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THREE
Ben
Navigating rolling hills with zero street lamps an hour north of Atlanta, I get a text from Ethan:
Turn back. Stay overnight.
His offer is my reply:
Tempting.
He texts back:
Pillow fight?
I reply:
Not tempting.
The familiar road sign stuck in the ground a few hundred yards before the turn off to our house warns me to slow down to 25MPH for the sharp corner ahead, and it feels directed at me.
A fight approaching.
Slow down.
Turn back.
I voice-text:
Maybe a joke pillow fight isn’t such a bad idea.
Ethan texts back:
Let’s do it.
I reply:
Nah. Gotta talk to the Ex. It’s time.
The day I told Dad I was miserable, Jonny was at school and when I got back to our farm, Shelby was waiting.
“Ben, I looked for you but you weren’t here.”
“You came outside?”
“Why that tone?”
I stared at her with resignation. “Because you never come outside if given the chance.”
She sneered, something she did a lot in the months leading up to my confession to Dad. That’s when it became unavoidably obvious to me that I had been far too comfortable in misery’s bed.
For the first few years it was a lot of what I now know is called gaslighting: Your family doesn’t like us. You see how they stare at us. They know I was second choice and you know what, Ben? Some of them secretly think you’re not too smart, being just a farmer. We can’t hang around them when they think of you like that. That you could’ve been so much more. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. I overheard Paige tell Wren. And I don’t want to see Paige. You wanted her first. I can’t get it out of my mind whenever I see her. She looks down on me, too. You saw it, that look on her face. Didn’t you see it? You must’ve noticed. And Hannah, she hates me the most. I swear Sofia Sol almost threatened me. You just didn’t realize that’s what she was thinking. A man is supposed to protect his wife and I feel unsafe around them. Thank you for taking such good care of me. For protecting us. It’s not for me, Ben. It’s for us. It’s for you, me and Jonny.
Gaslighting.
I’ve read up on it after Mom suggested I learn more about the subject. The essence of its evil is someone starts small, where you might believe it, then works their way to bigger things, building a reality to suit their own motives.
It was the yelling I didn’t want to deal with, which came if I said I didn’t believe that stuff was true. And the crying. I’m a sucker for a woman crying. Especially a woman I love.
