Jennifer

Three months later.

I just wanted to be hugged. I wanted to feel safe and secure in someones arms. Not in a sexual way, not in a “family” way. I just needed to feel safe from someone who I did not owe anything to, someone who cared about me because of me. I craved to feel protected, from someone who was not going to blindside me.

It was an early Thursday morning. On this particular day, I was working the early shift. I am sitting on the edge of bed, while T is starting to get up. He was going to jump in the shower while I got the baby ready. We would drop Vinnie off at daycare. T would then drop me off at work, run his errands, and then pick me up at 4. Except, something was off.

As soon as he got up, I saw there was a  wad of cash laying on the bed. As if it had fallen out of his pocket. He is in the bathroom that is connected to the master bedroom. He could not see me, but I could see him. I looked at this stack of cash, all 100 dollar bills. My gut instinct was to take it. Take it and hide it and keep my mouth shut. Instead what happened was, he came out of the bathroom and I gave him the cash. “Oh, this must have fallen out of your pocket?”

He grabbed it, went to take his shower and shut the door. I assumed since it was the first of the month, it was for rent.

The morning went as planned. We dropped the baby off at daycare, he dropped me off at work. He gave me a hug and told me he would pick me up at 4.

At 3 o’clock, I was in the backroom working the freight. A co worker from the service desk came to the backroom and gave me the car keys. “T said to give these to you, something came up and he cannot pick up your son.”

Something was not right. I talked to my boss, got permission to get off early. I had an hour before I needed to pick up Vinnie . I drove home in the hopes that maybe T was just tired and taking a nap.

The apartment was trashed. All of my belongings were scattered everywhere. All of my cd’s were sprawled across the floor. My movies were gone. My clothes were at the bottom of the closet, and his clothes were gone.

There was no trace of T anywhere.

He left me.

I racked my brain trying to figure out why. I did everything right. I put up with his abuse, I put up with his cheating, I put up with so much, just to be loved in the way I thought I needed to be loved. It was all in vain, because at the end of the day, he left me.

And I never saw him again.