Driving home

“The truth,” he said in that phony innocent voice. “That’s all.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” I said. But it was that forced voice I always use when I’m telling the truth that makes people think I’m lying.

“Okay,” he said, then shifted gears and floored the gas pedal. The car zoomed to the bumper ahead of us, then he twisted the steering wheel and we flew across two lanes of traffic. “Tom, what are you doing? Stop it!” I started screaming. “You lying, two-faced bitch,” he said. “Tom, STOP IT! Slow down!” I was crying.

I don’t remember much after that. Just that he’d read my e-mail, sensing another opportunity to test me with unfounded jealousy, to see how far he could push me and still have me forgive him. He sent me repeated clues throughout the day, thinking he was so clever, so I knew something was coming, but was so powerless to stop it. We didn’t crash the car, but the rest of the evening consisted of him calling me names, saying I was two-faced for e-mailing another guy in another country. He was allowed to date a woman in the building because I’d made it clear that I wasn’t going to stick around; but I flirt over e-mail with someone an ocean away, and he gets the right to terrify me. It continued, as always, until I let him fuck me up the ass later that night in a gesture of forgiveness, that the next day would be the same as the day before—him with power over me calling it love, and me with nowhere to go.

Still, today, this is why the truth sends a poisoned arrow into my heart every time I hear it, over and over, never getting better.