Page 67 of Real Forever
“Hello?” she shouted.
Lauren cleared her throat. “Hey.”
“Lauren?” Madison didn’t know if she was more scared or confused. “Where are you?” She walked through the room, trying to avoid stepping on a fragment of broken glass, and found Lauren sitting on the floor, leaning back against the kitchen island. She rushed to her. “Lauren, oh my god. Are you okay? What happened?”
Lauren’s eyes were red and glassy, and her face was puffy, but she wasn’t crying. She sat stone faced, staring at the wall.
“Lauren, answer me. Are you hurt? Where’s Maisie? Is she okay?”
“Maisie’s in bed.”
The flat, emotionless tone of Lauren’s voice scared Madison. She sat down in front of her on the floor and took her hands, putting her own face right in the center of Lauren’s vision. “Laur, tell me what happened.”
Lauren stared through her, her mouth in a tight, grim line. “Dave came home. He was drunk. Or maybe stoned, I don’t know. He started yelling at Maisie for leaving her crayons on the floor. I told Maisie to go to her room. Then I told Dave I wanted him to leave, and I wanted a divorce.”
Madison’s eyes grew wide. “Really? That’s amazing Lauren.”
Lauren stared through Madison, her face a void.
“He said no. He said I don’t get to leave and make him look like an asshole. Then he said he’d had enough, and he was putting the house on the market and we were moving to Alberta. So I told him to move to Alberta by himself. We’d be fine without him and I’d get a job and take care of Maisie and myself without him.”
Examining Lauren’s face and the hurricane of damage around them, Madison pieced together the rest of the story and braced herself.
“He said he would never let me take Maisie away from him. Apparently he has another bank account I don’t know about and he has thousands of dollars put away and will use it to get the best lawyers money can buy and he’ll take the house and my vehicle and make sure I never see Maisie again.”
“What? What the fuck? Lauren, he can’t do that.”
“That’s what I said. And then he grabbed me by my hair and slammed me into the kitchen island.”
Madison gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“He threw all the dinner dishes off the table and threw the chairs and punched a hole in the wall. Said he never should have married me and if I hadn’t let myself turn into a fat pig after Maisie was born, he wouldn’t have to go around screwing other women. Said I’m a stupid whore and I should know my place and shut my mouth. And then he left. So then I got up and went to put Maisie to bed. She heard everything and it scared her to death. She was crying her eyes out, so then I started crying too. Eventually, she fell asleep in my bed with me. I got up and came out here to clean up, but when I saw everything, I didn’t know where to begin. So I sat down here for a minute. I don’t know how long ago that was.”
Madison sat in front of Lauren in stunned silence. Finally, she found her voice.
“Lauren, are you hurt? When he pushed you—did he hurt you?”
“I don’t know.” Lauren moved a hand to her ribs. “It’s sore here. From where I banged into the island.” She lifted her shirt to reveal a reddish bruise forming.
“I think we should go to the hospital. It could be broken.”
“I can’t go to the fucking hospital, Madison.”
Shit.Madison forgot Dave’s mother was a nurse at the hospital. Even if she wasn’t working, it wouldn’t take long for word to reach her.
“Has he ever done something like this to you before?”
Lauren drew in a slow, even breath. “Not this bad. Before, when he was doing coke all the time, he would throw things sometimes when he got mad. He punched a hole in the bedroom wall.”
“No, Lauren. Has he ever hurt you like this before?”
Lauren whispered, “Not this badly.”
“Jesus Christ, Lauren. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I know how much you hate Dave already, and I didn’t want to make it worse. It’s not like it happens all the time or anything. It has only happened a couple of times and never this bad. Just, like, shoving or something.”
“Not that bad? Did you call the cops?”
