"You…you made me do it!"
Reyona shook her head to herself as she thought of what happened the night before. She still couldn't believe that the man she thought she knew was so different from the man that Thomas had become.
She thought of the fact that he might have been like that all along while he had successfully hidden it from her, just like everything else. She berated herself for having been a fool, all in the name of love and acceptance. She wondered how many other things she did not know about him that she was wrong about.
She never believed that the Thomas that she knew would touch a woman with violence, whether under the influence or not.
"That shows how naive and unaware you have truly been in this marriage," she muttered to herself in the confines of her car. Her lips curled in a bitter smile. She drew in a sharp breath as the stiff, pain-filled side of her face protested.
Reyona flipped down the rearview mirror to look at her face. She was satisfied by what she saw, and she knew that she was not looking at how she felt at all.
"That is a good thing," she muttered to herself as she checked the card she had kept on the passenger's seat earlier. She nodded to herself as she looked up at the road ahead of her and muttered to herself, "The right turn coming up."
Reyona turned at the next intersection, and she knew that she would soon be at her destination.
Once she set out that morning, she heaved a sigh of relief, and she finally admitted to herself that a part of her had been scared that she wouldn't see the plan through.
"No going back now," she thought to herself when she saw the brown-painted, nondescript building she was headed for just a few distances away.
Her mind went back to the night before, after what her mind had simply dubbed the incident happened.
Thomas had looked at her and then at his hand in shock, as if he were sure that the hand belonged to him. Then, after a pause where Reyona herself was still recovering, he yelled, "You made me do it!" he rolled off her and rolled to the rug with his hand slung over his eyes as he muttered under his breath over and over again "You made me do it. You caused it."
In no time, the litany had been replaced by his snore as he lay there on the rug. Reyona couldn't believe that he had bruised her face, and he was sleeping peacefully as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary. She lay there for a while as hot tears leaked out of the sides of her eyes. Her mind was blank, and nothing was staying put at all as she stared at the intricate pattern of the home she had once thought was borne of love. Her tears increased as she lay there. Fat tears rolled out of her eyes as she kept staring at a certain spot without having any cognitive recognition of what she was looking at.
His snore was momentarily stopped as he muttered in his sleep and turned. His hand fell heavy against her midriff, knocking her breath out of her the second time as she was startled out of her no-thoughts limbo.
Reyona had no idea how many minutes or hours had passed since she lay there subconsciously listening to the snore of the man who had shattered her dream.
She finally stood up gingerly, ignoring the way her skin felt tight and achy at the side where he hit her as she went to the bathroom. She stood with a blank expression on her face in front of the bathroom mirror, as she could see the way the bruise was already darkening on that part of her face. He did not pull back on the punch at all. Her husband had hit her with the full force of his fist, and Reyona could see the impact it was already having on her rosy, creamy skin.
She emotionlessly moved away from the mirror after a while and got into the shower, fully clothed. She turned on the shower jets on full blast, turning the knob until freezing, cold water started spewing on her. In no time, her clothes were drenched, and her hair was laid flat against her scalp under the relentless spray of the cold water. Reyona closed her eyes tightly as she leaned her head back to better have the water beat on the bruise, her throat, and the breast that he had held tightly earlier in his attempt to grope her.
Minutes later, after stepping out of the shower without feeling any better inside, apart from the physical sign of her skin turning blue, she stripped herself naked. Leaving all her soggy clothes on the floor, she went to the room and crawled on the bed without drying her hair, and she lay there with her eyes open throughout the night.
She was up at dawn the following morning, and she dressed up immediately. Thomas was still asleep when she came to the living room, and she didn't spare him a look as she went out. After a quick message to her secretary asking her to cancel all her meetings for the day, she set out for the task she had not thought she would be going out for that morning as she lay alone and cold on the bed that she had once believed was filled with love.
She looked at the card in her hand before dropping it on the passenger's seat as she set out on her journey.
She parked her car in the building parking lot and looked up to see the sign for Gibson & Gibson Law Firm.
"There are two of them?" she thought to herself as she walked through the screen door that a doorman opened for her into a grey-decorated lobby with comfortable-looking chairs that begged a tired client to have a good rest while waiting for either of the Gibsons to answer them.
"Good morning, ma. You are welcome." A young lady said as she stood up from behind the glossy front desk that mingled and blended well with the decor.
Her chirpy disposition seemed off to Reyona, and she was panicked for the moment when the lady's gaze sharpened on hers and she gave Reyona an intent look.
Reyona thought for a moment if her camouflage did not work, as she had watched online that morning on how to cover up bruises with makeup. She followed the technique religiously after watching three videos, and she knew that she did a great job. All she had to do was let down her hair and let it down through the side of her face, which was already dark with bruises by that morning.
She had double-checked before leaving the house and even checked in the car again. She wondered how the lady had seen it and if she could see it. Did that mean that every other person could too?
The doorman? Those seated in the lobby?
Panic set in, and Reyona almost bolted when she thought of what could happen if a picture of her was taken with a big, fat bruise on her face. What would she say? She had already ignored Toria's call about three times that morning just because of that.
And now…