002: Scars [FLASHBACK]
Jun 4, 2020 3:39:43 GMT -5
Post by Admin on Jun 4, 2020 3:39:43 GMT -5
• DEVON •
October 13, 2015 || Reno
He heard the shower running when he walked through the door, surprised that she was actually up and around. Home early from his job at the group home for the first time in weeks, Devon Rivera was expecting to find her passed out in the middle of the bed, reeking of booze. An empty Jack Daniels bottle was still there amid the twisted sheets and he felt the sight stab though him. Picking it up, he absently set it on the night table, intending to deal with it later. Things had been tense for months between them – he'd been watching her for little tics and tells longer than that, suspecting something that he'd finally received confirmation of today. Smoothing out the sheets, he set down and opened the folder, flipping through the pages.
When silence finally fell over the room, he looked up, just in time to meet his startled wife's eyes as she stepped out of the shower. She hadn't bothered to close the door, assuming she was home alone and would be until the early hours of the morning. He watched her rummage through the medicine cabinet before shaking a few Excedrin onto her palm. She tossed them back, chasing them with a mouthful of water, aware that he was still watching her.
"I didn't think I'd see you tonight."
"I know." He kept his eyes on the pages, letting her think he'd brought the casework of one of his charges home. The more he saw filling the various forms, the more he knew that her pulling away was entirely his fault. He'd told her that he was ready to start a family, oblivious to what sort of spiral that might have sent her on. "I thought maybe we should talk."
"About what?" She was brushing her teeth now, barely glancing in his direction.
He waited until the water shut off again so that he didn't have to raise his voice. "You've been pulling away for weeks."
"Surprised you noticed," she couldn't keep the tart response to herself.
"Yeah, alright. That's fair. I've been working a lot of doubles."
"If you're hungry, I can make something." The words were tossed his way as she walked over to her dresser and pulled out a pair of underwear and the over-sized t-shirt of his she liked to wear to bed.
Devon had been finding more and more reasons not to come home, taking on extra hours at the group home that he worked at. He was doing his best not to backslide and start using again as a way to cope with the depression that never seemed to lift – making sure he had no time to think seemed to help but burning the candle at both ends was starting to wear thin. Stifling a yawn, he looked up at her from the pile of papers he had on his lap. He didn't usually bring his work home with him, doing his best to maintain confidentiality for the kids and their broken families. This, though, was something different. "Not hungry. Don't worry about it."
Ellie turned, seeing something in his expression that immediately made her wary. Seeing him with that folder was a little jarring – in all the years they'd been together, he'd always left work at work. "What's that?"
"Something I thought we could look at together." He shuffled the pages back into order and pushed the now-closed file towards her on the bed. "Had to pull a lot of strings to get my hands on this. Owe some favors to a lot of people now but I thought it might be worthwhile. For you. For both of us."
Dread crawled down her spine with icy fingers as she walked over, just barely resisting the urge to flee. Picking up the folder, she opened it and looked over the papers, seeing her own name printed at the top. Her hands shook and she dropped the thing as though it was burning her. Papers scattered over the bed and she turned away, breathing heavily. "Where..."
"I told you."
"How..." she wanted to ask him how he could go behind her back like that but the words got stuck in her throat.
"I told you," Devon said softly, watching her reaction. He hadn't read all of it. He'd skimmed enough to have his suspicions confirmed and then thought that maybe she would want to see it first, if only to know what had been written about the things that she'd experienced. "I made a few calls. Had someone dig it up from the dead files in storage. Took them about a month... but yeah." The way she'd reacted to his suggestion that they start a family had initially sent him on a tailspin, that perceived rejection hitting hard until he had time to think about it rationally, to think that maybe there was more to it than having a child with HIM.
He forced a smile, feeling now as though he'd made a terrible mistake. "Everything's there. Intake forms. All the foster information. Considering the age, it's actually pretty good. You must've had a worker who actually gave half a shit."
