SHAY: She met him at orientation. She’d just started her job on the front desk at the women’s shelter, which meant she finally had a nine-to-five and could go to school events. Figures—the one time she actually participates, she leaves with a date.
JAMIE: Why didn’t you tell me? Now I have to go back and reexamine all my memories.
SHAY: My mom was excited because he was different from the men she usually dated. He had a decent job, he was clean-cut, everyone in Heller knew him. From the beginning, she was dreaming about getting married and living in one of those ranch houses, like your family.
But I hated him. He would make comments about what she was wearing, how cheap it looked, how she spackled on makeup. When he came over, he expected us to entertain him, do a whole song and dance. He’d get annoyed if we didn’t have plans for dinner, or the drinks he liked in the fridge. And my mom was never smart enough. She used improper grammar, pronounced words wrong. Her accent was embarrassing. She didn’t go to college, and he’d joke she was no more educated than his students. My mom would laugh, but I knew better.
He tried doing it to me, too—picked apart what I was reading, told me I wasn’t witty because I was quiet. Soon, the last place I wanted to be was home. I had the pageants, which was good. Practicing meant a lot of time away. And then I started cheering, which Heller High took very seriously.
JAMIE: It being East Texas and all.
SHAY: So that was another escape. And to fill the rest of the time, I went to your house.
JAMIE: Wait. That’s why you came over so much?
SHAY: It saved me. But I couldn’t avoid him at school. Before him, English was my favorite subject.
JAMIE: Yeah. When I picture you, I picture your nose in a book.
SHAY: He could tell I hated him, and he kept trying to needle me in class. He graded my papers harsher than anyone else’s. Called on me to answer questions and then tore apart what I said, in front of everyone. It was humiliating.
JAMIE: That day in class we were talking about The Thousand and One Nights, I knew you’d read it and had plenty to say, because we’d done our homework together and you wouldn’t shut up about Scheherazade and murderous kings. But when Trevors asked you a question, you went mute. No matter what he said, you wouldn’t answer.
SHAY: He sent me to the principal’s office. I got my first detention.
JAMIE: I remember being so confused about why you were being stubborn. Why not just say something and avoid trouble?
SHAY: I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. One night sophomore year, my mom came home while I was cleaning up after dinner. She tried to sneak past me to the stairs, but I had this feeling, so I followed her. When I saw her face, I swear to god, part of me wasn’t surprised.
Her nose and mouth were bloody. You could see where she’d tried to wash it away, but her skin was pink and streaky, so it looked even worse. She had a fresh black eye.
JAMIE: He hit her?
SHAY: I know that’s how I should’ve reacted. But she’d been dating him for a year—a whole year of escalation and excuses. She stood there in the living room, looking at me with tears in her eyes, and I could’ve comforted her. I could’ve done what she’d never done for me and reversed the cycle. But instead, I said, “I told you a million times to break up with him.”
She started crying. She lifted her arms, like I would hug her, but all I felt was this…repulsion. I said, “You work at a domestic violence shelter, Mom. How could you let this happen?”
She said, “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me. He just—”
That’s when I charged her and said, “Tell me you’re not making excuses for him. I knew you were weak, but I didn’t realize you were actually pathetic.”