Safe with Me: A Novel

After the door closes behind Hannah, my mother, father, and I stand in silence. I keep my eyes on the floor, knowing if I look up, I’ll give something away. I’m worried he’ll see that Mom and I want to leave him. I’m terrified of what he’ll do.

My mother is the first to speak. “Why don’t you go upstairs, Maddie?” Her voice is surprisingly calm, considering the panic I see skittering across her face. I glance up at her, and she gives me a quick, encouraging nod. “I’ll call you down when dinner’s ready. I think I have what I need to make those sesame rice noodles you like.”

“You haven’t eaten yet?” my dad asks. He looks twitchy, bubbling at the surface like a pot about to boil. “It’s after eight.”

“I’m not really hungry,” I say, hoping to help my mother.

“It’s been a busy afternoon,” she says, stepping over to stand next to my dad. She runs a hand along his forearm with a gentle touch. “Maddie and I went shopping at Bellevue Square after school and lost track of time. We came home to find Hannah waiting for us, which I thought was a little strange since I hadn’t invited her.” She smiles at him, and I can’t believe how easily she came up with this lie, how efficiently she hid how I know she’s really feeling. Maybe I came by my dishonest tendencies more honestly than I thought.

“That’s why you were arguing?” He sounds doubtful, looking back and forth between Mom and me. “There was definitely something going on here, Olivia. Don’t try to tell me there wasn’t.” He sounds exactly like the bully Hannah described him as being only minutes ago. Hannah. The mother of the girl who saved me. I can barely wrap my mind around the idea that this is true.

“No, no. You’re right, honey,” Mom says. “We were arguing about that. I thought it was odd for her to just show up without calling first. Too pushy and overly familiar when we barely know her. She got defensive when I called her on it, and everything went downhill from there. Nothing serious . . . just uncomfortable, you know?”

I hold my breath, watching as she spins this fragile web of lies, wondering if he will fall for it.

“I told you there was something off about her,” Dad says, the puff of his chest relaxing as he speaks. “Didn’t I?”

Mom nods. “You did.” She sidles up against him and puts her arms up around his neck, waiting for him to kiss her. He does, pressing his body hard against hers. I cringe, understanding for the first time, really, how much moments like this must cost her. I’m amazed seeing her manage him, and I understand that we might have to wait to leave—that we need to have a good plan and some money before we walk out the door. But right now, the fact that she told the truth about what he does to her—that she trusted me to be able to handle it—will have to be enough.

My phone suddenly buzzes in my pocket and I grab for it, not wanting to irritate my dad when Mom has just coaxed him back off a dangerous ledge. “I’ll be upstairs,” I say and head to my room without waiting for either of my parents to respond. Once the door is closed behind me, I flip on a light and check the screen to see whom the text is from, smiling when I see Noah’s name and a short message: “Can u talk?”

I shoot a text back: “Yeah, but need to take care of something first. Call you in a bit.” After I press send, I boot up my laptop, ready to do something I should have done a long time ago. If I expect my mom to be honest, I need to expect the same thing of myself.

It only takes a few minutes to log in to Facebook and Zombie Wars and completely erase any evidence of Sierra Stone. I delete her profile on Twitter, too, which I hadn’t used much since the only followers she seemed to get were perverted men who, after seeing her pictures, offered to pay her for sex. I’d block those idiots and more would show up. It strikes me that maybe being the hot girl is overrated. Maybe it’s better to be valued for who I am instead of what I look like.

Next, I wipe my hard drive clean of all of her pictures, then I log in to my email account and write a brief but what I hope is kind message to Dirk:

Hey there,

I know you’re out of town and I feel really bad about doing this through email, especially because you’ve been so patient about meeting me, but I just don’t think I’m ready for a relationship right now. You deserve someone who can be there IRL for you and I’m just not that girl. You’re probably one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever known. Thank you for being my friend.

Maddie

I hesitate, thinking maybe I should tell him the entire truth about who I am, but then I think about how I felt earlier tonight when Hannah handed me that letter and I understood she had been lying to us since the day we met. I felt shocked, stupid, and used, and the truth is I don’t want Dirk to feel that way, too. I thought pretending to be someone I wasn’t was harmless, but I realize now that every little deception took away from my true self—a self that, since the transplant, I’m just starting to sort out. I finally click the send button and then add his email address to my blocked senders list so he can’t contact me. I block his number on my cell phone, too. I feel a little sad as I do this, but also relieved. It’s exhausting, putting so much energy into being an entirely different person than who you actually are. Now I can work at becoming the girl I want to be.

