“I hope so, Scott.”

33

NATALIE

The first time Scott hit me, the emotion I felt most of all was surprise. I barely felt the pain: the contact of his fist against my cheekbone. I heard it, the flesh-on-flesh collision, but the sensation seemed distant. As I fell to the floor of our living room – narrowly missing the edge of the coffee table – I remember thinking, He didn’t just hit me. He wouldn’t go that far.

Apart from sometimes gripping onto my arm, he’d never been physically violent before. We’d been arguing about his work party.

Apparently I was flirting with one of his colleagues, which was laughable. The colleague was a man, twenty years older than me. He was the English teacher and we’d been talking about books, that’s all, but Scott saw me from across the room and gave me this dark look. I knew something bad would happen when we got home, but I hadn’t expected this.

He came at me from behind, bringing his hand around in a wide arc, so I only saw the punch at the last second.

Once I was down, he loomed over me, spittle coating his lips, his eyes glassy from all the drinks he’d greedily gulped that night. “Teach you to be a slut, won’t it?”

“I didn’t do anything.” My mouth throbbed as I spoke, my words coming out jumbled. “We were talking about Tess of the d’Urbervilles. I think you’ve really hurt me.”

I stood slowly, but apparently I was supposed to remain on the floor. Scott leapt at me and–

Well, he did very bad things. He went at me for far too long. He used his feet and his fists and, when I was a mangled mess on the floor, he used his final weapon. He used it roughly and it hurt and I bled and there was so much agony, and then I was someplace else; I was at the hangman’s broken tree, and her hand was in mine, her soft and welcoming hand.

My love, my only true love, she was smiling radiantly into my eyes. Her hands slipped around my hips and she pulled me into a kiss. As my husband committed his sins – as Father would put it – I disappeared into the fantasy.

I thought about lying in the summer grass, braiding her hair as she sent soft song notes fluttering through the air. I imagined the feel of her body against mine, the security of her arms around me, the feeling of melting together: the certainty nothing could ever hurt us.

“Moan, Nat. Moan. Now.”

His voice punctured the fog, and my mouth did what he wanted. But then I retreated again. We were walking beneath the shadow of the hangman’s broken tree, the sturdy trunk leaning against the railing. I thought about her face as we carved our names into the stone wall, the glee making her lips twitch.

On and on, he kept going, and there were noises, wet and sickening. I pushed them all away.