Mother, Him and An Ex Lover

An Ex Lover

About 10 minutes after talking about my mother Dean asked if there was more. And if it involved more than just my mother and Frank. I tell Dean to give me a few minutes and I go to my room in the bunker, finding what I was looking for. I return to my seat to tell Dean everything he wants to know about Xavier Roberts is in that shoebox. But before I allow him to look through one of the most private times of my life I tell him that I want to explain who Xavier Roberts is.
"His name is Xavier. He was my most serious boyfriend. He was everything I thought I wanted. But he was a very dangerous man. He hit me, beating me repeatedly for the 2 years we were together and to this day I can still hear the yelling and things breaking. I can hear him calling me a faithless whore even though I was nothing but faithful to him.
I can hear him screaming at me at the top of his lungs that I'm worthless as he hits me over and over again.
I've never seen anyone get as angry as Xavier and his rage, his rage was overwhelming. He'd zero in on the weakest parts. He dismantled it piece by piece until there's nothing left. I look back at it and I'm horrified that I put up with it, that I rationalized it. I stayed with him and I let it happen over and over again!
The same vicious cycle! Bloody and bruised. I almost died twice. It's been 2 years and I haven't touched a man since."

I then give Dean the box to open. Dean pulls out the first of many files and examines the graphic pictures.
After noting the pictures, he quickly reads through the file, he puts it down and asks "Why'd you stay"? Dean asked, masking the emotion from his face.
"I told you, I tried to rationalise it, I tried to convince myself that the good is suppose to outweigh the bad, only to realize there was nothing good left in that relationship"
Watching me closely,Dean then asks me if I thought I deserved to be treated the way Xavier treated me. I tell him no to which he says "good, don't let anyone tell you any differently"
"Dean, there's more I have to tell you about my relationship with Xavier. There's more in the box." I say to Dean, who then pulls out another file that reveals that I  was severely abused and admitted into the hospital for a second time, also enclosed in the file are more pictures, an x-ray, doctor notes and records of an abortion. Dean looks to my face, then down to my stomach, then back to my face. I start to explain.

"Before i found out I was pregnant I threw myself into hunting. Haley wasn't hunting because of Ariana but she is one of the best researchers I know. Haley was never much of a fighter but she's smart, brilliant even, she knows stuff that most people would consider useless, she's never been to college and she got her GED not to long after she got sick but you wouldn't know it with an IQ of 174. But she's a damn good hunter. I never once doubted her. And I'll be there if she chooses to hunt full time again.
Xavier was only in prison for a couple of weeks when Jenny, Haley and I found out I was pregnant. They saved my life during that time. They knew I didn't want a child then. They knew I especially didn't want Xavier's child. So Haley did what she did best. She threw herself into researching the best clinic's in New York, she wouldn't accept anything less than the best for me no matter the cost. The clinic she found was at least an hour away from our house and with ID's and information in hand, Jenny gave me the cash I needed for the abortion and Haley drove me, holding my hand for the entire appointment.
Jenny knew what I needed. What Haley needed. She knew that Haley wasn't in a good place with Ariana's death.
So she gave us the money we needed to live comfortably and convinced us to pack up our lives and move to Kansas. She told us to never look back unless its to see how far we've come"

After I run out of words, Dean speaks up, asking me exactly what I need to hear at the moment, something simple, a way of accepting my past.
"What do you say we get out of here? There's a bar not to far away from here that serves decent tequila and cheeseburgers. It's only about a 10 minute walk"
"I'm always up for tequila and cheeseburgers" "Then let's go" Dean replied.
Dean gets up and tosses our bottles in the trash, also putting the unopened bottles in the fridge, then gathering his cellphone and his wallet after checking how much cash was in it and then putting them in his pocket. I get up from my seat, going to stand in from of him. "Thank you" I say to him.
Dean looks at me confused. "For what"? He asked "For not looking at me like I'm fragile when I'm one of the strongest people you know"

"Maybe that's what love is. Giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting them to heal you instead"