But it snapped to the side.
And as I stood there, my hand still raised, staring at him in shock and disgust at myself for what I’d done, his head remained to the side.
Then he moved.
Into me.
Fast.
And while doing it, he caught my raised wrist.
I retreated as Preacher rushed me until I slammed into the wall, though it also could be described as Preacher pushing me back and slamming me into the wall.
He pinned me there with his body and he pinned my hand to the wall with his fingers wrapped bruisingly around my wrist.
But his face was so close, there was nothing in my world but his enraged brown eyes.
“Do not ever touch me like that,” he snarled.
OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod.
What had I done?
I knew.
I never thought in a million years I would need the reminder, much less be right where I was right then—and why—this being how I got that reminder.
Because I knew.
“Prea—”
No more came out because he released my wrist but repeatedly slammed his opened hand into the wall beside my head so hard, I worried his hand would go through it or he’d harm himself.
OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod.
What had I done?
“Do not ever put your hands on me like that,” he rumbled.
“I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry,” I said swiftly, lifting my hands to rest them lightly on his chest. “So, so sorry.”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrists, tore them from him and instantly let them go.
He was no longer touching me at all, but he was still pinning me to the wall with his body.
“You can’t go home, Lyla, you don’t have a fuckin’ home,” he told me.
Okay.
All right.
Handle him.
Shawn told me when the wild came out, I had to learn how to handle him.
And it was me who’d drawn the wild out, and I needed to rein it in.
“Preacher, we both need to calm down.”
“You wanna know why you don’t have a home?” he asked.
“Please, just take a second. Take a breath. Think before you say any more,” I begged.
He did not take my direction.
“Because I paid for the fuckin’ house you live in. I paid for the bed you sleep in. I pay for the clothes you wear that everyone thinks are the shit. I pay for you to get your hair cut and I pay for the gas you put in your car that yeah…I also paid for. Your food. Your shampoo. Your…fuckin’…tampons.”
“Please, please, please, please be quiet,” I whispered.
“I pay for all of it, all you got, Lyla. So, you go home when I say you go home not only because you don’t have two fuckin’ pennies to rub together and you can’t get home without me. But because I bought you, I paid heavy, so I own you.”
I stood there, pressed against the wall, staring up at the love of my life who’d just eviscerated me, and I did not move. I did not speak.
I just hurt.
And the pain was agonizing.
“Now, I’m guessing a blowjob is out of the question,” he noted.
I simply continued to stare up at him.
“And I just had a run, so I need to eat,” he finished.
He then moved away from me and walked back to his jeans, which in the drama, he’d dropped.
He tugged off the towel, dropped it to the floor and yanked the jeans on without underwear. He found a tee and tugged that on. Then he put on a pair of his running shoes.
After that, he started to walk out but stopped and turned back to me.
“And if you ever, fuckin’ ever, Lyla, go to Tom or Jess about me again, we will be so done, you won’t even be a fuckin’ memory.”
Then, after that, without a backward glance, he walked right out.
Lyla:
Outside Preacher saying those things to me, the most humiliating thing I’ve ever experienced in the whole of my life was calling my sister to ask her to buy me a plane ticket and then stealing cash out of the wallet Preacher left behind because I didn’t have any on me.
[Shoulders slide forward]
Strike that, I just didn’t have any.
I didn’t leave him a note.
I didn’t know what to say.
I flew to Indianapolis, and the next day, my aunt was up from Georgia.
She picked me up and she drove me back down south.
My family was having an expensive week, seeing as I’d barely driven away with my aunt when Sonia and Julia were off to the airport to fly to LA to get my stuff.
And I’ll note they got my stuff.
My high school yearbooks and the plastic talcum powder box Mom used to keep her jewelry in, pictures, scrapbooks.
The clothes, the shoes, the handbags, even stuff I came into the relationship with, they left behind.
They boxed it all up, posted it home and got back on a plane.
I was unsurprised that Preacher and the band finished out the tour.
Tommy wouldn’t allow it to happen any other way.
Jesse:
I don’t think I gotta tell you, we were all freaked way the fuck out that Lyla was gone.
The band slid straight into a détente the minute we realized she’d vanished.
And I’ll tell you what, the minute Preach gave the slightest inkling he was open to a reconciliation, we all woulda been there.
The problem with that was, Preacher had no idea we were in a détente.
And if he did, he wouldn’t care.
Because he had other things on his mind, seeing as he was in hell.
Tommy told me later that when whatever went down between Preach and Lyla went down, and Preacher got back to his room, he had no clue she was gone.
She’d left all her stuff.
As in all her stuff.
Even her purse.
He thought she was off somewhere, cooling off after whatever went down.
It was when he grabbed his wallet and saw his money gone that he went to her purse and saw that everything was in it but her wallet.
She’d taken her wallet, but then he noticed her credit cards were on the nightstand with her room key.
That was when shit got real.
I probably should not have told him that Lyla was worried about him.
But I did.
Tommy told me later that he did too.
We both knew Preacher wouldn’t like that she came to us about him, but what the fuck?
I mean seriously.
Everything is disintegrating because one guy’s got something up his ass?
And he’s not talking to anyone about it?
Not even Lyla?
I thought he’d hate the idea that Lyla was worried about him, worried enough to come to us, and he’d do something about it.
I needed him to do something about something.
And I guess [shrugs, mouth going tight] he did.
[Off tape]
The band were all completely unaware of what was happening?
Yes.
Including Mancosa?
[Nods]
Him too.
And I know, that’s a surprise.
The thing was, Lyla’s dad had reared his ugly head again, so with the band acting up, us deciding to go cold turkey after years of self-medication, Preacher being how he was being, Tom had his hands full.
But in the end, it was just that Preach hadn’t ever told anybody.