Shattered Glass

Evidence of my escape clings to the hem of the once perfectly pure fabric. The cool dew and mud had tried to slow my racing feet, but I’d pressed on, ignored the grasping hands of the brush in the forest until I came to the glass lake. Jagged stones dig into my bare feet as I stand at the water’s edge.

The still silver lake stands as a mirror to the tree line beyond the bank. The closest line of trees is dark, the color of night caught in the branches of the pines that stand resolute. The banks further off are clouded by a soft sheet of fog that hides the deep blues and grays of the surrounding forest. The very tips of the trees are lost in the single cloud that swallowed the sky. It was soundless there. Not even the creatures of the forest dare to rustle the branches around them.

I take a breath and step forward. The instant my feet touch the water the pressure of the anxiety lessens. It doesn’t disappear, but the pain isn't holding on as tightly. It’s as if my muscles had been clenched for days, weeks, months, years even, and the instant the icy water collides with my skin, they release. A tear slides from my eye. It had been years since I felt so weightless. My lips slightly part, I suck in a deep breath allowing the healing hands of the breeze to fill me. To reach inside and touch every part of my aching body.

A soft breeze presses the water closer to me. As the gentle caress of the water dips above my ankles I hear your voice. I hear the first words you ever said to me: you’re safe now. How wrong you were.

I wasn’t able to see you from where I gripped the rail that lined the elevator I was trapped in. My knuckles turned white. I heard your words and immediately felt a sense of relief. The floor of the elevator was just above your head. All you could see were my feet, wedged into the four-inch maroon heels I’d worn that day. As best as I could in my tight skirt, I crouched down. The movement made my heart race until I could see your helmet through the small gap. You told me you would rescue me. I trusted you. You coaxed me like a stray cat until I found the strength to move to the door and slide into your arms. Smoke and sweat invaded my nose where you pressed me into yourself.

I told my father about you the instant I got back to my apartment. He laughed and I could imagine him on the front porch of that little farmhouse with the red front door. I always had a heart for the romance novels he had told me. My beloved girl, he said to me, a smile on his lips.

Thinking back, I don’t know if it was the emotional rush of that day or your handsome, if not slightly crooked smile, that veiled me from seeing the heartless man who stepped into my life. But whatever it was, I was blinded to the path you led me down.

The icy lake no longer stings my feet and I dare to walk further into the cleansing water. I release the dress from my clenched palm and the water engulfs it. It floats around me, creating a barrier. I can now see the rips from the hands of the brush, places where nature had worked its way into the fine handspun lace. My veil had been secured in my midnight hair but had caught on a branch somewhere along the way. I hadn’t stopped. A weight on my left hand draws my attention.

Atop my fingers, it doesn’t sparkle. There’s no sun to bring the stone to life. Without thinking, I pull it from my finger and I let it fall from my grasp into the glassy lake. It joins the other rocks, a rare treasure among the common stones.

The water touches my hips now. I feel it relieving the pressure of the bruises there. I shiver. You gave them to me last night.

I’m not sure why we even had a rehearsal our group was so small, only a few of your friends. I had no one to invite. Looking back, I vividly saw every moment you pushed the people I once loved out of my life. Picking me up early from brunch with the girls. Not letting me go on weekend getaways. You even closed my social media accounts. I didn’t see what you were doing, not even when you pushed my father from my life, or rather, convinced me to push him away. From my mouth spewed insults and hatred that you placed there. You said you were the only one I needed, and I believed you. It hurt how easily you isolated me. I’m ashamed of how long it took me to notice.

Last night, I hadn’t wanted to stay. You were drunk. I left. You followed. I didn’t fight you when you grabbed my hips.

I stopped fighting you a long time ago. I tried for so long to hold onto the man who had rescued me. But so easily that man slipped away until I no longer recognized the man who lay beside me. For months I denied what everyone else saw. In truth, I helped you push them away. And when my eyes were opened to the truth of who you were, there was no one left to pull me out of the burring house I willingly locked myself inside of.

I remember the day I stopped fighting.

I’d finally been assigned lead on a case at the firm. My bag was weighted down with the files and a list of briefs that were close to deadlines. Your eyes were fixed on the game, I don’t remember who was playing, a pile of empty beer cans beside you. I’m hungry, you said without breaking eye contact with the commentator. I didn’t respond, just dove into my work. I was excited for the first time in months. I finally had something I could be proud of. I wasn’t a failure. For months you had jarred me on how worthless I was. You told me that I was just eye candy for the courtroom. But at that moment, I was succeeding.

The slap held so much power and anger behind it I fell from the chair. I heard the rip of fabric as I tried to catch myself. I wasn’t fast enough. The force of my head hitting the floor gave me a concussion. You told the doctors I tripped. I didn’t correct you. It wasn’t the first time I was in the hospital for a fall, and I’d long since learned it was easier to let you tell the stories. It lessened your anger later.

I got a call from my office a week later that informed me they terminated my employment. They needed someone who was dedicated, someone who didn’t miss so many days of work.

I was completely shut off from the world.

The water lapping at my chest does nothing to still the racing heart that beats inside me. The once free-flowing lace now clings to me weighed down by the water. My quick determined steps from this morning were now slow and heavy.

It had been my father’s words that finally made me run from you. Deep down I’m sure you knew and it was why you worked so hard to push him from my life. I was surprised you had allowed him to come.

You picked up my phone when it rang, the jingle cut into the silence we had slipped uncomfortably into. Reluctantly, you handed the phone to me and told me to make it quick. I tried to move to the bedroom but you stopped me. To anyone who looked in our window at the crumbling apartment, our embrace probably looked romantic. A man kindly held his girlfriend around the waist. We had a different perspective.

