Taking Refuge
I stepped out of the airport and found myself under a blue, cloudless, and sweltering sky. Squinting to adjust to the brightness, I made my way to a bench and sank down onto it, clutching my luggage. I heaved out a sigh and leaned my head back, watching planes float down from the sky and glide across the runway. I had lost count of them by the time my sister Mira’s red Porsche Taycan rolled up to the pickup lane. She gave the horn a quick honk to get my attention, and I jumped and then rolled my eyes. Twenty-eight and single, Mira lived a lavish lifestyle, jet setting and buying herself luxury items with the money she earned at her cushy fashionista job. She was humble about it, though, and worked hard for everything she earned.
Mira hopped out of the car and walked around to the back, meeting me there in a tight hug.
“Hey, hon,” she said.
Her warmth had already brought me near the point of tears, but I had promised myself to hold it together at least until I got into the car.
“Hi, Mira. Thank you for doing this.” I broke her embrace to pick up my bags as Mira opened her trunk and began to help me. By the time we had finished dumping all the luggage in, we were both sweating. I had always been terrible about overpacking, and it didn’t help that I wasn’t planning on returning home.
I slid into the passenger seat and fiddled with the radio while Mira started the car. We hadn’t even made it past three gates before I began to cry.
“Oh, Jade, I’m sorry. It’s gonna be okay. Here, I have tissues in the glovebox.”
I fumbled through the glovebox as I blubbered, my vision obscured by tears. I blew my nose with a sound like a whale’s blowhole into one of the tissues.
“I just don’t understand. Why is it so hard? He didn’t love me. I know that. I’d have just been hurt if I stayed.”
Mira stared straight ahead as if the road would evaporate before her eyes if she dared let it leave her sight, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“You were already being hurt.”
“I know. I just meant it would have, like– it would have never ended.”
“You did the right thing, Jade. I promise you. I know it’s hard, but you’re gonna have to keep being strong. I’ll help you every step of the way.”
I nodded and blew into the tissue again.
“But you need to listen to me,” she said, her tone hardening. “I never want you to see him again. No matter what he says to you, he won’t change. If you let him convince you he will, you’ll just be miserable, and you’ll end up bruised and battered over and over again, or worse.”
I flinched and began to cry harder. Mira glanced at me for a quick second. Her eyes widened as she took in the harshness of her own words.
“Shit, I’m sorry. That was too far. I just hate that you went through that. I hate thinking about you there, with him, unsafe in your own home.”
“It’s okay. I probably needed to hear it.”
“I’m proud of you. I wish I’d been able to help you more. I knew he was a problem after that scene he made at my birthday dinner. I mean, you were literally just dancing and having fun. And to drag you by your arm like that? Absolutely not. I should have intervened. And I can’t believe I let you move. I-”
Her voice cut out as she got choked up.
“No. It’s not your fault. I got away. That’s all that matters now.”
I stared out the window as the memory of the night she’d described came back to me. I supposed I should have known then, too, but Mira had always been a better judge of character than I was. We rode in silence for a while until Mira spotted a Starbucks.
“How about a passion fruit tea? My treat,” she said.
“That sounds like exactly what I need right now,” I agreed.
Mira pulled into the drive through and ordered our usual drinks, then pondered the menu.
“And throw in a pink cake pop,” she added.
I sighed and smiled. I had a weakness for the cake pops, especially the pink ones, and Mira knew it. I couldn’t resist such sweet, delectable comfort at a time like this. We drove the rest of the way home in a calm silence, enjoying one of our playlists we’d assembled together over the years. I was feeling better by the time we pulled into her driveway, having polished off my cake pop and guzzled down half of my tea. Mira pulled her car into the garage, and I could hear her dog yipping from inside the house as soon as she turned the engine off.
“Lucy missed you,” she joked.
The French bulldog launched an all-out attack on my leggings as soon as I crossed the threshold of Mira’s house, clawing and gently nipping at me to try to take my attention away from the mountain of bags I was holding. I giggled and stumbled around as I tried to kick my sneakers off without dropping my bags, and Lucy decided the shoes were more interesting and began to chew on one of them.
“Ugh, Lucy! No! That is not a toy!” Mira groaned, shooing her away before turning to me with an apologetic glance. “Sorry, we’re still working on training. She’s stubborn.”
Just then, my phone began to buzz against my leg. My stomach dropped, and I could practically feel the color drain from my face. Though the screen was tucked away in my pocket, I didn’t need to check the caller ID to know who it was. I looked at Mira, pleading. She simply shook her head.
“Don’t answer it. As a matter of fact, turn it off.”
“But what if–”
“Turn your phone off for tonight. It’ll be okay. We’ll have mine if we need anything. Here, go put your stuff in the guest room. I was thinking we could just order a pizza for dinner and maybe watch some movies tonight?”
I nodded, swallowing a lump in my throat, and sauntered down a beautifully-decorated hallway to the guest room, which looked like it came out of Barbie’s Malibu Dreamhouse, where I finally set down all of my things. Mira came in behind me to drop off the rest of it, placing a gentle hand on my back once she was done. I smashed my face into the fresh silk sheets she’d prepared for me.
“I’ll just be in the living room, okay?”
