I thought people belonged to other people. I had no concept of individuality, or doing things simply for the sake of being happy. I thought a woman’s purpose was to serve her family, and keep her mouth shut.

I always hated the nighttime. The darkness, the uncertainty. It was all too overwhelming. While others slept, I moved around, waiting for day to break so I could see clearly again.

My own patterns were an unfortunate concoction of my parents. I had messily braided care into control. I was a walking, talking contradiction, wanting to be both managed and unmanageable. My father couldn’t accept this polarity, and after I left home, he simply stopped taking my calls.

Chapter 73

“Are you happy?” I asked Jack one night, after dark.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Jack, look at me.” I searched his eyes. “Answer the question. Tell me the truth.”

He hesitated before answering. “No, Grace, I’m not fucking happy. And neither are you.”

I ran my finger along the rim of my wineglass without saying a word.

“Right?” Jack’s head jutted forward, the way it did whenever he thought he was making a clever point. His eyebrows raised, the four wrinkles in his forehead deepened. “Don’t make me the bad guy here. You’re just as unhappy as I am.”

My saliva thickened, as if I had just chugged a glass of milk. I cleared my throat. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I wanted so desperately to communicate my feelings to him, for my tongue to form words that I meant. But in the face of confrontation, I always went mute. The more I wanted to speak, the more silent I became.

“You can’t even say it, can you?” He edged closer.

I averted my eyes, staring at the rim of clot-like residue on the inside of my glass. I began to count backwards from one hundred.

“Why even bring it up if you don’t want to talk?”

Ninety-three.

“Why can’t you ever just fucking answer me?”

Eighty-eight.

“You start this shit, and then you get all silent, and I’m left looking like the asshole yelling at someone who can’t even respond. You act like a victim when you’ve manipulated me into this situation.”

Seventy-six.

“Say something, for fuck sakes.”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “Shut the fuck up. I can’t keep living like this.”

“There she is.” Jack wound his arm back, like he was about to toss a baseball, and released, pointing his index finger in my direction. “Finally.”

“Stop being so condescending, you fucking monster.” I shot up, planting both palms flat on the kitchen table in front of me. “You don’t care about me. You’ve never cared about me. ”

“You know, you’re so preoccupied with the fact that I no longer worship you, it’s driving you insane.” He was beginning to calm, his anger alleviated slightly by the fact that I was now participating. “It’s not even about me. You don’t even want me. You just want someone. Anyone. It wouldn’t matter who the fuck it was. So long as someone paid attention to you twenty-four-fucking-seven.”