Ellie wrapped her arms around her middle, shuddering. There was a knot in her chest and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. "You didn't have to dig those up. You could have just let them stay in storage, Dev." She'd kept those things from him because when people had found out about it in the past, they'd looked at her differently. That was the last thing she wanted to happen here. She didn't want him to look at her like she was trash, just another sad story like the kids he did his best to help.
"Should've let them stay in storage, taking up space like they are in your head?" He got up, rounding the bed to stand in front of her. "I didn't have to. Sure. That's true. But I thought it might help." His gaze went to the empty whiskey bottle that he'd set on the nightstand.
Her posture had stiffened, feeling as though she was under a microscope. "Drudging that stuff up isn't going to help." She shook her head, walking out of the bedroom. She needed more alcohol, something to calm her nerves. "I lived through it and don't need to see it on paper." When she got to the kitchen, she started going through the cabinets.
Devon followed her, leaning against the doorway with his arms folded across his chest, watching her for a moment before letting out a sigh. "There's a bottle of vodka under the sink if that's what you're looking for..." he closed his eyes for a second, dragging in a deep breath. He wanted to start yelling, to lash out at her in the hopes that he could provoke something that would make her open up. He hated feeling like a stranger to her, like an outsider in his own home, let alone in his marriage. "Or, you know, you could just sit down and fuckin' talk to me. That might be nice. For a change."
"Jesus Christ!" She slammed her hands down on the kitchen counter, her head snapping around to stare down her husband. "It's all in the fucking files, everything you want to know." As much as part of her wanted to tell him everything, she just couldn't. Even trying to get the words out, it was like something was in her throat, blocking the words. "Just go read that and leave me the fuck alone!"
"Ell..."
She dragged in a deep breath, back to staring down at her hands against the counter. Her voice came out soft, barely above a pleading whisper. "Why can't you just let it go?"
"Is that what you want? Really?" His tone was carefully neutral even as he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "You want me to forget I ever had a suspicion that something terrible happened to you in the past. Just let it go. Pretend my wife isn't..." he trailed off with a shake of his head. "Yeah. Sure, Ell. I'll forget all about it. Forget all about how you don't trust me enough. Forget all about how we're fuckin' falling apart here."
"What exactly is it you want me to say?" Her attention was no longer on finding a drink, it was focused on him. "You want me to describe how random men would come into my room and rape me? Or how my mom would sell a little bit of time with me for whatever she could put up her nose or in her arm? Is that in there? Is that what you wanna hear?"
"I didn't-"
"Shut up." She turned around to glare at him, her eyes narrowed and filled with so much anger that he actually took a step back. "You wanna hear the one about how my insides are so fucked up, I can't give you the kids you want? Would that make you happy?"
"Well yeah." He snapped right back at her, taking a few steps closer. "It would have been nice to know that BEFORE I brought it up like an insensitive asshole. The details... I mean that level of honesty is entirely up to you. I don't need to know who. How. Even the fucking WHY. But telling me the rest? Yeah, Ell. It might've been nice to know."
She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. "I can't... okay?! I just fucking can't!"
"Right." Devon sounded disgusted as he shook his head, "I get it."
"Please..." Ellie looked down at the kitchen counter and bowed her head. "Please, Dev... please don't make me talk about it."
He turned away from her, feeling like an absolute asshole for putting her through this. "Jesus Christ. Fine." That file held all the secrets, all the answers he'd felt he needed and now he felt like a damned monster for even trying to pry. "I just wanted to understand," the words came out soft.
Ellie looked up at him, her bottom lip quivering as she shook her head. "You can't... I don't even understand it." Her hand came up and wiped away at the tears that were streaking her face. "I don't want to."
"You don't get it, do you?" Devon turned back to look at her, his own eyes bright with tears. "I see you hurting, see you like this and I wanna help. You think I want you to relive all that shit because I'm some sadist who gets off on it or something?" He couldn't keep the frustration from spilling over, "you're my wife. I'm supposed to look out for you. I'm... goddammit, I'm not supposed to be the one making it worse."
