We both devour everything on our plates. I hadn’t really even realized how hungry I was until the food was right in front of me. Everything Nico has cooked me has been better than a restaurant would serve. I’m really not quite sure if my opinion is just that biased about anything related to Nico Hunter, or if he’s that great of a cook. But I don’t really care. I’d take the sight of him cooking with no shirt on in my kitchen every day, even if the food tasted putrid.

I tell Nico to relax and begin to clear our plates and load the dishwasher, but he helps me anyway. “You cooked, you don’t have to help me clean up.” I smile at him. “Besides, it’s the only thing I’m good at in the kitchen.”

Nico comes behind me as I load our plates into the dishwasher and bends down to kiss the back of my neck softly. “But the sooner we get cleaned up.” His words trail off as he runs kisses down my neck and over to my left shoulder. I let my eyes drift closed and enjoy the moment. When he finally continues his thought his voice is lower and velvety. “The sooner we can get our talk over with and get back into bed.”

My eyes flash back open and reality comes crashing in as my stomach drops. There have been days, even months, filled with regret over the sins of my past, but I’ve never hated the man that ruined my life more than I do right at this moment. I don’t blame myself anymore. I blame him. Blame him for everything that happened before and the years he took from me as I struggled to get my life back after. But I’ve never hated him more than I hate him right now, because he is about to take yet another part of my life away. The way that Nico looks at me.

I can’t stall any longer. I think of what my therapist would tell me to do if she was sitting right next to me, watching me act like a coward. She’d say rip the Band-Aid off. Allow the wound to breathe...to heal itself. The worst part is the anticipation of the tear, not the tear itself.

So I take a deep breath and quietly lead Nico to the couch. He sits and pulls me on top of him, one leg on each side of his thighs, straddling him on his lap. I can’t have this conversation while I’m this close. I need distance. I begin to lift onto one leg, attempting to reposition myself off of him, but Nico firms his grip on my hips.

I look up at him confused. “I…I’m just moving…”

“I know what you’re doing.”

My face must show my confusion, because Nico doesn’t wait for me to respond.

“I want to talk right here.”

“Why?” Truly, I’m confused by his action…refusing to allow me to put space between us.

“Because it’s harder for you to avoid me when I’m right in your face.”

And I thought I was doing such a good job of ducking our conversation.

I shut my eyes and take a long deep breath in. When I open them, Nico’s watching me intently and it makes it that much harder. But I need to do it. I rip the Band-Aid off and show him my wounds. The horrific wounds I’ve been carrying around, alone, for more than half of my life.

“My father was abusive.” My words are low, but I’m steady. I can do this. I look down at Nico’s bare chest as I speak and find a tiny dot of a freckle just to the right of his belly button. It’s so small I hadn’t noticed it before. But now it’s all I can focus on. My eyes are glued to it. Nico’s hands on my hips grow tighter. I’m not sure if he thinks I’m going to bolt or if he unconsciously does it in response to the start of my story, but either way somehow it helps me. Just knowing he is holding me tight gives me the strength to continue.

“Not me. Just my mother. It went on for years. Sometimes we would leave, but he would find us and everything would be okay for a little while. But then it would start again.” I rub my pointer finger over the little freckle, the slow back and forth motion soothes me. When I was a kid and my father would start in on my mother, I would sit on my bed and rock. Rock back and forth. Somehow it calmed me.

Nico doesn’t say anything, he just keeps his strong hold on me and sits quietly. Waiting and listening. “It got bad. One night he beat her so bad that she didn’t get out of bed for more than three weeks. Her nose was broken and both eyes were so swollen shut that she would flinch when I would come into her bedroom, because she couldn’t be sure if it was me or if it was him.” My voice cracks, but I don’t cry. I just wish I could tell the story without reliving the picture in my head. The few times I’ve told the story out loud, it’s always the same. I’m back there and I’m narrating what I see in my head, giving the play-by-play, as if the little girl isn’t even me.

“On the twenty-third day, she got out of bed. The bruises were starting to heal and her face was mostly grey and yellow. The swelling had gone down too. She stood in the kitchen and made me a can of soup. It was Campbell’s. Chicken and Rice. She put it in the brown and white striped croc bowl that I loved to eat out of. I remember thinking it was the best thing I ever ate.”

I quiet for a minute as I watch my mother and I sit at the table and eat soup together. It plays out in my head as if it was really right in front of me. She smiled at me and I smiled back. It didn’t make things all better, but I remember thinking we were going to be okay. I had a strange feeling of relief as we sat there and ate in silence. For three weeks I must have been walking around with my shoulders feeling tense, but I didn’t realize it until I felt them ease as we finished our soup.

My shoulders relax a little. Then I take a deep breath, knowing what would come next. “Then he came home. We were still sitting at the table, our soup bowls still in front of us when he stumbled in. Drunk. He was always drunk. And angry.”

I close my eyes and fight back my tears. I know what comes next, I’ve seen it in my head a thousand times, but each time it’s as hard to watch as the first. It never gets any easier. I’m not sure how long I sit there in silence, willing my tears away. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped speaking and gone somewhere else until I hear Nico’s voice.

“You don’t have to, Elle. Just let me hold you and forget the past.” His voice is gentle and kind and caring and it takes every ounce of strength in my body not to give in and just let him hold me. Take care of me and make it all go away. But I can’t. I need to rip the Band-Aid off.

My mind back in the present, I find the freckle and reclaim it as my focus, continuing with what I have to say. What I need to say. “He almost killed her that night. He lifted her by her throat and crushed her windpipe. She couldn’t breathe. But that wasn’t good enough. He wouldn’t stop.” The tears start to flow from my eyes, but I won’t let them keep me from what I need to do. “He wouldn’t stop. He just hit her over and over again. And she made this noise. This horrible noise because she couldn’t breathe. She was gasping for air, fighting with what little she had left.” The tears turn into sobs and I feel my body trembling.