Nevertheless, I spent eight weeks with both my arm and foot in casts because I didn’t feel like having sex.

Even after that, I hadn’t planned on leaving him. Not yet, anyway. A part of me still wanted to believe that he would change. That we could get through this. If I just didn’t do anything to upset him. Time and time again, I rationalized his anger and resentment. His quick and sudden mood swings had to be because of something I said, or didn’t say. Something I did, or didn’t do. Something I forgot to do. Something I forgot to say. There was never any rhyme or reason for his rage. It would come in cycles.

We could go for weeks, even months, without any arguments. He’d be the most loving and attentive man I could ever ask for. Then, out of nowhere, something real or imagined would trigger his rage, causing the gates of hell to open and ending up with me being thrown around, kicked around, and beat around until he tired out. It was a ritual that I had numbed myself to. If I could just weather the storm, I kept telling myself, there’d be brighter days. But each time he slapped me, punched me, or stomped on me, he’d rip away another strand of my being.

I had had enough of his abuse. I was tired of being his punching bag. So, I gradually withdrew from him emotionally and mentally. I became detached. But it only heightened his paranoia, and fueled his insecurities. He must have known something was going through my mind because he had taken all of my clothes—every stitch I owned, including shoes and underwear—and either ripped them up or cut them up before throwing them in the trash. When I confronted him, he punched me in the mouth, splitting my lip. Blood spurted out.

“Owww!” I cried out, grabbing my mouth with my hand. “Why do you have to always put your hands on me? Why?”

He hit me again. I screamed. He hit me again, causing my head to hit the wall. He ripped my clothes off of me, then dragged me down the stairs by the back of my hair.

“You wanna leave. Then take your bare ass on,” he said, opening up the front door. I screamed in agony. He kicked me in my back, then continued punching me until I lost the will to fight back. He was going to kill me. And I had no clue why. He picked me up and tossed me outside in the snow, butt-naked. As if that wasn’t enough, he spit on me. “Fucking bitch.” He walked back inside, slamming the door and locking it, leaving me out in ten below zero weather to freeze to death. Humiliated.

I remember lying in that snow, promising myself he’d never put his hands on me again. I half-crawled and half-dragged myself across the ice and snow to the next-door neighbors’ and banged on the bottom of their door, pleading for someone to help me.

Finally, the door opened and I passed out. When I came to, I was in the hospital suffering from a concussion, two broken ribs, and hypothermia. The doctors probed me. The social workers interviewed me. The police interrogated me. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to me. But I refused to give them any information. You see, New Jersey has very strict domestic violence laws. If there are any signs of physical injury, the police must arrest the abuser. Even without witnesses, or injury, the abuser can still be arrested. I didn’t want to see Ty in trouble. I just wanted the fighting to stop. Was there anything wrong with that?

Well, Portia, my sister, thought so. She was livid. “What the hell you mean, you don’t want to get him in trouble? Fuck him. He could have killed you.”

“But he didn’t,” I rebutted, desperately trying to reason with her. “I made him angry and things just got a little out of hand.”

“A little out of hand,” she repeated, clearly disgusted. “He beat you, stomped on you, ripped your clothes off, then threw you outside in the fucking snow. I’d say that’s a whole lotta ‘out of hand’ as you say. You have nothing to do with how he acted. His anger is his shit. Not yours. Angry or not, he had no fucking business putting his damn hands on you. If you won’t do something about it, I will.”

“Portia, please,” I said, crying. “I don’t want to rehash this. I don’t want the police involved. I just want to go on with my life and forget it happened.” A waterfall of tears fell from my puffy eyes.

She sat on the edge of the hospital bed, wrapping her arms around me. “I know, Sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay.” I started bawling. “That’s right, let it out. I know it hurts. If you don’t want to sign complaints right now, it’s okay. You just get some rest, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow.”