Ellie left the kitchen counter and walked over to where he was standing, not really surprised when he pulled away. He went to the sink, slowly taking off the leather bracelets he always wore on his left wrist. His wedding ring followed and then he turned on the tap and let the water run cold. Lathering up his hands, he washed them and then splashed cold water on his face. The last thing he'd wanted to do was send her back into her shell, running scared. "You stupid asshole," he muttered.
Swallowing back the lump in her throat, Ellie broke the silence, her voice small and shaky. "At some point, I was gonna tell you..."
"Yeah," he nodded, "and that's why I'm an asshole. I should've..." he shrugged, "I don't know. I should've read your signs better. I just thought maybe... at first, I thought maybe it was me." He turned off the water, reaching for the dish towel hanging from the handle on the freezer door. He dried his hands and face, deliberately not looking at her. "We really gotta get a handle on this communication thing."
"I'm sorr-"
"Don't." Putting the towel back, he let his hands drop and turned to face her. "I should've trusted you. So that's on me. Don't apologize." Looking over at the little pile of leather on the counter, he made a decision and then held out his left hand, palm up even though he had his fingers curled a little. He tipped it back, showing her the crisscrossing lines of scar tissue on the inside of his wrist. They all branched out from a blob in the middle, pale white against his tanned skin where they all intersected. He knew she'd seen it before. He'd told her it was from a knife, had let her think it was a fight or something – the exact vague lie eluded him. "See this?"
"Yeah."
"Used to carry a knife in high school. Told myself it was for self-defense, like I thought I was gonna have to stab some demon or werewolf or something on the way home. Wasn't why. I carried it 'cause it was convenient. When it all got too much, I'd just get it out and I'd just make a little hole, y'know? No big deal. I wasn't ever gonna go the other way, the way that ends it all. That's what this is. The part in the middle. Each time I had to go a little deeper, make it a little wider."
"Okay," her eyes were locked on it, seeing the other lines flowing from the center, two running horizontally and two running vertically. They were wider, jagged as though they'd been stitched up poorly. "There's more, isn't there?"
"Would it matter if there was?" He lifted his head to meet her eyes, "lemme ask you a question."
He let his arm drop back to his side, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Does it change anything about how you feel?"
Ellie shook her head, "of course not, why would it?" Reaching out, she placed a hand on his arm.
His eyes were locked on hers, hoping she'd understand what he was trying to say.
She looked up at him, wanting to bridge this gap between them. "Okay..." Her hand slid up to rest on his shoulder. "I can try..."
"Would you be okay with me reading the file?" His green eyes locked on hers, an unspoken plea reflected there. "Would that be easier?"
Nodding, she said nothing.
"On my twentieth birthday," the words came out hollow, his gaze still boring into hers. "I tried to kill myself. Got real high first and I did a shitty job of it. Passed out after the second cut – my sister found me. Blood all over the bathroom floor – she stitched it up with fuckin' friendship bracelet thread and then called 9-1-1 because I didn't wake up..." he wanted to tell her that it was his fault that Mia had been taken away, placed in foster care for the next five years until she'd run away at sixteen. He wanted to tell her that the reason he'd tried to end it was because his parents' death had been his fault. If he hadn't gotten himself kicked out of college, they'd had never been on that road during that storm. They'd never have had that accident on their way to go pick his worthless ass up. Instead he said nothing, letting the silence stretch into awkward and beyond.
"Oh God, Dev. Why?" Even as she asked it, she knew the answer. He carried around the same sort of guilt she did, even though hers was more shame than anything else.
"Doesn't matter." He lifted his hand up to gently touch her cheek, wiping away tears with his thumb that she hadn't even realized were falling. "I'm still here. And after I read that shit... no matter what's in there, it won't change a thing. I'll still be here. I'll still love you just the same."
Reluctantly, he pulled away and walked out of the room, leaving her standing there in silence.
Slowly, she turned and picked up his wedding ring from where he'd left it, the metal cool now against her clammy palm. She squeezed it tight, hoping for a miracle even though she knew that her prayers had never been answered and never would be.
