Dealing

It's fucked up how much one little incident can change things so much. It's been a long couple weeks, I've been avoiding thinking or even talking about how bad things were between Sara and me.

Hell I've been avoiding everything, I work, I sleep. That's about all I've done since that morning. I know most people don't think I have anything to feel sorry about but you weren't there, you didn't see the horror in her eyes, you didn't hear the pain in her voice. None of you know the extent of what she went through, I didn't even know.

I still don't know all of it but the little things I found out while I was feeling sorry for myself made me realize that I'm probably the only guy Sara has ever met - besides Billy, who doesn't count because let's face it, he's gay and not into Sara like I am - who hasn't abused her in some way. Even her fucking father was an abusive son of a bitch! I know Sara told me before that he was abusive but she didn't tell me the whole story, she didn't tell me just how badly he fucked her up.

I bet you'll never guess where I found out the extent of how much of a bastard her father was. From her mother. That's right, Sara's mom called me a couple nights ago; she told me that she was really worried about Sara, she seemed to withdraw from everyone around her. I guess she was doing the same thing that I was, except she wasn't sleeping or eating at all.

"I don't know what to do with her Tanner," her mother was crying by this time. "Sara tells me that everything is fine but she's not. I don't know what happened, she seemed to be doing so much better but now..." she sobbed. "I don't want to lose my daughter."

This did nothing to help me, in fact it made me feel like more of a prick. "I'm sorry," I told her mom. "I wish there was something I could do but this is all my fault." I knew I shouldn't but I told her what happened between Sara and I. "I'm sorry," I repeated once I was done.

"It's not your fault Tanner," her mother tried to reassure me but she might as well talk to the wall. "Sara has always found it hard to trust men," she went on to tell me more detailed stories about the abuse both of them suffered at the hands of the monster she married. I'm not going to go into them just because the stories make my blood run cold. I will tell you, if the bastard wasn't already dead, I would have hunted him down and killed him.

"I'm to blame," she said through her tears, "I wasn't strong enough to leave him, I was afraid that he would kill me and then what would have happened to Sara? I know it's my fault Sara is so messed up, it's my fault she got into the relationship with Ken. It's my fault she stayed as long as she did, I told her that was normal. It was love."

"That's fucked up!" I snapped at her. "Beating the crap out of someone isn't love, it isn't normal! You never should have stayed with her father and Sara shouldn't have been with the bastard as long as she was!"

"I know!" She sobbed. "But she was stronger, she got out."

There were so many things I wanted to say to her mother. I wanted to tell her that it didn't matter if Sara got out or not, she was still mentally under his control, even if she was trying to fight it.

And she was trying to fight it, that much I knew. But how long would it take to beat it?

Last night I was going through the motions at work. I didn't really want to be there, not with Sara still acting cold towards me. Sure she would speak to me in passing but it was nothing like she used too.

I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter to me but it did. I hated being ignored, I said that before but being ignored was nothing compared to being left out of a circle that I used to belong too. Being at work had shifted back to what it was like when I first started, I was on my own.

I didn't think others noticed but apparently they did, Crazy decided that she was going to try again, she was going to try to be my 'friend'...