We stand in the kitchen of our little apartment. Old enough to drink and old enough to act like adults. But sometimes I wonder if the latter is true.
All I hear is sirens. And the sound of my own heartbeat. I don't know how things got to this point. One day I was sitting in a classroom dreaming about a prom that I never even got to go to and suddenly I'm working two jobs just trying to make ends meet.
It had been four years since we graduated. I went to a local community college, and Sam went to the liquor store. Every minute that I wasn't at school, I was working. Struggling to get by. But Sam always said money wasn't important because we had each other.
The first time the sirens blared down our apartment complex and barged into our building was a year after high school. I had gotten home from work an hour earlier and started making dinner. Sam came home a half-hour after me and fell asleep on the couch. When he woke up, and realized that I hadn't recorded the tv show that he forgot to ask me to record, he smashed a plate over my head. I screamed and he screamed and ten minutes later I was sitting on the stairs with a police officer, making up a story about how I acquired the cuts on my forehead.
I had to get two stitches. The first stitches that I ever got. I was such a careful child. I followed all the rules and did everything right. So how did everything go so wrong?
A little less than a year later, we almost lost the apartment. I couldn't keep up with the bills and go to school at the same time. It was either Sam get a job, or I drop out. I didn't have much of a say in the matter. But naturally, I assumed that the conversation was at least up for argument since it was my education and my life that we were gambling with. I remember the exact words he used. "After everything we've been through, you think school is more important than our life together? I love you, how could you do that to us?" I didn't know how to respond. He had completely missed the point. Unlike my arm on the corner of the counter when I continued to argue and he shoved me. I knocked a stack of pots onto the floor and they created a chorus of bangs, harmonized by my screams, as my arm bent in a way that arms were definitely not supposed to bend. As we sat in the waiting room of the ER, we were surrounded by sirens.
My arm took three months to heal. But that's okay because I learned to write with my left hand. I was so proud of myself. I tried to show him once but he threw up on the paper. I learned that while it's pretty hard to clean up vomit and drag him to the bathtub with two arms, it's nearly impossible with one.
A few months later, and it was the summer. It had been so cold for so long that I almost forgot what the sun felt like. Almost like how Sam had been suffocating me for so long, that I almost forgot how to breathe. In July, I decided to go on a day trip to the beach with a friend that I hadn't seen in a while. The second our toes hit the sand, she began stripping down to her bathing suit. She teased me for refusing to take my shirt off at the beach even though I was wearing a bathing suit top underneath. When I wasn't paying attention, she tugged it right up and over my head. She couldn't hide the shock in her voice any more than I could hide the bruises on my body. "Did he do this to you?" She asked, her voice shaking.
All I could say was that I fell. How many more times could I use that excuse before it got old?
A couple of months later I was at work, and Sam was at a drug deal. Like he had done so many times before, but this time was different. There was a cop in the parking lot, and he saw them and pulled a gun on Sam. Sam ran four blocks to the restaurant that I work at. He ran into the break room where I was eating lunch, and hid under the table. "You can't let them get me, baby". He whispered. I sat paralyzed with fear that they would find him and they would take him away from me. He didn't always know how to love, but we were Addy&Sam. He was my world. The sirens blared as the police circled the area. They lasted a half hour before they finally faded into the distance.
Sam decided that was a turning point for himself. He started going to AA groups and took free rehab classes. Things were looking up. I had never been so proud of him. This proved it. This proved that he really loved me. After everything I had been through and everything I had done for him, he was finally going to turn around and be the man I always knew he could be.
He continued on his path of healing for almost a year. He didn't completely stop drinking, but he had it under control for the most part. And he hadn't hit me in a few weeks. I couldn't believe it. It was almost like he was going back to being the Sam that I fell in love with nearly eight years before. Until he came home today after getting the crap beat out of him by some people he used to buy from.
Apparently, someone told them that he was working with the police to identify drug dealers in exchange for impunity for drug charges. None of this was true, but you can never be too careful in this line of business apparently. When he walked in I almost laughed. I'd never seen him as the victim, only the attacker. I loved that for the first time ever, he was bleeding and broken, not me. Is that wrong? I'm not sure. But he noticed my expression, and he was furious. He picked up a kitchen chair and threw it through the window. The glass shattered into a million pieces, and car alarms went off below us. Then he slapped me. I saw stars. "Please don't hurt me". I croaked with a voice as broken as my spirit. "You bitch. You don't love me, you're never happy. Nothing I do is good enough for you." I didn't know how to respond. I just hung my head and cried. This only further angered him. His voice became louder and louder until it blocked out all other sounds. Then he pulled a small knife from his waistband. He holds it out and laughs. Then he takes one step towards me and the door to our apartment it kicked down. Sam is tackled by a police officer, and the knife is tossed from his hand. "Miss, are you okay?" An officer asks me. What an odd thing to ask someone who clearly isn't okay. The officer continues to pry and I tell him everything. He asks if I want to press charges and I begin to give them my usual answer. The police officer says that Sam has so many counts of domestic abuse on his record at this point, that even if I don't press charges, they will. "He wasn't always like this," I tell the officer. "You can't live like this though sweetheart. I've been here five times in the last three years." I look at the ground, tears welling in my eyes. "I know. I recognize you." The officer sighs. "I'm surprised you could even see me through all the black eyes." Then an officer brings Sam out of the apartment in handcuffs. He stuffs him into the car as Sam screams. "Don't let them take me away baby! I love you!" I walk over to him and brush the hair from his tear-streaked cheeks. "This isn't love Sam." I kiss his forehead and turn around. And this time, I don't look back.
