“Just said that you were cold to her, that you wouldn’t even talk to her after what’d happened between you guys.”

He looks down, like he feels bad. “I guess I didn’t handle that very well. I was afraid she’d say something to Vanessa, and at that point, I was still hoping maybe we’d stay together.” Then he shakes his head roughly as if to clear it. “You should get some rest. You must be exhausted.”

It was so strange seeing Christian like this. Knocking on my door, asking how I was. Trying to make me dinner, criticizing Mom. Telling me the truth, admitting he was fallible.

“Have a safe flight,” I tell him when we’re upstairs. We’ve talked more in the last half hour than we have in the last five years. There’s still a distance between us, but for the first time I can remember, I’m not sure if it’ll always be there or if we can close it someday, together.

TUESDAY // AUGUST 29 // DAY 354

60.

Without my phone and laptop, I’m completely isolated. Mom’s forcing me to take the rest of the week off, and I have the whole house to myself for the better part of each day. I don’t think she knows what to do with me. No one does, me included. I can’t imagine going back to school now without Jack, without Elise.

Every day I half expect Elise to show up, and I don’t know what I’d say to her. I don’t know how I’d even feel about seeing her again.

For some inexplicable reason, I rewatch the Kill Bill movies by myself even though I’ve seen them a million times with Elise already. I have no idea what I’m looking for, but I can’t shake the feeling that I might find it in the Bride’s story.

Five hours later, I’m a sobbing mess on the couch. It’s been there the whole time, staring at me in the face, but I didn’t want to see it.

On the surface, the movies are about revenge. It’s even in the opening epigraph—revenge is a dish best served cold. But it’s not a story about revenge. It’s a story about love.

And abuse.

Every act of love is corrupted with it. And it’s not just the relationship between Bill and the Bride, Beatrix, whose real name is only revealed near the end. Even when Beatrix goes to train under Pai Mei, his respect is only earned through her ability to withstand his abuse.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

We have been sold a lie. Our parents thought nothing of hurting us in the name of love. What a thing, to learn as a child, that pain is love. That love is bruises on our bodies and scars in our minds.

Elise’s father told her it hurt him more than it hurt her when he hit her, that he hit her only because he loved her. Tell your daughter enough times and maybe she’ll believe it—believe it so deep down in her soul that she thinks it’s only love if it hurts.