I pressed the phone close to my ear so you couldn’t hear. Never once had he been unkind towards you, but there was a warning in his voice as he asked me to come home. He said he missed me and my smile. You stepped closer, your arm around my chest, it pressed me closer so you could listen. I knew what you wanted me to do, so I did it. I told him I didn’t need him. I told him that for years he had stifled me from being who I wanted to be. I told him that I hated the rules he had made me follow when I was a girl and how it was his fault I was gone. In the end, I uttered the words, and at that moment, I believed them. I told my father I hated him.

Because of that, I prepared my heart for the painful words my father would throw. I was ready for the arrows to pierce my chest. Yet, despite the words I’d thrown at him, the ones I now know you said through me, he had come. He had come with love still burning in his heart for me. There he was. Standing in front of me with joy in his eyes at seeing me once again. My father’s voice was filled with love.

Beloved, come home, he said.

A small flicker of heat washed over me to think that maybe, my father had come to fight for me. Had you known it was the forgiveness in his eyes that made me run, would you have fought harder to keep him away? That’s why you kept me from him all these years, wasn’t it? You knew that even though I was a shell of the woman I once was, my father would still love me. But if he knew what I’d done, the truth of the woman I’d become...

My body grew so frigid in the water I can no longer feel my toes as they scrape along the rocky floor. Numb like I’d been until that morning. I barely register the large rock until I stood on top of it. My shoulders come out of the water. I shiver where the cool breeze traces its fingers along my damp skin.

You would know I’d left by now. I could barely breathe after the last time you caught me. A small glimmer of fear made me look over my shoulder, but the bank was empty. Would you catch me this time too? Would I survive?

In truth, I’m not sure if I will ever step out of this lake. I feel peace here.

It’s so still around me. A perfect mirror. I tuck the loose curls behind my ears as I look down. The girl who looks back at me shatters my heart. She is broken. I press my lips together, thinking of the woman I once had been. The last time I’d seen her, she had just unpacked her last box and stood, coffee in hand, looking out over the skyline at the city of opportunity. Her first day was coming and she imagined taking her place at the table in the expansive conference room. There would be eye rolls from some of the men there, but she would square her shoulders and prove to them that she belonged there. The woman who smiled at her reflection in that apartment had been strong. She had held fire, determination, and confidence behind her eyes.

The girl in the mirrored lake is nothing like that woman. She is tired. She is done fighting.

I bent my knees to submerge my body until only my head was above the water. The fabric of my dress was suffocating me, the high collar restricting my breathing.

The day I found the dress was lonely. When I arrived at the appointment, I was embarrassed to ask the salesgirl for a dress with a neckline and long sleeves. We planned a November wedding, but the sleeves weren’t for the cold. The girl had asked if I was waiting for anyone when I arrived alone, I said no and saw the pity in her expression. It wasn’t like I hadn’t called a few friends to join me, but I heard it in their voices, I pushed them too far away.

Subconsciously, my fingers move to the high neck now. My nails trace the lines your fingers imprinted there. I prayed they would have faded by now, but you insisted on deepening them. I swallow. The sound of ripping fabric echoes in the still valley bouncing off the mirror in front of me. I suck in a breath, the collar no longer restricting me, and the fridge air burns down my throat. I close my eyes, but still, with my throat now exposed to the crisp air, I feel the pressure of your body against mine and your warm intense breath on my neck. That hurt just as much as the realization that I was empowering you by hiding what you left behind.

With uncontrolled motions, I claw at the dress, the final piece of you. I rip the strands of the ruined dress from my body. Stepping out of the last bounds you placed on me. The once pristine, soft fabric was now completely destroyed. I lower my naked body back into the water crouching on the large rock. As the hands of the water grip my shoulders, a light rain began to fall. It was slow, the sound of each drop receiving its own moment to exist and be known. A slow symphony each note calming in my ears.

I look behind me. Scraps of the dress float back to the shoreline, and there, covered in a sheet of thick fog a dark figure stands. You came for me, but I have no intentions of returning to you. The strands of my hair flare out like snakes swimming around me as I turn away from you. I’m not afraid. I don’t know fear any longer.

I am ready to end my suffering and close off the life of the broken girl who I became. I step from the rock and the water swallows me. For a moment, everything was still. My mind releases the memories that haunt me. Your face is no longer etched into my vision. I am completely and utterly alone in the darkness.

I am about to allow the water to take me as an offering, to let go of all the pain and trials I’d walked through. Then I hear it. From nowhere, and yet somehow from everywhere, the sound echoes in the water. A voice. Strong and without hesitation. It commands a single word, and I realize it isn’t you on the shoreline at all.

Beloved.

Until this moment, as the water is pressing in around me, I truly believed I wanted to end my life. But the moment I hear my father’s voice call out to me, I realize ending my life was never my intention. I don’t want to die. What I want is to kill the darkness you created inside of me. I want to kill every lie you ever made me believe about myself. Every word of degrading description you uttered towards me, every time you made me feel less than worthy of existence. I want to kill the feeling of your touch along my skin. I want to remove every scar, every mark, and every memory of you.

My feet find the bottom of the lake and I press upward. I walked into the mirrored lake believing it would reflect the lies you told me. Believing it would reinforce the image of myself I saw reflected in your eyes. And it did. It was my father, the man who knew me better than anyone else, who loved so unconditionally, who reminded me who I truly am. In a single word, he destroyed your lies. I am his beloved.

No longer surrounded by stillness but enflamed with determination. A spark flares inside me as the heat spreads. I crash through the surface of the lake shattering the glass. Shattering the image of that lost girl I rise from the water. The chains which held me down, the ones you placed on me, were broken, lost in the deep. No longer was I bound by you or to you.

I take in a breath, filling my lungs with new life. My old self is gone. I am a new creation.