The Wrong Sister

Never did I miss Henry and Stacey as much as I did at that moment. How I wished I could run to them both! Instead, I was left to wonder if Stacey had had any clue as to just how crazy her sister truly was. I suppose even a psychologist could be fooled every now and then. Funny, too, because I recently overheard a friend of Lisa’s telling her how she liked that I was bordering on crazy but that my intelligence kept me from quite making it all the way to officially crazy. I guessed that her friend had no idea who she was really dealing with, either. I couldn’t believe I started to wonder, like I did, if I had been with the wrong sister when things first started to heat up between Lisa and me. It was now more evident than ever as to just who the wrong sister was. I should have figured that what seemed too good to be true was, in fact, anything but true. The reality was that I married a hottie who was completely insane. She truly didn’t seem to have any concept of just what she had done to me. The fact that she didn’t believe she had done anything wrong was almost as scary as the actual act of violence itself. I knew that there was no way I could stay with her. There was just no way. If she could kick the crap out of me once, she could do it again. I was just a little surprised it had taken her as long as it did to lose it on me. I totally hadn’t seen it coming. Looking back at that moment, I couldn’t find the signs anywhere, yet somehow I had missed them along the way. I had no idea where to go or who to run to. I was all out of people who could possibly come to my rescue. I was totally on my own to figure out how to support myself and where. I thought of how many people believed that God didn’t give us more than we could handle, and I realized at that moment that that was the biggest lie I had ever heard. Since it would take me the better part of a year to get established independently—and I didn’t have that year to wait—I was back to square one, basically right after the earthquake had occurred and before Stacey entered the picture. I could either stay alive and take God only knew how many more beatings until I was killed, or I could take the honors myself and end it all in a much less brutal fashion than Lisa would eventually choose. I think I was still numb with shock at this stage. My brain was frantically trying to process what had happened, and my cuts and bruises were struggling to heal. Lisa hadn’t shown an ounce of remorse. There hadn’t been a single apology. Not one tiny shred of regret. She was just a bomb with a lit fuse wrapped in a sexy package. Had any empathy she’d shown me when we first met even been real? Now I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. The only thing I was sure of was how much my mind and body were hurting at that moment. Now that I’d been given more than I could handle, I mentally weighed all my options. Obviously, I couldn’t go to the police. I doubted I would trust them even if Lisa weren’t a cop. I couldn’t survive with her, and I couldn’t survive on the streets. What was I to do then? Take her gun and shoot someone so the local correctional facility would give me food and housing for life? Instead, the local funny farm would soon be temporarily providing me with room and board—just not in the way I would have expected. The night she first beat me, I had no choice but to play it cool. There was no way I could escape with her there, and I wasn’t in any condition physically to break away even if I could. My body and spirit had been shattered. All I had left was my intellect, so I had to keep my cool and think things through. There was no point in acting in haste just to fail. I needed to devise an escape plan that had a real chance of being successful, and it needed to be a damn good one, too. In the morning, I studied my bruised and swollen face in the bathroom mirror. I had never looked so terrifying and so horrible before in my life. I didn’t know which emotion I felt the most at that moment… sad, scared, or angry. The beautiful monster then appeared in the bathroom doorway. “Is there anything I can do for you?” I looked at her, opened my mouth to speak, and then closed it. I wanted to tell her to go drown herself in the ocean, but I knew what would happen if I did. “Do for me?” She shrugged. I proceeded to exit the bathroom. She was in the way. I gazed up into those cold, dark eyes, and she said, “Come on, I know you want to say something. It’s okay. I won’t lay a hand on you.” “Just two things.” She looked at me expectantly. “Go drown yourself in the ocean, and know that I’m going to be filing for divorce at the first chance I get.” She laughed. Again, I went to leave the room, and again she blocked the doorway. “We agreed,” I stammered, “within a year we could undo this stupid, stupid mistake I made.” She smiled flatly. “And then we agreed otherwise.” “You know