Free Catch My Fall by Michaela Wright

expletives. Only then did I realize I was tearing up – yes, again. Fuck!
    “I can’t help but feel like it is my fault.”
    Her expression went stony and for a split second I thought she might punch me. Still, she let me speak. I began to hear her words in my own mind, and I let myself recite them. “Ok, I know. Don’t blame the victim.”
    She rubbed my shoulder. She’d tried to get me to do this exercise over the past few weeks – remember the bad about the relationship so you can let go of it. Somehow, I’d found that chore impossible.
    “He was mean. When we fought, he didn’t get agitated or excited, he just walked away like I meant nothing, and I would have to go find him to fix things, even when it was his fault –“
    She nodded and gestured for me to go on.
    “He never let me keep my stuff at his house. He never let me decide the restaurant when we went to dinner, and we really didn’t have anything to talk about when we did. It was like those miserable middle aged couples who should be divorced, but they don’t have the balls to admit it -”
    “Right? Right? ”
    “He hated children. Said he’d rather die than be a father.”
    She threw her hands up. “Thank Christ that prick isn’t going to procreate!”
    “Whenever anyone made a comment about us getting married, he changed the subject, instantly. It was like he was offended by the prospect, I swear.”
    Meghan scowled. This was the longest she’d ever let me speak in our entire friendship.
    “He didn’t like my friends.” That comment inspired a raised eyebrow from Meghan, but still she didn’t speak. “He hated Stellan. We got into so many fights since I moved back home because I was spending time with Stell and – oh God.”
    Meghan’s expression went stern. “What is it?”
    I stared at the table, then at my hands. “I almost feel like a bad person for admitting this out loud -”
    I stopped.
    Meghan gestured for me to go on. “Honey, just say it. You’re not betraying the fuck bag, by any means.”
    I took a deep breath. This memory needed lead in, but the lead in? How could I betray this knowledge to anyone. I felt like I’d somehow become a bad girlfriend, and he’d been the one to cheat and abandon me. “He couldn’t always get it up,” I said, and exhaled. It felt like release to say it out loud. “And I did everything I could to make him feel better about it, but he would just push me away, tell me I’m obsessed with sex. Then he goes and has no problem fucking some other girl?”
    Meghan shook her head like a guest on the Maury Povich show. “Oh honey, no.”
    “I mean - it makes me think, was it me?”
    “No!”
    Finally, I was ready. I’d built up to it, letting it out, piece by piece, but now I was ready.
    “I was afraid to initiate sex. I was fucking afraid to ask for sex from my fucking boyfriend. I’m the most passionate person I know – no man has ever been able to keep up with me. I thought that made me a fucking treasure, but I would never even try because after we’d been together for just a few days, he decided he ‘wasn’t in the mood’ for the first time, and when I tried to get him in the mood, he pushed me away.”
    “What a cunt.”
    “He left bruises.”
    Meghan straightened in her seat, rage so clearly etched on her face, I feared she’d catch fire. “What?!”
    “I didn’t wear sleeveless shirts for a week after because I didn’t want anyone to ask how I got the bruises. It was fucking August.”
    She stared at me. She hadn’t known this fact. No one had. It had embarrassed me so desperately when it happened that I never wanted anyone to know about it. Now, it felt imperative to admit it to someone else. To be made to feel that unwanted – I’d never wish it on anyone.
    “You stayed with him.” Her tone was soft, almost disbelieving.
    “I took it to be my fault.”
    “I didn’t realize Cole was such a delicate flower.”
    Letting myself rage a moment was fueling