I’m hoping a big part of that girl will be someone who helps her mother get away from a dangerous marriage, so I open up a search engine on my laptop and type in the words “how to leave an abusive relationship.” More than 3 million links are returned in under a second, and in some small way that comforts me, knowing I’m not the first person to sit in front of the computer and look up this particular subject.

The first thing I learn is that there is a National Domestic Violence Hotline, so I quickly look up that number and program it into my phone, just in case my mom and I need to call. I review the list of things a person is supposed to do in order to prepare to leave a violent relationship and immediately become overwhelmed. We can’t just walk out the door like I’d hoped we could barely an hour ago. We’ll have to gather birth certificates, medical records, and money; we’ll need to create an exit plan and maybe call the police to escort us to safety. And since I’m a minor, my mom can’t just take me away and never come back. There are custody issues to deal with—if she and I just pack our bags and disappear, she could be charged with kidnapping.

A sinking feeling gathers in my chest as I realize how complicated starting over might be, and I begin to understand why my mom has stayed with Dad so long. The instructions talk about how important it is to have documentation of the abuse—pictures of injuries, records of emergency room visits, and police reports. I’m sure my mom has none of these, since up until tonight she kept what my father does to her a secret. Except from Hannah, who at this point, doesn’t even count.

The back of my throat aches as I think about how she lied to us, how both my mom and I thought she was our friend. I think about how long I’ve felt bad for the parents of the girl who saved my life, and suddenly, knowing what kind of person she actually is, my guilt begins to fade. “Screw her,” I mutter, but then a little voice chirps inside my head: You lied about who you are, too. You lied to Dirk . . . to every single person you chatted with online. Hannah said she was scared to be honest, just like I was scared to be honest with Dirk. Is it fair to be angry at her for doing to us for a couple of weeks what I’ve done for over a year, even if it was for an entirely different reason?

Not really wanting to think about the answer to that particular question, I quickly erase my browsing history as the instructions I just read suggested. As far as I know, my dad has never checked up on what I do on my laptop, but I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry. Then, because I said I would, I call Noah.

“How was the mall?” he asks with a slight mocking edge to his tone. I sigh before launching into a description of what happened with Hailey and Jade. My head spins thinking that all of this happened just a few hours ago—it feels so much longer than that.

“Are you effing kidding me?” he says when I finish explaining my bogus arrest and how Hailey and Jade ditched me. “What a couple of bitches.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I say. “But whatever. Who needs them.” I pause, panicking a little when I remember that my dad knows Noah’s dad, worried that what happened will get back to him. It could ruin everything. I quickly try to cover my tracks. “My mom is being pretty cool, though. She paid the fines with her own money and she’s not going to tell my dad.”

“Why not?”

I blow out a quick breath between my lips. I have to tell the truth to someone. The instructions I just read said it’s important that other people know what you’re dealing with so if they can, they might be available to help. “Because he might hit her,” I say, and the words catch in my throat like they have claws.

“What? No way. You’re joking, right?”

“I wish,” I say in a very small voice.

“Like he’s done it before?”

“Yes.” My heart races, wondering how Noah will react.

He’s quiet for a moment, but when he speaks, it is with sincerity. “Whoa, Maddie, I’m sorry. That totally sucks.” He hesitates before saying more. “My dad told me he’s always thought your dad is kind of a prick. I guess he was right.”

“I guess so,” I say, unable to stop myself from feeling a little bit pleased he talked about me with his dad.

“Has she called the cops on him? Have you?”

“Not yet,” I say, and then slowly, quietly just in case my dad comes to my bedroom door, I tell him the whole story, as much as I know. He listens for the longest time, not saying anything. And when I finally finish—when I tell him about meeting Hannah and finding out just a while ago who she actually is—he lets go of a heavy sigh.

“Dude, you’ve got issues,” he says, and I smile, loving that in a moment like this, he can make me laugh.

“You got that right.” I pause, suddenly worried I’ve made a mistake in revealing this much to him. “You can’t tell anyone any of this, though . . . okay? Especially not your dad. You understand that, right?”

“It’s cool, Maddie. I get it. This is some heavy shit you’re dealing with. I won’t talk about it unless you say it’s okay. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say, exhaling in relief. There is a soft knock on my door, and my mother opens it, sticking her head into the room. I wave at her and hold up a single finger to let her know I’ll just be a minute, so she steps all the way inside, closes the door behind her, and waits. “Noah? I have to go. My mom just walked in. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I pause. “And hey . . . thank you. You’re a pretty cool guy.”

“You’re just pretty,” he says, and I smile, grateful he’s not there to see me blush.

We hang up, and Mom comes over and sits down on the edge of my bed, then leans in to hug me. She smells like sesame oil, garlic, and my dad’s spicy cologne. “You look happy,” she says. She pulls back and tilts her head toward a shoulder, a tired but amused smile on her face. “Is it serious? Should we be looking for a prom dress?”

