Remain

Loosely inspired by The Green Knight and the tale of St. Winifred, and for Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October). Content warning for references to emotional and physical abuse.

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Relief flooded over Jane when she saw the empty lot and knew that she had the lake to herself. The picnicking families had long since herded the kids back into the car and left, ready to wash off the grass stains and whatever was in those leaf piles; the early-evening joggers were at home with their glasses of wine and a cozy sense of accomplishment. Sometimes kids came here after dark, leaving behind noisy laughter, crushed cans and the haze of smoky kisses. The night had been illuminated with firecrackers and ghoulish glee a few nights ago, on Halloween, but tonight the spot was quiet but for the wind in the trees and skimming the surface of the lake.

Jane didn't need the gleam of the parking lot's towering lights to find the worn bench by the water's edge. How many packed lunches had she eaten there, how many times had she and her sisters used it as a hiding spot or their home base, the only safe place to jump, giggling, as imaginary lava flowed across the ground? But now all she needed was the quiet, a place to calm her thoughts and let the chilly air cool her face and her reddened eyes.

She'd never brought him here and never would. He'd scoff, annoyed by its simplicity, her childishness — or worse, he would like it here too, would push his way in and make it their place, something she couldn't have without him. He would call it sharing.

Jane pulled her phone from her pocket, the glow momentarily startling her eyes. He hadn't texted again. Her pleas and multicolored hearts had gone unanswered for a few hours after their blow-up in the car after last period, and then a sudden burst of cold gray bubbles:

u should just admit u lied about this wknd. Im always honest w/ u and u can't give that back

Idk why u want to make me mad all the time

thats not what a real fkn gf does

u don't apreciate anything i do. most girls wd be happy their bfs want to spend time w them.

I said i was sorry for last week but ur still punishing me

Im not perfect but u know i'm trying and u dont care 

And then, minutes later, before she had formulated her response:

whatever. Have fun w/ ur other bfs this wknd. Hope they like sluts

Her reply:

I would never lie to u!!! There is NO other guy. It really really is my grandma's bday this wknd, u can ask anyone in my fam. I thought i told u like twice last week, but maybe i 4got im really sorry. I know ur trying to be nicer and it means alot. Please please don't be mad i would never blow u off for any other guy. ♡♡♡♡♡♡ 

I can try to skip the party this wknd. Idt my parents will let me bc we already have the hotel rooms but i can say i'm sick. Lets just talk about it ♡

But it said only "Read 8:47pm."

She shivered slightly as the breeze picked up around her, vaguely wishing she'd brought a heavier coat. He put his jacket around her shoulders that first time out on the lawn, back in early spring — it hadn't been a true date, just a collective hang-out, but she'd always thought of it as the beginning. He could be so sweet sometimes. She'd seen goosebumps break out on his forearm and offered it back to him, but he refused. "You look cuter in it," he'd told her, grinning, and her heart had fluttered against her ribs.

And today was nothing, really, not compared to other times. Not compared to last week. She didn't need to scroll up to remind herself.

FUCK YOU I AM DONE W THIS

U JUST LOVE TO EMBARRASS ME. all the guys on the team said u were a bitch and i didnt believe them but U R

I didn't tell that many people I swear! And we could visit all the time it's not that far away

lol yeah right. Like i'd want to see u with the freshman 15. Probably 30 for u.

y do you have to be so mean? It's my dream school

Yeah you said 1000 times. We get it u think ur better than everyone

U didn't have to push me like that. Every1 saw.

THEN MAYBE U SHOULDNT PISS ME OFF IN FRONT OF EVERYONE! That's ur fault not mine

Today he hadn't even left a mark. Perhaps that was a good sign. He was trying to change, for her. She could meet him halfway, surely. Wasn't it was all about give and take?

Crumpled leaves whispered around Jane's feet as Winnie arrived beside her. She set down her bundle and looked out over the lake, at the faint, wavering reflection of the moon. For a few moments they said nothing, then:

"It's peaceful here. I see why you like it."

Jane managed a smile. "This is one of my favorite places. I'm— it's just nice to be by the water."

"It's reassuring, the way it always stays the same," she agreed. "Even if everything around it changes. Did you know this lake has been here for centuries?" Jane nodded; she'd seen the weathered plaque dozens of times. "And those stones, that used to be a little church."

Jane's fingers drifted, as usual, to her necklace. The thin silver chain rested an inch or two below the fading bruises, where his fingers had tightened for what had seemed like a bright red eternity, though it couldn't have been more than a moment.

"That's from him," Winnie said, and for a moment Jane wasn't sure if it was a question, or to which thing she referred.

"Yeah." She pulled the pendant out away from the front of her sweater, holding it delicately between thumb and forefinger. "He knows I love foxes. I only said it one time in front of him, but he remembered for my birthday." She sat up straighter as she said it, feeling a hint of that old, comfortable warmth. "It was, like, months later, but he remembered." The look in his eyes in the car beside her as she'd opened the clumsily wrapped box, the way he'd searched her face to see if she liked it, the way he beamed when she beamed. 

And later, at the restaurant — sitting on the same side of the booth made it hard to maneuver their forks and knives, but they just laughed as their elbows collided — he'd asked if she was going to study them, foxes and other animals, and become an animal scientist and save all the endangered species? 

