Because of Victor.
In the end, I gave the nameless guard my list. And when he came back a few hours later with the groceries, he delivered them all the way to the kitchen. Not to be gentlemanly as it turned out.
“Where’s the Riesling from that boutique on Pitman?” I demanded, going through all the bags.
“No more wine,” the nameless guard answered. There came a clinking sound. And I looked up to see him stuffing bottles of alcohol from the wine fridge into a huge IKEA bag. “Boss’s orders.”
Oh, fuck this bitter bitch.
I wasn’t even done cursing when my old Sidekick iD, which I always left charging on the kitchen counter, suddenly erupted with buzz after buzz.
I picked up the mobile device and found a wall of emails and text messages on its front screen.
My heart dropped to my feet when I started reading them.
“You’re not going to med school? You’ve been lying to us all summer? What the hell, sis?” That one was from Byron.
“How could you do this to us? After all the sacrifices we made for you!” That one was from my mother.
“I’m proud of you for going on your own path. That’s so brave. I just wish you had called to tell me. That email was a little cold.” And that one was from Lena.
With a rock in my stomach, I checked my Yahoo account. Sure enough, there was another terse message, just like the one I’d supposedly sent to Dr. Olivia Glendaver last year around this same time.
Hello, I’m writing to inform you that I’ve been lying to you for over a year. I did not do the internship in New York, and I’m not currently enrolled in medical school. I’m on a new path now. – Dawn Kingston.
I read and reread the email. I don’t know who I was angrier at—Victor for sending it or my family and friends for actually believing that I would break the news to them this callously.
But I guess that was what happened when you went out of your way to avoid or just plain old ghost everyone you loved for an entire year. They forgot who you really were. And when they finally did receive a message from you, it was easy for them to believe that one terse email explained your radio silence and strange behavior.
A text from Lena came through as I was trying to decide how to reply, what to say, how to explain myself.
“I’m sorry about that last message,” it read. “I can see how it would sound like I was attacking you. I’m not. I just miss you. And I have some news. I’m pregnant. Please call. I’d really, really like to talk to you, and I think we could both use a best friend right now.”
Wait, Lena was pregnant? What the hell?
I immediately started to text her back, but then I thought of Victor. Victor had already threatened her once. And he seemed to know every single thing about my relationship with her. Down to the last time we talked.
I lowered my old Sidekick, switched it off, and then dropped it into the kitchen’s junk drawer. And when I closed the drawer, I knew I’d never power it up again.
I’d been trying to keep my head up, to reframe my narrative and all that other bull they’d taught me in the “up with women” curriculum at Mount Holyoke. But the truth was, I wasn’t independent. I wasn’t even my own woman now. And I definitely wasn’t living my best life despite everything.
I’d agreed to marry Victor. He owned me. And this had proven he could do with me as he pleased. Do anything to me that he pleased.
A new despondency stole over me. And instead of calling Lena, I went to my bedroom and cried out all the emotions I would usually smother with wine.
The crying went on for a while. Until I got so hungry, I had to go downstairs to get something to eat.
I didn’t feel like making anything from scratch today, so I found a frozen pizza I’d bought ages ago and tossed it in the oven.
But why? I wondered. Why bother to eat at all?
Everything felt so dark and hopeless. It didn’t matter how much sugar I put into the lemonade I’d made out of this ten-year sentence. My life tasted bitter. I had no future, no hopes or dreams, no way to tell my family the truth without endangering them. This wasn’t all right. It would never be all right.
Just when I thought I was all wrung out, I erupted into another crying fit while waiting for my pizza to finish heating up. Seriously, what did I even do before I started drinking to deal with all the stuff life threw at me?
The answer to that question made me pause, an old but no longer familiar urge coming over me.
Remember? A tiny voice from long ago asked me.
Yes, yes, I did. I hiccupped to a stop, an image of me as a teenager before I was allowed to drink floating into my head. There’d been that dinner when Mom had decided to try a new tactic of limiting me, but not my father or brother, to one serving at each meal. I’d slammed into my room, tears of shame and frustration rolling down my face. Then I….
The memory made me wipe away my tears and go up the stairs to the first bedroom on the right. This was the one I only used for storage since I never had guests. I rooted around the dorm room boxes that I still hadn’t gotten around to unpacking for some reason. Maybe I’d been in denial. I’d clung to the idea that this nightmare would be over sooner than later. But Victor had disabused me of that notion last night.
I found what I was looking for in the last box I searched. A sketchbook that I’d bought for an art class back at Mount Holyoke. It had been the final semester of my senior year, and I’d already sent off all of my internship and med school applications. I was locked into a career in medicine, so I’d figured it would be okay for me to take an art class. Just one.
But I’d ended up dropping out the day before the class was due to start. I’d told myself it was because I didn’t need the credit and could use the extra time to chill and catch up on all the shows I hadn’t gotten around to watching during the four years I’d been studying like a maniac. But really, it had been because I was afraid.
I hadn’t drawn in years. And the last time I let myself have art, I’d fallen for Victor and almost ended up at RhIDS. I’d thought avoiding the class would keep something like that from happening again. Would keep me on the right path. I hadn’t wanted to mess up the unexpected course correction I’d received from my father.
But the truth was, Victor was always going to destroy me. He’d just been lying in wait while I was at college.
Now here I was in this huge house, my planned life in ruins. In a prison of Victor’s making, feeling utterly tragic. And that had only been our first anniversary. I still had nine more to go.
So, no more running away from art.
I needed it, I decided. Then I took the sketchbook back down to the kitchen counter.
Art might be the one thing that would keep me sane for the next nine years. That was what I told myself as I put my pencil on a sketchbook for the first time in five years.
But it felt like a long shot.
12
VICTOR
Dawn had stopped answering her old phone. Victor knew this because, for two months following their anniversary, he read all of the increasingly frustrated messages that came in from her friends and family in reply to the email she’d supposedly sent. He’d even listened to the voicemails.
The one from Dawn’s father especially thrilled Victor. The undercover agent seemed to sense that there was something wrong, but he couldn’t confirm it. He took time away from his undercover assignment to call her.