But Inside I'm Screaming by Elizabeth Flock Page A

before David stormed out of the truck he drove, he punched the seat in frustration. But he missed the seat and caught Isabel’s leg instead. Later, when Isabel was alone, she tried to reconstruct the scene to figure out how it was that he punched the side of her leg instead of the seat and couldn’t. So she bought David’s explanation of a misdirected right hook and let it go. The mark had been easy to cover up, since her school uniform hit her just below the knee. But her mother noticed the bruise on this particular day because she had a tennis match and her game uniform was short.
    Dating David was like being caught in a light spring drizzle. At first the infrequent drops of water are cool, refreshing even. Isabel had never had a man wanting, almost needing, to know everything about her. She reveled in this newfound attention. It no longer mattered when her father missed a play—David was there. When her father canceled dinner plans, David was there, ready to whisk her out for pizza. But the drizzle that had been light ultimately soaked Isabel to the bone.
    David told Isabel his father had given his mother six stitches on their honeymoon. Though it horrified her, Isabel was strangely drawn to this troubled guy who had had to grow up so fast. She loved feeling needed: his insatiable fascination with the wholesomeness and stability she represented was intoxicating for her. It became an addiction for both of them. David’s sad stories about his family, the hardships he had to endure, and the pain he was in as a result, touched Isabel in a profound way. To David, Isabel’s home life was idyllic and dangled in front of his desperate eyes like a carrot in front of a hungry rabbit.
    But love only fed the flame on the slow burn that was David’s anger. Over time he tired of having his face pressed up against the glass and his anger turned to bitter resentment. She began feeling the heat of David’s hate directed at her. Isabel began to represent all that had been denied him.
    Isabel was shocked the first time he hit her, but David was sufficiently apologetic and all was soon forgotten.
    The next time the slap was backhanded, with more force. And then, mixed in with apologies was subtle blame: I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I love you, I’m sorry, but you did twist my wrist backward when we were wrestling and it hurt like hell. But I’m sorry. Please forgive me.
    It was ingenious: slowly but surely David was making Isabel feel she deserved to be hit.
    Isabel withdrew from her friends and allowed her relationship with David to consume her. The bruises became a part of who she was and she made an unsettled peace with it.
     
    “Now, Keisha, I know you are getting ready to leave and I want you to know that we here in the group support you and wish you well. Does anyone have any parting words for Keisha?”
    “Bye, Keisha,” Ben dutifully replies.
    “Yeah, good luck,” Regina says.
    “We’re all pulling for you,” Kristen chimes in.
    Isabel doesn’t say anything. Instead, when the session ends and before Keisha stands up to go, Isabel moves to the seat next to her.
    “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she says.

Twenty-Three
     
    “W hat are you thinking about, Isabel?”
    She looks up.
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing?”
    “Yeah. Nothing.”
    “Your mind is blank, then,” Dr. Seidler prods.
    “No.” Annoyed, Isabel answers as though she is explaining something to a child. “I’m thinking of nothing. I have nothing. There’s nothing in my life, not one living thing. My plant was the only living thing in my life that was still mine and I came back from my last out-of-town trip and there it was, all shriveled up. Dead. The perfect metaphor, really. When you think about it.”
    The tears that had been balancing precariously on her lower eyelids finally push past the dam and make tracks down her hot cheeks.
    “Are you thinking about suicide, Isabel?” Her doctor looks earnest, concerned.
    “Yes. If you must