She sat there trying to figure out what was going on. It was all so much like a puzzle. The pieces, somehow, didn’t seem to fit. She looked around at the large closet that was almost as big as the bedroom in her first apartment. Only weeks ago, she felt like she was sitting on top of the world; now she wasn’t so sure. She remembered her excitement when she gave the decorator her specifications for the extravagant closet; the white bench with the gold embroidered seat, the expensive vanity table and row upon row of glass shelving, along with the plush carpeted floor. She never knew she would spend her wedding night curled up on the floor in that very same closet.
While she sat there trying to organize her jumbled thoughts, she could feel his presence on the opposite side. She almost thought she could hear him breathing and wondered if he would simply get sick and tired of pleading with her to open the door and eventually knock it down altogether. Every now and then he would turn the knob. She assumed he was hoping to find it unlocked. Just when she thought things were returning to some semblance of normalcy, he began pounding on the door and kicking it.
Damita winced when he started pounding at the door once again.
“Damita, I’m trying my very best to be patient! Open this fucking door!”
She was afraid to answer him and instead clasped her ears with her hands, hoping to block out all sound.
He finally calmed down and once again spoke to her in measured deliberate tones. “Damita, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I’ve been down this road before. I so wanted things to be different with us. You’re mine. I can’t stand the thought of sharing you with someone else. I won’t.
“I watched him all night; your friend, Brandon. It was like he was taunting me. He was laughing and smiling all night. At one point he even approached me and told me what a great girl I was getting. He acted as though it was some sort of inside joke we both shared. Did you sleep with him? I have to know because it’s eating me up inside.”
It went on like that for hours.
In her entire life a man had never hit Damita. She had always had the common sense to leave if she had even an inkling that it might get to that point. However, she had been in enough dysfunctional relationships to know the signs and all logic indicated this was heading down a bad road. Her tears still falling, she listened as he volleyed back and forth between being apologetic and on the cusp of violent rage. She knew she should open the door and run at breakneck speed until she was gone, but something kept her rooted to the spot. She was powerless to do anything but listen to Neal rant and rave. Eventually, she was so exhausted that she managed to completely tune him out. Huddled in a corner on the floor, she cried herself to sleep.
While Damita slept fitfully locked inside of a closet, Neal stewed on the other side, waiting for the moment when the door would open. He had no interest in sleep. He was keyed up and anxious to resume where he left off.
• • •
It was nearly seven in the morning when Damita awakened. She looked around, frowning, then winced when she felt the split in the corner of her mouth. Without a window or clock she wasn’t even sure what time of the day it was. She could hear Neal pleading outside the closet door to let him in. This time, instead of yelling and screaming, he spoke barely above a whisper.
“Please, baby, I need you to open the door. The police are here.”
Disoriented and still wearing her wedding dress, she suddenly remembered what happened the night before. Glancing at the full-length mirror, she could see that there were bloodstains on her mother’s beautiful wedding dress. It occurred to her that it was the same dress she had told Carmella she might like to one day pass on to her own daughter, if she ever decided to have children. It was the same dress her mother was wearing when she’d married Damita’s father. Her father had always been her ideal of what a man should be. All she ever wanted was to be lucky enough to have the same sort of marriage her parents had enjoyed for over four decades. That dress was now tainted with so much more than a few blood stains. She realized she would never be able to look at that dress the same again and wondered how she would explain any of this, including the dress, to her mother.
“Damita, I’m afraid if you don’t open the door soon, the police are going to bust in here with their guns drawn.”
Damita could sense Neal’s attempt at levity in his voice. The forced chuckle he added was unconvincing.
She exited the closet and glanced meekly at Neal. The bloody dress forgotten, she walked into the living room and toward the front door of the apartment.
“Wait!” Neal cautioned.