She closed the door softly as she left and I unlocked my phone. My terrible ex’s face taunted me from my contacts page. I’d once found that face handsome, but now it made me want to scream and puke. I wondered how the thick dark hair and sharp jawline had distracted me from the coldness in his eyes. I tried to picture what his face had looked like when he laughed with me, when he smiled as he charmed me with his humor and cleverness, but I could only envision the scowl I always saw after he began showing his true colors. Unable to look at him any longer, I turned the phone off and stared at the ceiling. I enjoyed the solitude for a short while until my emotions filled the silence and threatened to strangle me. To make myself useful, I decided to unpack some of my things, mindlessly flitting into the en-suite bathroom and back. I stopped as I was going to put some clothes in the dresser, noticing a framed picture of Mira and I on vacation that had been placed on top of it. I studied our smiling faces, my eyes moving from Mira’s dark voluminous curls and her radiant, perfectly white smile to my own face. My smile was relaxed, as if the photo was taken in the middle of a laugh. There was light in my eyes. It looked more natural than any smile I’d managed in recent months. My skin was glowing and sun-kissed, and I was dressed in an outfit I’d never have dared to wear around him. I hardly recognized myself. Looking at a version of myself so joyful and whole, a version that somehow existed only a couple years ago yet felt worlds out of reach, made my heart sink. I finished putting away the clothes and joined Mira and Lucy in the living room, deciding a distraction would be better for me now.
We had a nice, quiet night together, enjoying pizza and various other junk foods and watching a couple of my favorite comfort movies. I snuggled under one of Mira’s many fluffy blankets, shielding myself from my troubles. For a while, I forgot about everything except how warm and bright it was to laugh with her. Mira had a way of making pain melt away with her humor; she’d been an expert at it since we were young. Once, when I was four and she was six, I’d fallen off my bicycle and scraped my knee. I cried out of pain and embarrassment, and I began wailing when our mom tried to put hydrogen peroxide on the cut, but Mira knew how to distract me. She grabbed two of my stuffed animals, a bunny and a cat, and had them start “fighting” each other in what our childlike imaginations saw as a hilarious routine of slapstick comedy. I giggled and squealed in pure delight. Before I knew it, I was all clean and bandaged, and I’d forgotten I was ever even in pain.
The next morning, we took Lucy for a walk in the park. We strolled around for a while, taking in the sunshine and letting her sniff around in the trees and chase ducks around a pond. After a while, we got hungry, but Mira refused to decide what she wanted to eat.
“Fine, I’ll just look up some restaurants in the area and give you a few options to pick from. It’s probably about time I turned my phone back on anyway,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m going to need to contact civilization eventually. May as well face the music now.”
I pressed the power button, waiting with bated breath as my phone booted up and flashed to life. Immediately, I cringed at the bombardment of notifications, all from the name that now made me sick to my stomach. He tried calling me again while we were eating lunch, and I fought the urge to answer. It was hard to ignore someone I’d shared so much of my life with.
“I just think maybe if I have one more conversation with him he’ll leave me alone,” I reasoned.
“No, Jade, abusers never leave you alone. He’s a piece of shit, and he doesn’t deserve any kind of closure or whatever,” Mira snapped.
“He’s not going to stop. He’s called me 34 times since I landed and texted me 87 times.”
“Just block him on everything then!”
I thought it over, envisioning a little angel and devil sitting on my shoulders. I imagined the angel telling me in her sweet, cherubic little voice that I would be protecting myself by taking my sister’s advice. I was surprised at her words, but ultimately I decided she was right. I went through every method of communication he and I had established, texts, calls, email, social media platforms, and blocked him on each of them one by one. With each tap of the block button, I felt my shoulders lifting higher, my chest getting lighter. A dark cloud that I hadn’t even noticed hanging over me had finally cleared.
That afternoon, Mira suggested visiting an art museum I’d expressed interest in on my last trip to see her. I could tell she was trying to keep me busy. It was as if I was a water balloon and she had to handle me with care and keep me off the ground so I didn’t burst. I went along with it, and we made a bit of a drive to the next city over. I spent the afternoon listening to Mira’s comments on the art pieces, which were surprisingly insightful. She’d gone into the world of fashion and quickly made a name for herself as a critic, so I suppose it wasn’t too surprising, but I was amazed at her ability to draw conclusions about pieces that meant virtually nothing to me. While I could appreciate art, I wasn’t good at dissecting the more abstract parts of it. I was more oriented toward concrete concepts, which had led me to a career as a software engineer, which I was hoping I’d be able to resume from a remote position once my life calmed down. I could only hope my abuser wouldn’t take that from me too.
Before we left, we decided to stop by the gift shop. Wherever Mira went, there had to be shopping. I browsed little knicknacks, prints of paintings, clothes with the museum’s name printed on them, and displays of any other items a museum patron might possibly need while coming or going. When I came upon a rack of postcards, I stopped. I stared at them, gears turning in my brain. Mira was a few yards away looking at some snacks. I waved to get her attention and signaled for her to come over.
“Look at these! They gave me an idea,” I said. “I know I blocked him, but what if I send him a postcard? Just to try to get it through his head one last time. I think it would be kind of funny. Plus, it’s the one way he wouldn’t be able to contact me back.”
Mira shifted her weight from one foot to the other and raised an eyebrow.
“Are you sure? What if he can use it to find out where you are?”
“I’ll be careful. I shouldn’t have to put a return address on it, and I’ll just black out the name of the museum. Besides, if he’s crazy enough, he may already know where I am if he was paying attention when I came to visit you last year.”
I decided on one that depicted a statue of an earth spirit from ancient China. Its description said the spirits warded off malevolent entities. I snickered. Fitting. I snatched up the card and brought it to the register. When we got home, I sat down at the desk, hovering a pen over the blank side of the postcard. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to say, but in the end I decided to keep my message short.
Dear Jared,
You’ve probably figured this out by now, but I’m not coming back. I realize now that I deserve better. I won’t let you hurt me anymore, and I hope you never hurt anyone else.
Jade