The Seams Have Splintered, Too.

Episode 7.

[TW: subtle depictions of SA, DA/DV]

Part 1.

The home had a beautiful balcony. She’d liked it so much at the open house she’d spent several hours there, thinking alone while he finished his deal with the neighbor. When he’d found her still sitting there after, he’d laughed – wild and hearty, that same thrilling way that had stirred her the first time they’d met.

“You want the moon, Mary?” he’d joked, jawline rough as he kissed her bare shoulder. “Let me buy it for you.”

She had only come in for the coffee, the free glance inside another “what if” she could never afford.

But he could, apparently. So he’d afforded it.

For you, he said. Anything for you.

They moved in on a Saturday morning. It was summer, August in maturity – the leaves flush and open, their little stems woven so dense through the trees nearly nothing was seen beyond the brush of the deep backyard.

“Our own little world,” he mused, pressing a smile to her ear. “How’s that for a view from a moon?”

They made love there that night on the balcony, the gentle breeze of the twilight like a balm to her muscles and bones. As he slept with an arm wrapped around her, she stared up at the bright stars and shivered, wondering if her heart could possibly fill any fuller, wondering if it would burst when it did.

Summer sped by in a tangle of nights spent like this. He brought coffee each morning to wake her, and she thanked him – fried eggs and orange juice and bacon and a quick little kiss as he hurried to the office.

She, in turn, worked her shifts at a nearby university café. It was not the career path she’d intended for her college degree, but, for now, it was comfortable. Her colleagues were kind to her, the students well-mannered. And the professors and parents, at least, had the means to tip well.

He came in to surprise her one evening, arms full of flowers, rain in his hair. She took her break early to sit and arrange them at a table with him, taste the coffee on his lips before she had to finish up for the day. He waited for her there with the flowers, his presence a warmth in her chest until she turned to make eyes at him – silly, romantic whim – and was met, for the first time, with a glare.

“Those men…” he said later, “the way they look at you. Behind your back. Babe, I swear I could kill them.” They had settled on the balcony’s hot tiles, his fingers shifting loose strands of her hair. “You’re precious, you know that? Deserve dignity. I don’t like how they treat you in there.”

She thought what he said meant he cared too much, more than anyone in her life ever cared – her image reflected in his eye bore a value she never could find in a mirror.

She quit out of gratitude. That he had warned her, perhaps. That he dared to suggest she was better than the work she had settled for. And leaving was freeing, she thought. But the freedom grew stifling so quick in its lack of objective. She had nothing to do, and no money. Though she sent applications by the dozen, no business responded.

“Good things just take time,” he said.

After weeks of more wordless white noise, though, he called someone up for her – a friend of his, physician. He had an opening at his clinic downtown. Though it was hectic full-time, in reception, she still gladly accepted: the job paid quite well.

Not her most ideal choice of position, but money was money, and the plan was for graduate school now – she aimed to get on track for teaching, as a Doctor of Literature one day. She’d hoped to find work that saved room for this passion in the process, but her budget was desperate. She had loans upon loans left to pay.

And while he bought her so many things lately, she wanted to earn this one. All on her own.

So in lack of familiar job options, reception it was.

***

By Autumn she was finding her place there. The learning curve, at first, had been steep, but she managed to climb it – her mind, once consumed by books, authors, was now tracking prescriptions and patients and calls in her sleep.

And he was so proud of her, flashing great beaming smiles when he came home each night to eat dinner.

“Look at you, worker bee.”

They sipped celebratory wine on the balcony, huddled close as the crisp autumn breeze stiffened leaves down below. When the sun slipped behind the horizon his thumb traced her lips tenderly.

“I love you, you know.”

The physician had noticed her, too, though. Every day when she cleaned after close he’d make time to come chat with her, one elbow propped on her counter, while he peered with a look over his nose like a secret was spoken.

He asked her to come early one day.

Her heart fluttered at the prospect of a raise, but she celebrated quietly, allowing herself only a half hour to glance at university pages online before bed.

She arrived before he did; filled the time trashing old, unread spam in his emails like he’d asked her to do as of late. Around thirty fake promo deals in, a hand fell on her shoulder. She swiveled in an attempt to remove it, but it fell back soon after and squeezed.

“I have a predicament,” said the doctor through a grin. “My wife’s gone away on a conference and I’ve a charity auction this evening at noon. Would you like to come with?”

She didn’t want to make a mountain of a mole hill. Not if doing so could lose her this job.

But as the bidding began hours later his hand fell upon her again. This time, her knee.

Once the bourbon arrived it had migrated its way up her thigh…

***

“You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

She didn’t know how to tell him, so she didn’t. Tried to hide how it ate her away going back into work anymore. She left early these days, knowing too much delay could land her in that clinic alone with him.

“You’re not telling me something.”

But what was she supposed to say? It was his friend now touching her – hands on her lower back, hands on her abdomen, hands on her neck, on her bra-line, on her ribcage, on her elbow, on her face…

She stopped coming back in one day. A coward’s escape, but an end. A reason for dismissal that made sense, or was marginally safer, she thought, for the both of them.

She didn’t expect to be betrayed.

“You let him come onto you?! You were complicit?!”

Of course, he had guessed without saying that something was happening each day at the clinic. He had called up the doctor to confirm his suspicions, enraged.

“You two went on a date he said?!”

She fumbled to defend this, despite knowing full well it was the doctor, not her, telling lies to him.

“He said you quit weeks ago! So where have you been going?! Off sleeping around with more men?!”

The accusation hurt miserably. She’d been feigning employment. For days, not for weeks like he'd said. Sitting alone in cafés gaining courage to tell him. But the courage never came.

“That’s the thanks that I get from you, huh?! After all that I’ve given to you?!”

The reflection she saw in his eyes shone back monstrous and ugly now, so undeserving. Twice-fold hours later at the mirror as she fingered the marks in her skin, not quite believing they were there at all, that they’d come to be there because of him.

She crept out to the balcony before sunrise, shuddered against the sharp cold, and sat crying the dawn away. She awoke toward lunchtime when a tiny, wet nose poked her face.

“He’s so sorry,” the note strung to her collar read, “if you love him still, give me a name.”

She had instinct, at first, to rip up the note. But those round button eyes made a case.

She would keep this one safe if it killed her.

“I'll name you Kombucha,” she said.