Chapter 25

Months went by and Jesse had still not been able to bring Renee around. She hadn't been sleeping well. She would have bad dreams at night and lash out. Sometimes she hit him, but he didn't do anything out of the way because of it. Instead, he would wrap her in his arms and hold her tight, trying to stop her from fighting in her sleep. She would wake up terrified and her body would shake for a long time before she would finally fall back asleep. Her eyes had dark circles under them and she was barely eating. He would have to force her to eat at dinner or she would just wind up pushing the food around on her plate.

Summertime had hit and the flowerbeds that she had tended to the past two years were starting to bloom. She hadn't even been outside to tend to them even once. He had tried to get her to come out with him and offered to help her with them, but she had told him no every time. Instead of getting angry or forcing the issue, he had let it be. He watched the flowers die as Renee sunk further into a shell, almost like it was symbolizing her dying.

He had wanted her to be compliant at first, but now, he just wanted the defiance back. He had liked the way she was before. It was more exciting. He kept trying to do nice things for her, but all she saw it as was him trying to trick her like he had the first time. She had even stopped talking to the women that she had made friends with at the group before. He had not told her that she had to cut all of them off, but that he didn't want her at the group because of Patrick.

Jesse was starting to think therapy might be a good idea, but what if she told the therapist what was really going on? He threw that idea out and started looking for other things she could do. He found a few groups that she could go to with Christian. One night he took her to one, but she had come out and told him she didn't want to go back. He had made her go back a few times, but she didn't seem to be lightening up at all. He'd had enough.

"Renee, you have got to stop this. I don't want you to be like this. You are going to start going to that group and talking to the women there. Make friends with a few. Also, I am planning a surprise for you."

"Why? Why plan a surprise for me? I won't care about it anyway. And, I told you that I'm not going back to that group. I'm not going to make friends with anyone. What's the point? I don't have a normal life. It's not like I can go out whenever I want or have friends that I can hang out with. You have made it very clear that even when I don't do anything wrong, you are going to find something wrong with it. What happens if I make friends and then something happens you don't like? Something beyond my control? It will be like last time. I will get punished. No. You may force me to go to that group, but I don't have to talk to anyone while I'm there. If you are going to hurt me because of it, then so be it. I won't do it no matter what you do to me."

"I don't want to hurt you. I want you to have friends and be happy. I want you to be happy with me."

"What don't you understand about I'm not going to be happy with you? I don't want to be with you! You don't love me. You don't know what love is. If you did, then you wouldn't keep hurting me. You would control your anger and learn to deal with situations that come up without hurting me. If you knew what a true relationship was, then you would know you have to talk through things, not force things on people. You should never raise your hand in anger. Or in your case, force yourself on someone."

"You're right. I don't know what a true relationship is. I've never had one. The only relationship I ever saw was my parents. My dad beat on my mother all the time. He raped her every night. We heard her screams. That's the relationship I'm used to. And my anger stems from all of that. It comes from watching my mother die as I shielded my brother from seeing it. I've never been with a woman longer than a couple of nights for this reason," Jesse said.

"So, you were, what, worried about becoming your father? So, you did exactly that? You didn't even try to break the pattern. I can see why no woman would mind you not wanting to stay with them."

Jesse clenched his fists but didn't make a move to hit her. It was like she was daring him to hit her as she yelled at him. He had stopped hitting her a long time ago though. Now, he just abused her body when he got angry. To her, it was all the same as he bruised her when he did it. She stepped close to him as she continued.

"You say what your father did messed you up. So, are you going to mess your own son up the same way? Are you going to make me scream every night so he can hear it? Are you going to beat me to death in front of him? I can only assume your father went to jail and you went into foster care. Is that what you want for your own son?"

"No!" Jesse yelled as he jerked Renee against him.

Renee tensed, but she didn't try to pull away as Jesse continued, "We didn't go into foster care. We hit the streets as my father ran. I've gotten good at hiding. I've stolen from stores and beat grown men as I robbed them. Everything I did was to keep my brother out of foster care. I was fifteen. He was only ten. That bastard killed him when he was 21. It's been 5 years and I still can't move past it."

As much as Renee hated Jesse, she felt sorry for him, too. He'd had a rough life, but he should have tried to change his life instead of making someone else's miserable. Jesse was 31 now and she wondered if he could change at this point. He had been doing better with the way he treated her. He still messed up, but it wasn't all the time. A thought suddenly occurred to her.