Page 242 of Ricardo

“Inside, it was different.”

She stares at the floor.

“Harrison was a perfect gentleman in the beginning. Too perfect, maybe, but I didn’t know how to see that then. He opened doors. Sent flowers—white roses. Complimented me. Remembered what I liked. Knew how to charm my mother. Knew all the right things to say to my father.”

A tear slips down her cheek.

“He made it easy for everyone to approve of him.”

“And then?” I ask.

She lets out a trembling breath.

“It started slowly. So slowly I didn’t know it was happening right away. He would tell me one friend was jealous of me. Another was vulgar. Another did not understand the life I was going to have. He never demanded I stop seeing them. He only made it unpleasant every time I did.”

Her voice goes monotone in that terrible way people use when they are describing pain.

“If I went to dinner with someone he disliked, he would be cold afterward. If I missed his call, he would ask who mattered more than he did. If I laughed too much at someone's joke, he would say I was making myself look desperate for attention. Eventually, it became easier not to go. Easier not to answer. Easier to let the real friendships fade because I was tired of paying for them afterward.”

Dante’s name sits on the tip of her tongue. I can tell.

“The people left around me were the ones he approved of,” she continues. “Society people. Charity board people. Women who smiled perfectly and reported everything. Men who treated Harrison like he had already won an office he hadn’t even run for yet.”

Her hand trembles inside mine.

“And then he started criticizing me.”

Her eyes close.

“Little things at first. My dress was too bright. My laugh too loud. My answer at dinner too opinionated. My hair better up. My lipstick too much. My work with the charities too emotional. My politics too naive. My posture too stiff. My voice too soft. My voice too sharp. It changed depending on what he wanted me to fix that day.”

Every word is a coal dropped into my chest.

She opens her eyes, but she is not looking at me now. She is looking at whatever room she is trapped in inside her mind.

“He made it sound like guidance. Like he was helping me. Like I should be grateful because he saw the things other people were too polite to say. Then, after a while, he stopped making it sound so nice.”

Her lips press together.

“He called me stupid once. At first, I thought I misheard him. Harrison never sounded angry in public. He never lost his temper where anyone important could see. But in private, he started saying exactly what he meant. I was naive. Spoiled. Ungrateful. Cold. Frigid. Too needy. Too stubborn. Too weak. Too difficult.”

I go very still.

Her shame is pouring out of her now, but none of it belongs to her.

Not one ounce.

“He knew exactly which buttons to press,” she says. “And if I cried, he would say I was manipulating him. If I argued, he would say I was proving his point. If I stayed quiet, he would say I was punishing him.”

Her throat works.

“I started making myself into whatever version of me made him least cruel.”

I cannot stop my hand from lifting to her face.

I touch her cheek with the backs of my fingers, light enough that she can pull away if she wishes.

She does not.