She'd smiled again and said maybe, well, she figured that would be a zoology degree and she was going to do biology, but there was probably a lot of overlap and maybe she would do both. She dreaded doing dissections, though; it wasn't really the cutting and the organs but the faces, the blank eyes that she feared would stay with her, would remind her too much that this had been a living, playing, joyful thing before it became only parts. Then she worried that she was rambling and boring him, but he'd set his fork down and put his arm around her and told her that he liked how much she cared about things, and he was sure she'd ace every course. 

And then not long after that (could it have only been weeks?), she'd opened her locker to find a fuzzy orange-and-white face, staring plaintively at her with its shiny plastic eyes. The card with the toy had read I'm so so sorry in his small, uneven handwriting. I would never hurt you. You know I love you. It was the first time he'd said it. He'd sidled up beside her, looking nervous, and she'd hugged him, barely noticing the pain when he gently dabbed the tears away from her aching left eye. 

"He can be so sweet," Jane added now. "He just doesn't want me to leave. That's all. Since I got the acceptance letter—" Winnie was silent, merely watching her, and she plowed on. "It's just hard for him. I talk about it too much."

"Because it's what you want?" Winnie asked, or stated.

Jane nodded once. "Since I was a kid."

"That takes strength." Jane looked curious, and she added, "To know so entirely what you want, to go after it and to have it in reach." Her eyes were sad as she gazed back out over the lake, the rippled black water an expanse of grain leather. "It took me years to hear my calling, and then more to find the courage for it. And by then, my…" She might have sighed, but it was lost under the night breeze. "He wasn't happy. He'd already decided for us, he'd planned it all and I wasn't going to ruin things."

Jane watched her, mouth going dry, listening to her own heartbeat. For a moment, somehow, she could see it all, as though she had been there, standing just over there on the hill, the water cheerful and sparkling with sunlight: Winnie's determined face and shaking hands, his dark expression and the outstretched ring, pinched so hard that his fingertips were white. Her torn dress, his loud voice, her hard breaths as she ran, his anger. His anger. The spice of Winnie's fear tasted familiar.

"I'm not letting you go," he'd said. He was close enough that Jane could see herself in his pupils, her tiny self looking back at her. "Never, got that?" And later, in the kitchen, closing the freezer as quietly as she could so her parents wouldn't hear, holding the bag of tater tots to her furiously red neck, she thought, absurdly, that they were the kind of words she'd always wanted to hear. She even wrote them down in her notebook, surrounded the swirling letters with fat red and pink hearts. I'm not letting you go, never! A flower in his hand instead. Maybe she could change it all into something else if she made herself believe.

"But didn't anyone see?" she asked Winnie. Surely, she thought, surely when things were that bad, someone would notice. No one could be that alone.

"My family was nearby, my uncle tried to help. He stayed with me for so long, it felt like, but he couldn't do anything," Winnie said. Jane's fingers were tight on her necklace again. "And afterwards, all anyone would say was that I'd been brave, I'd been right to deny him, or that I'd been foolish." Her eyes flashed with anger. "No one asked if he'd been foolish. No one asked why he didn't deny himself."

Jane's phone buzzed, and she jumped as though it had been a shout, fingers scrambling in her lap.

come over

She blinked. For a moment, the fight in the car seemed impossibly long ago. 

rite now? 

Yah

She hesitated, glancing at the clock at the top of the screen. She began to type out won't ur family mind before she remembered: his mother and stepfather wouldn't be back for several more days. That was why he'd been so insistent about the weekend. "Don't you want us to have alone time?", he'd asked, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. She'd hoped he didn't feel her pulse jump when he said it.

u said u wante d to takl so lets talk. I want teh truth fr om u

Dont keep me wAitingagan

Again

Lol are you drunk?

She didn't really laugh, and she didn't really need to ask. She felt Winnie's eyes on her and glanced over. "I should go. It's— he just wants to talk."

Winnie rose too. "I don't think you should."

The phone was hot in her cold hand. "He's probably not even that mad anymore. Most times he just needs a while to cool off. It's fine."

"Most times?"

"Well—" She anxiously jangled her keys in her pocket with her other hand. "He's trying. I should give him a chance. Another chance."

"He should stop asking for them."

jUST COME OVER

He hated it when she didn't reply right away, she could feel his impatience rising like mercury, and yet she had to stay and explain. "He wouldn't get so upset if he didn't really love me. Most guys don't even care at all. I'm lucky."

The bundle under Winnie's arm wore a despairing look. "They always say that," she said distractedly, half to herself. "So many of you, all this time." She'd seen them all, in lakes, in fields, in alleyways, the missing-but-not-always-missed. They never heard her in time. "It never changes. I can't go if everything always stays the same."

Jane swayed on the spot, buffeted by the wind. Stay, go. Fear, safety, love. She had so many questions, but all that came out was "How?"

"Say no."

Never, got that?

"I can't." There was no hiding spot, no safe place she could claim. There were no rules in his game.

"Say it to yourself until you believe it. Until it's a demand." When Jane hesitated, glancing down at the screen again, Winnie said, in a voice like cold steel, "His want isn't bigger than yours. He has no right to take you apart."

Apart, his favorite parts, she thought dizzily. Her own blank eyes, looking back at her from inside his. She hadn't even looked surprised.

WHERE R U?????

One sec!

"I'm scared," she said, and it was the first time she'd said it aloud. The words seem to hang in the cold air for a moment, grateful to be freed. "I'm scared to be alone."

But there was nothing but the breeze, the water, the stones and the moon as she realized she already was.