what?” “What’s that, Shaylin Aria Winters?” “I’m never getting married ever again in my life, so fuck the divorce then. Why go through the hassles when it really doesn’t matter whether we’re married or not? A ring and a piece of paper don’t mean shit.” I removed her ring and held it up to her. “You can take this and still go drown yourself.” Again, she smiled flatly, not taking the ring from me. “I read your secret entries.” Oh, had she? “I don’t give a shit,” I said, my voice rising in pitch. “I don’t care what you read, what you know, what you think, what you feel, what you believe… It’s over, Lisa. A hundred percent totally over.” Then, just when I thought Crazy couldn’t get any crazier, Crazy said, “Maybe I should just sell you.” “What?” I asked, blindsided by the strange change in conversation. “You know… make a little profit off you. Forty grand would get me a nice new truck.” I stared at her incredulously. “You’re even sicker than I thought.” She giggled chillingly. “Please get out of my way now.” “Or what?” She challenged. “You going to just toss me down the stairs or something?” “You’re so lucky, and you don’t even know it,” I growled at her with an intense hatred I seldom felt in life. “Why is that, Miss Sunshine and Happiness?” “Because if I was the stronger one, I would be feeding you to the garbage disposal in tiny bits and pieces.” She giggled a little louder, and there might have actually been some amusement behind it this time. “Creative. You gonna put that in your next journal entry? I just love you, you know that? I really do love you.” Fear, turning to anger once again, I pointed to my face and shouted, “No, you don’t! This is not love! The fact that you’re not even sorry is almost as bad as the act itself.” “Oh, I don’t act, honey.” “Well, you certainly must have put on an Academy Award–winning performance for quite a while to fool a psychologist, because there’s no way Stacey would have had you stay with me when she went to San Diego, much less wanted you to take me if anything had happened to her.” A slow, chilling smile spread across her face. “You’re just a monster in a sexy package.” “Yeah?” she said seductively. “Well, at least I still have something going for me. How about I unwrap that sexiness and have you get your own sexy on at the same time?” Damn me for choosing the wrong words! I shook my head slowly as I stared at her in disbelief. “Are you kidding? What the fuck is wrong with you? First, you beat the shit out of me, then you talk about selling me, and now you want to get it on?” “I’d rather have you than the shiny new truck. Forget selling you.” “Will you just back off so I can get something to eat and feed my rat as well?” To my surprise, she suddenly stepped out of the way. In fact, I was so surprised by her sudden cooperation that it took me a few seconds to move. I quickly stepped out of the bathroom and ran down the stairs. I was afraid she would grab me any second along the way, but she didn’t. Hands shaking, I threw a couple of pieces of toast in the toaster. She watched my every move. I grabbed some greens and cheese for the rat. “If you eat that as fast as you’re making it, you’re going to choke to death.” “Gee, wouldn’t that just thrill you, Lisa?” A few seconds later, I buttered the toast and then looked at her. “Are you going to watch me every second of the day?” “Maybe.” I ate the toast, washed it down with water, and gathered the rat’s food. “Please get out of my way.” She gazed at me with a mixture of hatred and anger, and for a minute I didn’t think she would budge. But then, keeping her arms crossed in front of her, she stepped aside. “Thank you,” I said, more with relief than appreciation. I raced up the stairs and into the second bedroom, where my rat waited expectantly for me at the door of his cage. Sure enough, Lisa observed from the doorway. I glanced at her, rolled my eyes with a sigh, and gently patted my rat’s back as he ate his breakfast. “I’m going to take a shower now, buddy. I’ll be back later.” I turned back to the door, but Lisa was gone. As I stepped out of the room, I saw her heading downstairs and pulling her phone out of her pants pocket. I figured it vibed with a call. Thankful to have the call distract her momentarily, I hurried to take a shower. A few minutes later, the door to the steamy bathroom opened. “Shay?” “What?” I said, peering through the side of the shower curtain at the woman who once made me feel safe but now made me feel threatened. “I’ve got to go out on a call. Do I have to handcuff you to the towel rack, or can you behave while I’m gone?” Fucking asshole. “I’m not one of your criminals, Lisa.” To my utter relief, the door closed and the bitch was gone. Since there was no “clever” escape plan I could possibly come up with just yet, I had to do the only thing I could… grab my rat and as much of my stuff as I could and simply get the hell out.