Dark Secrets(52)

"Babe," he said, ducking his head toward her as his hands went on her shoulders. "Take a fucking breath. And grab your jacket. It's November. You can't be going out in a goddamn tank top."



       
         
       
        

She felt her belly go a little melty at that, liking that he was trying to calm her down and liking it even more that he thought about little things like her not being cold.

"Okay," she agreed, stepping back and grabbing her jacket off the hook and shrugging into it.

Daniel reached out and grabbed the lapels, pulling her flush against him, his arms folding across her lower back. "Good morning," he said, giving her a small smile.

She laughed a little at that. "Good morning," she said back with a small smile.

"It sucks we didn't get to fuck before you had to run off, but have a good day. Teach those women to kick ass. I'll see you at work later."

Despite the fact that she had a strict "brush your teeth before kissing" rule, she planted her hands on his bare chest and leaned upward to press a sweet closed-mouth kiss on his lips.

"Okay. Now let me go," she demanded, but was a lot less frantic than she was a moment before.

He moved away from the door and let her go, patting her ass as she went past him.

She kept her cool until, say, halfway down the staircase where she remembered she had to be across town in under five minutes and no matter how fast and reckless her cabby drove, she was going to be a little late. So she flew down the stairs, threw herself into a cab, then ran into the women's shelter a mere six minutes late.

"Don't ask," she told the woman at the front desk as she rushed past, throwing her keys, wallet, and jacket on her desk for safekeeping, then going toward the back of the building where they kept a large common room that they usually had set up as an indoor gym for the kids over the winter.

All the plastic toys were pushed way back against the back wall and a smattering of women were gathered around, talking, laughing, looking at-ease.

All except one.

And it was a face that wasn't supposed to be there.

She wasn't supposed to be there because she had gotten back on her feet and gotten out a year before.

But judging by the very fresh bruises on her cheek and eye as well as the stitches through her lower lip, she hadn't gotten away from him permanently as Faith had been hoping.

Faith took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a minute, trying to keep down the burning rage that came along with seeing the aftermath of angry male hands on delicate female skin.

Maria was a product of her upbringing. She grew up with Mexican parents who had very traditional values on male and female roles. As such, she was never encouraged to pursue an education and was taught to value her husband's opinions over all others. So when, at first, the abuse started emotionally, verbally, just disappointment in her cooking and cleaning skills and, eventually, her mothering skills, she just tried to do better. She cleaned until her fingers bled. She cooked meals big enough to feed small armies. She took his mother's antiquated mothering advice and applied it to her children. 

By the time the physical abuse started, she thought so little of herself that she almost thought she deserved it. Almost.

But with a family that told her it was her responsibility to stay with her husband and therefore would not help her get free of him, no friends because he didn't allow her to have any, and three small children to think of with absolutely no money to her name and no way to break free, she stayed. And she endured.

It all stopped the first time she saw her husband backhand their four year old daughter for not cleaning up her older brother's toys. Then she heard her husband's sexist, hateful words coming out of her son's lips and she was done. She refused to continue the cycle- to tell her daughter it was okay for men to put their hands on her, to allow her son to turn into a bully, a brute, a little version of his father.

So he went to work one day and she ran to the shelter. She and her children had lived there for six months before Maria decided to take Faith's class. And she took it for over a year before she was finally able to afford an apartment and get her life on track.

Faith taught and got to know a lot of abused women, got to hear their awful stories on the daily, but there were always favorites.

And Maria was a favorite.

"Ria," she said, forcing a smile because the last thing the woman needed to see was disappointment on the face of someone she cared for. She had enough of that in her life.

"He found us," she said, shaking her head, the tears already stinging her eyes.