No Spare Key

Chap 29 😰

Julia and I were just laying in bed, seemingly calm and collected reading through baby books when she asks "How can you tell the difference between paranoia and a gut feeling?"
I look over to her confused and ask "Why?"

"When I was with Jeff I always felt this...insecurity about him. How can you tell if it's paranoid thoughts or a genuine gut feeling to their bullshit." She looks over at me like I was this ancient, wise sage ready to give her all the answers.

"...Paranoia is loud. Paranoia is someone constantly screaming in your ear saying oh my god but what if-. It's someone constantly harassing you and annoying you. A gut feeling however isn't loud at all, it doesn't need to be. It's just present. It's this sick, nauseating, sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Like swallowing a pill dry and feeling the burn when it's starts to dissolve. The aftertaste of that bitter bitch of a pill is concentrated denial, because obviously you don't want to believe you're that fucking stupid. That you couldn't even fulfill the basic requirement of choosing a partner that wouldn't stab you in the back, that you're incapable of choosing someone who can do the absolute bare minimum. So you ignore the new attitude they've taken with you, you ignore the fact that they'll go hours or days without really talking to you, the constant irritation they seem to feel when they are and the guilty look they get on their dumb fucking faces when you ask them point blank what's wrong. You'll even ignore how they smile and giggle like a damn kindergartner when they're on their phones and you'll act like it doesn't bother you when they don't show you what they're looking at, you'll overlook the weird reddish purple marks on their neck or chest or stomach or legs that conspicuously look like hickies but don't be stupid, of course they're not hickies, you'll pretend you didn't see that name pop up on their screen or how quick they went to reach for it to cover it up, you'll act like all of this is totally normal and it'll be like someone constantly knocking at the front door and slowly it'll get louder and louder and louder until you can't act deaf to it anymore. You know what they're doing, you know this is eventually going to come flooding out but you're still procrastinating D-Day. You're hoping that if you ignore it all they'll, with time, stop doing it and you can pretend it never even happened, but you know that's not what's going to happen. You know they're not going to stop. Why would they? The situation works perfectly for them. So, that deep, gross feeling persists until the bomb drops. You get some screenshots in a DM from some ghost account, you get all the dirty details that you didn't ever want to know, someone from the neighborhood takes pity on you, puts you out of your weird purgatory misery and straight up tells you, you find out by them telling you in your face what they've been doing and how much they don't or do regret it. It really doesn't matter how it happens, but it does. It always does. It's weird actually, as annoying and loud as insecurity and paranoia is and as crazy as the 'not knowing' makes you, at least it's consistent. But the psyche, she'll be heard the easy way, with the little knocks and the deep sinking feeling or she'll be heard the hard way. But she'll be heard, because you know already. You know."  I respond, looking in her direction but not focusing my eyes on anything in particular.  I hear the sounds of the clock ticking, the sound of the cold wind outside the open window, the the breathing, both hers and mine, but all I can think about are the memories from when Wyatt would gaslight me. 

   "I think I understand." Julie says quietly, after a moment. "I could never feel comfortable with Jeff.  Like, I always had to be on guard.  Obviously the hitting wouldn't help, but it went beyond that.  Anytime he'd go out I'd be scared.  Scared for him and what might happen to him.  Scared of him and what he might do once he got home if he had a bad time while he was out.  Scared of what or who he might be doing out there that could hurt me, because I didn't feel like he ever thought of me in any real way.  I was his.  Like a pair of shoes or a plate or chair.  I served a purpose.  Actually, I served many.  I gave him sex of course, but I also cooked his meals, did his shopping, cleaned his house, held back his stupid dreads whenever he'd come home drunk and throwing up, listen to him bitch and moan about how bad his childhood was, waited on his gross out mother and sister, who could never be bothered to lift a finger.  Why would they?  If I didn't do what they told me, Jeff would hit me."