This wasn't a story that she shied away from, but when told to an audience that had
so suddenly become
so much younger, the details lost the devil in them. But softening it wasn't right, and the omission was as good as lying at this point. Trying to protect her with little more than 'because I said so' wasn't fair or effective.
"What happened with Victor," Caroline began, his name spoken in a tone more venomous and vitriolic than Cami would have ever heard from her. "What happened was--"
She sighed, shook her head, and started again. From the right place this time.
"When your mama and I were together, when we were young, we were invincible. Or I sure as hell thought I was. Thought I could always have everything under control, always had the upper hand--or could always get out, if things went wrong. We'd made plenty of plans before. We'd always been fine. And it got to the point where I wanted the two of us to have a family so bad--" The grit of her teeth clenching together was audible. "I ******** up. Always had my own goals to go for. So I chose him 'cause he had the stability--the money--and he had the power. I had a plan--I was in control, remember, so I just had to step over him when the time came up.
"Getting him to need me--us--was real easy. Thought that just was another thing showing how in control I was. Like he was naive, harmless--like he was playing right into what I wanted, 'cause I knew what I was doing. That's when it started, that far back at the beginning. He let me believe I was making the choices. Let me think I was still in control. Not a thing was wrong--and that's how I should've known something was. All the concessions and things. Like he was just opening door after door after door, and I thought I wanted in, so I kept stepping through. All the while, I'm thinking,
'I'm in control, I know what I'm doing'. "But after a while--it was like, after a while, one of the open doors'd be closed. Wouldn't think anything of it. Or when I'd ask, he'd give me reasons that made plenty of sense. Kept me in that sense of comfort--kept me feeling like I was in control of this. And two, three doors closed...
"By then I start thinking, I'm still in control--maybe just need to be more careful. By then it's too late, 'cause the more careful I start trying to be, the less ways out I start to see. The less ways I can see to Vanessa. 'Cause that's the thing--that's the thing with dangerous men. You don't realize you've let them split you away from the world--from the people who really care--'cause you've spent so much time thinking you'd never
let that happen, and--
"It started so small, Cami. Little--really little things. Him pointing things out to try to make me doubt her, doubt she cared. Saying things that made me not able to tell what was real. It didn't
start with him telling me she never wanted to see me again--she never wanted me around her or you. Didn't start with him telling me Mimsy stayed dead, and he couldn't see whatever I meant about 'daughter'. Started with me thinking I knew what I was doing, had all the freedom in the world, all my choices--then I was stuck trapped in one room of that house, for longer than the years you remember living, believing you and your mama were disgusted even thinking about me, and Mimsy was a monster pretending to be my little girl.
"So the thing about men like that--I had a plan. And they see those. They don't have plans like those, just watch you trying to be clever all around 'em, you thinking there's no way
you'll fall in the trap. So they let you--they just
let you--and by the time it's all done--"
The story wasn't one that she ever shied away from, but it wasn't one that ever stopped hurting, either. She closed her eyes and all of her stilled; all of the waves of emotion that steadily escalated in her story now dissipating to leave her words listless and sore.
"Well, they'll ask: who's there to blame? You had control, didn't you? Where are the people who cared about you? Why would you end up here if you didn't want it? Deserve it? Why would you be there, except by
your own choice?"
