Trying
To look at her, one would think that her boyfriend had indeed slapped her, instead of just admitting to an urge to. Nick stood before her now, no longer displaying any of the conflicting emotions that had riddled his face only moments earlier. He had made no attempt to move toward her, probably fearing that even the most well-intentioned approach would result in an explosion of violence.
"So you . . ." Terry gulped. "You're trying not to hit me right now."
"I'm trying." The strain was again visible on his face. "Please, you have to believe that I'm trying. Fuck, I don't want to hurt you."
"He is trying," admitted Terry's best friend, Bridget Simon. "He was beating me twice a day by this point in our relationship."
"Shut up, whore," snarled Nick.
"But I'm standing up for you!" Bridget turned to Terry. "Don't let the way he treats me be any indication of how he'll treat you. I'm just a thing from his past. He wants to try with you. He loves you."
"Why did you beat Bridget?" demanded Terry of Nick, softly, fearfully.
Nick was silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he confessed finally, his voice almost a whisper. "I just hated her back then."
"It was mutual," Bridget agreed. "I hit him just as often as he hit me. And usually, I was the one who started the fights. I hate to admit it, but I probably deserved every bruise he gave me. I thought it was okay for women to hit men, but not for men to hit women. But that's just stupid and sexist. In a weird way, I'm actually kind of glad he hit me back. At least he saw me as an equal."
"Are you sure that was it? Didn't he ever start the fights?" Terry questioned unsurely.
"Yeah, he hauled off and hit me before. But like I said, why was it okay for me to do it and not him? He started fights because I started fights. We just weren't good for each other," Bridget reasoned. "That was just how it was with us."
"But I don't want that to be 'how it is' with me!" cried Terry.
"It won't! Look. I promise, it won't." Now, Nick took a step in her direction, though still not daring to reach for her. "That was in the past, with Bridget. That wasn't us. That never has to be us. Look, I'm trying here, okay? I just need you to help me try."
"You shouldn't even want to hit me." As she said this, Terry's voice choked on a sob. "Oh, god. I can't do this. I can't spend every minute with you wondering if this'll be the day you haul off and hit me! And I can't go out with you knowing that you're only trying!"
"But I can't promise you anything better!" Nick's hands flew to his temples, his fingers sliding shakily into his blond hair. "I love you," he whispered, finally. "That's all I can say. I apologize in advance for anything I might ever do to you that's out of line. I'll try my hardest not to do anything like that, but—but if I fail somehow, I can only pray that you'll stay with me and that you'll know I always love you, no matter what I may do when I get out of control."
Terry swallowed hard, considering his words. Despite knowing that they came from his heart and that he spoke the truth to the best of his knowledge, she still feared him. He was eight inches taller and sixty pounds heavier than she was, and Terry suspected that since the two of them had yet to sleep together, he may try to or possibly even succeed in raping her. "Why don't you hit Bridget anymore?" she inquired, rubbing at her eyes with her fists.
Nick was silent for a long while. Realizing that her ex-boyfriend didn't intend to provide an answer, Bridget supplied, "I can tell you this much. When we were together, it felt like everything he did reflected on me, and when he did stupid things, I felt like he was tarnishing my name. I felt like I had to keep him in line, so that he didn't go out and humiliate himself, and me. But now that we're just friends, nothing he does . . ." She trailed off, unsure of how to complete her thought.
"Yeah," Nick admitted quietly. "That's sorta how it was."
"Now that we're just friends, his life and my life are separate," Bridget ended. "Whatever the hell he does is separate from me. People don't come up to me and ask about him."
Resolutely, Terry nodded. After hearing what she had just heard, she knew what she had to do. "Nick, I think we need to do that," she told him slowly. "Spend some time as friends. Keep our lives separate so that what I do doesn't reflect badly on you." A note of bitterness crept into her voice at this last point, and she knew he had detected it by the roll of his eyes and the frustrated sigh that burst from his lips.
"I didn't mean it that way. I'm not ashamed of you— Well, I'm not consciously— I can't help it, I don't want to feel that way— I know it's wrong to feel that way! That's why I'm going to the stupid psychiatrist. I want to change. I don't want to be the jerk I've turned out to be. I just want you at my side while I . . . god, I don't want to go through all this alone if you're not going to be waiting for me at the end with open arms."
"But it'll give you the incentive to change if you know I won't take you back otherwise," Terry pointed out. "Once you can prove to me that I'll always be safe from you. . . ."
Nick eyed the floor glumly. "So you'll be waiting at the end with open arms . . ."
"If you can change for the better," finished Terry.
"That's all the incentive I need."
Nick leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. He understood and grimly accepted her choice, having known at the start of the talk that this would be its most probable, and likely best, conclusion. He had lost the woman he loved, but their split only had to be temporary. For now, he finally knew that he, not everybody around him, had a problem, and he would do all in his power to see that problem positively solved. He would rid himself of his demons and free the man who had for so long lay dormant inside him.
He would do it for Terry. And not just for Terry, but for himself.