Creasing the Edges

“I can’t go home,” she whispered to herself, “I won’t go home.”

The coffee’s heat warmed Susan’s hands and she looked around the busy coffee shop. A couple in the corner were holding hands and looking through papers. The lady looked into her partner’s eyes and smiled. He said something and she responded with laughter. An older man coughed violently three tables over from her. He muttered to himself and picked up his phone. His wife stared out the window, perhaps thinking of what she would make for supper. Susan returned her gaze to the table in front of her and folded her napkin, running her fingers along the crease. She was alone.

 __

“I am going to make you the happiest girl alive,” Ron exclaimed, spinning her around the empty apartment.

Susan was slightly tipsy from the three beer he gave her and felt like she was spinning right out of her old world. She never questioned why he never drank with her, instead was drunk with the feeling of having attention poured over her.

He grinned, “I am going places, baby, and I will take you everywhere with me.”

 __

Her phone buzzed, startling her back to reality. She jumped a little and her breath hitched from the pain in her sternum. She knew that the bruises were already starting to bloom into colours of the darkest night. Turning the phone over, she looked to see the caller id even though she already knew who it was. He had called twelve times in the past hour and filled up her voicemail inbox. She lay the phone back on the table. Laying amongst the half dozen creased napkins, it looked defeated.

 __

“No other man will love you like I do. You’ll be back, you’ll see. You will fail.” Susan’s grandfather crushed his cigarette butt into the big black ashtray, put his grease-stained hat on and left the kitchen. The nineteen-year-old girl took the twenty-dollar bill he threw at her and began to fold it, running her fingers along the crease. She bit her lower lip and held back the tears, swearing to herself that she would never come back here.

 __

From there, she packed a bag of clothes and her sketchbook, and left this small island she hated to call home. Susan had never been to a big city before, even though by most standards, this one really wasn’t a big city. She spent most of the first week, before her first semester at art school began, just wandering around staring up at buildings. The village she grew up in didn’t even have a building taller than two stories. For the first year, she pushed the fear of failure around each unknown street corner with her sketching pens.

 __

She met Ron the next year. He was twenty years her senior and frequented the local coffee shop. Her friends warned her that they didn’t think he was the businessman he claimed to be, that he was really a con artist. She didn’t listen.

Ron first approached her when she was sketching the streetscape from the front window of Spring Garden Café.  

“I thought you could use another coffee,” he said, slipping into the chair next to hers and sliding a fresh coffee in front of her. “I asked the barista what you normally like.”

“Look up the word barista,” she thought, and then studied the man’s face. He had nice eyes. They crinkled when he smiled.

“I really just wanted the opportunity to have a conversation with a beautiful lady. I’m Ron by the way.”

Susan blushed and put her head down, pretending to study something in her sketchbook.

“Can I see?,” he asked, taking the book from her hands before she could say no.

Butterflies dipped in her stomach, she hated showing people her sketching. It was personal and unfinished, not ready for the world to see the flaws. Ron flipped each page carefully and examined each one attentively.

“You have real talent. Did you know that?”

She coughed into her hand and took a sip of coffee. “Thank you for the coffee.”

 __

The next year was a rollercoaster that descended into hell. After he moved in, Ron began cutting people out of Susan’s life until she believed that she was totally dependent on him. He knew where she was at all times and monitored all phone calls. The rapid dips of every type of abuse, every con, every penny of money that went missing, every phone call from strangers in the middle of the night, was followed by the spectacular highs of a honeymoon period. Ron could make Susan feel like she was the most important and beautiful girl in the world. But the rollercoaster never seemed to slow down long enough for her to try to get off.

 __

Finally, last night it seemed to slow down enough to at least get the seatbelt off.

“Ron, what did you do with the rent money?” Susan begged him.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, it must be a mix-up at their office. I’ll deal with it in the morning. Don’t worry,” he said.

“A mix-up. You always say it is something someone else must have done. Ron, I gave you the money to pay them six days ago. They told us that if we keep screwing up the rent, we are out. I have nowhere to go, Ron. Nowhere.”

Susan threw the rent notice onto the counter and ran to the bathroom to cry. It was the only room left with a lock, he had broken the door to the bedroom in the last argument.

He banged on the door. “You can’t be mad at me for someone else’s screwup. Susan come out right now.” He jiggled the doorknob. “Don’t make me angry, Susan.”

She opened the door and dried her eyes on her shirtsleeve. He pulled her close and slipped his shirt up her sweater, fondling her left breast, “Make me happy.” Susan sighed, knowing that to say no would be pointless. He was a man who took what he wanted.

 __

That morning, Susan got out of bed before Ron was awake. She had lain awake most of the night, contemplating her situation. She couldn’t stay but she couldn’t leave either. Where would she go? Who could she tell and if she did, why would they believe her? How could she face her old friends after not speaking to them for so long? How could she face going back to her old home and the nightmares she left behind? How did she let this happen? How was she going to survive? She grabbed her backpack and sketchbook, left the apartment and closed the door silently behind her.

 __

Susan took a sip of the coffee. It was now lukewarm. Picking up her phone, she connected to the coffee shop wifi and opened a web browser. After a quick search and entering a phone number to the local women’s shelter, she put the phone to her ear and listened for the dial tone. She folded another napkin and ran her fingers along the crease.

“Hello? I don’t know what to do and I need help. I cannot go home.”