I nodded, my head in her chest. My spirit was crushed. My heart ached. How could he do this to me? Why? What did I ever do to deserve this? I must have cried for another half-hour or so before Portia left me. She didn’t want to leave me alone, but I promised her I’d go back to her place once I was discharged. Sadly, I didn’t. Ty had waited until she was gone, then came into my room. He broke down in tears, begging me not to leave him. Pleading with me to give him another chance. Asking for my forgiveness. My heart went out to him. For the two years we had been together, he had never cried before. Had never shown any emotion, other than anger. His tears seemed genuine. His promises seemed sincere. I loved him.

Unfortunately, my decision to stay with him put a wedge between my sister and me. She thought I was a “damn fool” but it didn’t matter. I was a grown woman, and I was going to do whatever I wanted, with whomever I wanted. Regardless. No matter what she said, I was going home to my man. She hugged me, and handed me a card. I glanced at it before stuffing it into my purse. It read: 1-800-799-SAFE. It was the number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a hotline center that provides victims of abuse, information about resources available to them to ensure their safety. I hugged her again, hoping I would never need to dial the number.

The beatings stopped. But the verbal and emotional abuse continued. His behavior and moods were unpredictable. One minute he was ranting and raving about how much he hated me. How sick I made him. The next minute, he couldn’t live without me. He’d smother me with affection. I thought I could handle it. But his words would cut into me worse than his fists ever did. Those wounds were always much deeper. I was sick of riding this emotional rollercoaster with him. I was ready to get off. I had had enough.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the night he came home in one of his oversized toddler tantrums, cursing and screaming because I hadn’t gotten around to cooking dinner.

“Ty,” I said, heaving a sigh, “I’m not feeling well. I’ve been throwing up all day.”

“And?” he asked. I leaned over the kitchen sink, holding my head. “What does that have to do with your lazy ass not having dinner cooked?”

“I’m tired,” I explained.

“And I should fuck you up,” he snapped.

Right at that moment, my sister’s last phone conversation played in my head. “Girl, if you don’t leave his ass, he’s gonna end up killing you.” I tried to brush off her remark, but something I had read in a pamphlet she had given me a few months back flashed at me: Women who leave abusers are at seventy-five percent greater risk of being killed than those who stay. I shuddered. If this were true, then it was safer for me to stay.

“It’s not that bad,” I said, trying to minimize, once again, his aggression. “He’s just under a lot of stress at work. No relationship is perfect.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she snapped. “When are you gonna stop making damn excuses for his sorry ass?”

“Well, at least he’s not running around cheating on me like Lester,” I retorted, feeling like a fool for letting the words fall from my lips. I could visualize her rolling her eyes up in her head.

“Ugh! What’s worse, a man who cheats on you or one who beats on you?”

Sadly, I didn’t have the answer.

“Can we not get into this right now?” I said, getting frustrated. Nothing I said would make sense to her. She’d just never understand. “He loves me.”

“Persia, that man doesn’t know the first thing about loving you. The only thing he loves is controlling you. You need to wake up.”

“No, Portia,” I said, getting frustrated, “I just need you to be there for me.”

She sighed. “I am. But I’m also worried about you. Persia, you need help. I only hope you realize it before it’s too late.”

A part of me knew what she was saying was true. I was aware of the fact that domestic violence was the leading cause of injury and death for women in the U.S. But at the time, I couldn’t let go. I wasn’t ready.

My reverie was broken by the slamming of his fist into the back of my head. He yanked me around. “You hear me talking to you?”

“Oww, Ty,” I said, trying to squirm my way out of his grasp. “You’re hurting me.”

He raised his hand over his head, then stopped in midair. “I should break your damn face.”

“Please, Ty,” I whined, raising my arm to shield myself from any potential blows. “I would have had dinner cooked for you, but I’ve been in bed all day. I’ll cook something now. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

He sucked his teeth. “I don’t want you cooking shit until you go wash your stinking ass. You look a mess.” He let go of me, walking into the living room. He plunked himself down on the sofa, fuming. “Ugly ass bitch can’t even have my damn dinner cooked. What the fuck.”