“No,” I say, blushing even more. “He’s just really nice. That’s all.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says, and then she sighs. “What a day, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say, searching her expression for some evidence of how things went with Dad downstairs. She looks exhausted—the lines around her mouth and eyes seem more pronounced than usual. “I’m sorry about Hannah, Mom. I know how much you liked her. I did, too.” I have the random thought that now I’ll have to find someone else to cut and color my hair. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but still.

She bobs her head and sighs again. “Everything’s kind of a mess, isn’t it.” A statement—not a question. Her bottom lip trembles as she speaks again. “I want you to know something, Maddie. I tried to leave your dad years ago. I was going to divorce him and start a new life with you. But then you got sick, and I knew if I filed for divorce, he’d try and take you away from me, honey. He’d try to prove I was unfit—”

“That’s crazy,” I interject, feeling guilty for being the reason she had to stay. “There’s no way he could do that. You’re the best mother I know.” My voice cracks, and a single tear slips down my cheek. She reaches over and wipes it away with the edge of her thumb. She looks at me tenderly.

“Thank you for that, sweetheart. But you know your dad. He can do pretty much anything he sets his mind to.” She frowns and then looks at me, reaching over to squeeze my hand.

We’re both quiet for a moment before I speak. “What’re we going to do?”

She sighs again. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know. Your dad is acting like he believes what I said happened with Hannah showing up unannounced, but I’m not sure he means it. It was a pretty weak story. If he finds out who she really is and that I let her into our life . . .” She trails off, and I can almost hear the thoughts clicking together like gears in her head. The terror she feels at what he might do to her—to us—radiates from her body. “I was going to try and stick it out until you left for college so custody and visitation with him wouldn’t be an issue.” She gives me a halfhearted smile. “I thought I might get my degree in criminal justice so I could become a lawyer, like I always wanted. So I could get a good job and not depend on your dad for money. I even went to a class at Lakeview College last week.”

I pull my chin into my chest. “That’s awesome, Mom!” It strikes me that there is so much I don’t know about my mother—the picture I’ve always had of her was just the woman who took care of me and put up with too much crap from my dad. Beneath the surface, it’s like she’s this whole different person.

“I don’t know,” she says. “With all that happened with Hannah and with you, I think it might be too risky if I go through with it. I can’t do anything that might upset your dad.”

“What about the police? Can’t you call them and get a restraining order or something?”

“It’s not that easy,” she says, nervously glancing at the door, then back to me. She reaches over to squeeze my hand. “There has to be an incident . . . more than one, really. Some sort of evidence. Pictures or witnesses. It’d be his word against mine, honey. And I’ve done a really good job of not telling anyone what he does to me.” Her voice breaks and she clears her throat. “I don’t have any proof.”

“But you have me.”

“You’ve never seen him hit me though, have you?” she asks gently. “You’ve never actually witnessed it.”

“But I know he does! I’ve heard it. I’ve seen the bruises. I’ve seen you cry. And when we leave and he tries to tell a judge you’re a bad mom, I’ll say he’s lying, okay? You don’t have to worry about that.” I grab my phone and quickly scroll down to the abuse hotline number, which I’d filed under the name “Sierra” just in case my dad ever looked through my contact list, then tell her what it actually is. “Maybe we can call them and get some ideas about what to do. How to get ready to leave.”

“Where did you find this number?” she asks, suddenly looking panicked again.

“Online. I was just looking around for things that could help us.”

“Did you tell anyone? That boy, Noah?” Her voice is low, but insistent. She’s regretting now that she told me the truth. I can tell by the look on her face.

I drop my eyes to my bed and gather a pillow to my chest. “He promised not to say anything.”

“Oh, Maddie.” The words are thick with a messy combination of disappointment and fear. “I have to think, okay? I have to figure some things out. Please don’t tell anyone else.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” She drags her fingers through her hair, pulling it away from her face. Her eyes are droopy, her eyeliner is smudged. “But for now, I think we need to act like everything is the same as it’s always been. Can you do that?”

Though I hate the idea of more secrets, I nod because I know she needs me to. She looks so fragile sitting next to me on my bed, as though she might shatter if I touch her. I suddenly feel more like her mother than her child, worried she’s going to make a bad decision, but knowing there’s nothing I can do to stop her. I can’t make her leave my father.

The one thing I do know is that if the day ever comes that he raises a hand to me—if he hits me or punches me or even screams at me too loudly—there’s no way I’ll stay. With or without my mother, the first thing I’ll do is gather up my things and walk right out the door.