I cringed. Ugly ass bitch, I repeated the words in my head. It wasn’t so much what he said that hurt because he had hurled hurtful names at me in the past out of anger. It was the contempt in his tone that stabbed me, piercing open new wounds and reopening old ones. I was sick as a damn dog. And he could care less. My sister’s voice followed me, trampling through my thoughts as I dragged myself up the stairs with tears swelling in my eyes. Persia, when are you gonna wake the hell up? You deserve better. Look what he’s doing to you. I went into the bathroom, flipped the toilet lid up and hugged the bowl, throwing my guts up. “Oh, God, please don’t tell me I’m pregnant,” I mumbled before quickly dismissing the thought. We always used condoms. It had to be a stomach virus. I got into the shower, wondering how one goes from loving everything about you to saying hateful things about you. It just didn’t make any sense to me. I was leaving him. I had to. For my own sanity, I had to find the strength to walk out that door and never look back.

For months, the idea of leaving him had surfaced and resurfaced, twisting its way through my subconscious. But I was afraid. So, I’d shake it off, pushing it far back in the corners of my mind. Out of fear. You see, I had tried to leave him once before, about a year ago. But he followed me everywhere I went, badgered and harassed me. Came to my job, hid in bushes, even broke into my apartment. He did everything he could to make my life miserable. Finally, I ended up giving in. I didn’t want to see him in jail. And I was afraid he’d carry out his threats, particularly the one to hurt my sister and her children. I believed him. Portia was fourteen years older than me with two daughters, ages twelve and ten. Since both our parents were deceased, Portia and I were all each other had in terms of family. And he knew this. He knew how close we were. And how I’d do anything to protect them, even if it meant sacrificing my own life. He knew I could never live with myself if something happened to her or my nieces. So I went back to him. Hoping. Praying. Willing myself to believe that he’d never have another reason to blacken my eyes or bust my lip again.

To keep peace with him, I made myself crazy trying to figure out what would or wouldn’t set him off. If I wore makeup, he’d think I was out hoeing around. If I didn’t wear any, he’d say I looked like shit. If I cooked something he didn’t like, he’d dump it in the sink or in the middle of the floor. If I asked him what he wanted me to cook, he’d tell me to get a brain. I was damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t. There was just no winning with him. Something had to give.

I stood in the middle of the shower that night and sobbed uncontrollably. My life had spun out of control. I didn’t know why I had let it happen. I didn’t know how I was going to undo what had already been done. But the one thing I knew, I wanted my freedom. However, every time I thought about my life without him, I’d get a sharp, agonizing pain in my heart. It hurt more than the beatings. I loved him more than I loved life.

Then I got a phone call that would change the course of my life. My sister was moving to Atlanta in three weeks. Her job had relocated and she was offered a management position in Marketing and Advertisement with Coca-Cola. Hearing that was like music to my ears; a ton of bricks had just been lifted off my shoulders. She and her children would be far away from Jersey and out of harm’s way. Ty would never be able to threaten their lives again, if and when I decided to leave him. But right at that moment, things were going well with us. I was staying. And yes, I was confused.

“And I want you to come with us,” she added.

I was stunned. “Thanks, Portia,” I said, mentally preparing my list of excuses as to why I wouldn’t be able to relocate. “But Atlanta is just a bit too far south for me. I’m a Jersey girl.” I couldn’t come out and tell her that there was no reason for me to leave right now because Ty hadn’t raised his hands to me or cursed me in weeks. I couldn’t tell her that I was getting married. Not yet.

“Look, before you write the idea off, come out and see for yourself. Stay a few weeks, then decide. If you don’t like it, you can always come back. At least think about it.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“Promise.”

“Yes,” I said, crossing my fingers. “I promise.”

“The change will do us both some good,” she said, smiling through the phone as if I had already agreed to pack up and go along. “You just wait and see.”

I nodded. “Change is always good. I’ll give you a call in a few days.”

“Persia.”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”