So Much It Hurts (26 page)

I love him. I always will, even if we've had some rough patches. No one can ever talk me out of that. Mick has so many qualities I love and admire—he's playful, he's confident, he's creative. I want to be all those things too. Maybe those traits are somewhere in me too, waiting to come out. Why else would they matter so much to me?

But maybe Mom, Mrs. Karpman, Ms. Cameron, Ms. Odette, Katie and Tommy are on to something. Mick's not good for me. It's not good for me that he can't control his temper. It's not good for me that he sometimes gets violent. I do worry that even if he wants to change, he won't be able to. When Mick gets in a dark mood, well, the mood is bigger than he is.

This doesn't mean I'm going to break off with him forever.

But something's changed. Something inside me feels as if it's moved, made room for something else.

For the first time, it feels like I have a choice.

If Shakespeare was right and all the world's a stage, I should be able to write my own play, shouldn't I? I should be able to come up with my own ending—and I don't want to end up like Ophelia.

Ms. Cameron had an affair with Mick, and he hit her too. Just like he must have hit Millicent.

I wish I could talk to Millicent.

Maybe I can.

I do the math in my head. It's almost 12:30
PM
on Monday in Melbourne. What if I email the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne and tell them I am trying to get in touch with someone named Millicent Temple? I compose the email message in my head before I key it in.

My name is Iris Wagner. I am trying to reach someone
named Millicent Temple. I saw her in one of the promotional
videos posted on your site. It is a personal matter,
but please tell her it's urgent. My email is iriswagneractor@
gmail.com; my phone number is
514
-
207
-
1212

I press Send before I can change my mind. There, it's done.

I go to bed before ten. I don't dream of dark forests or airports. I don't dream at all.

The vibration of the cell phone on my pillow wakes me. The first four numbers on the display are 613. Melbourne. “Mick!” I say.

“Mick?” a woman's voice asks. “Is that what this is about? Mick Horton?”

“Millicent?” My hands are shaking. I can't believe I'm talking to Millicent.

“Is this Iris?” she asks. “I got a message from you. You said it was urgent.”

“Have you seen Mick? Is he okay?”

“I don't ever want to see Mick Horton again. How do you know him?”

“I—I'm his girlfriend.”

I can hear Millicent suck in her breath.

“What did he do to you?” I ask. Part of me already knows.

But instead of answering, Millicent asks me a question. “Does he hit you?”

I try to say yes, but I can't.

“He must have, right? That's why you're calling me, isn't it? You need to keep away from him, Iris. I wish someone had told me that. But there was no one to tell me.”

“What did he do to you?” I ask again.

I think I hear Millicent lighting up a cigarette. “He hit me—a lot. Always in my face. The last time was the worst.” Millicent pauses. I hear her take a drag on her cigarette. “I'm blind in one eye.”

I'm crying. But I don't know if Millicent can hear me, because she is crying too.

When I hang up, it's four in the morning, and I know I won't be able to fall back asleep. So I get out of bed, and I start packing up the stolen clothes. After school, I'll take them back to Forever
21
. I'll leave them on a counter when no one's looking.

Or maybe I can find a way to tell someone what really happened—how I stole the clothes because I was afraid to stand up to my boyfriend. Because I lost myself, but now I am beginning to find myself again. If this is my story, telling the truth would make a better ending.

When the clothes are packed, I rescue Ms. Odette's brochure from the recycling box. It isn't easy, but I force my eyes to meet the girl's on the cover of the brochure. It's as if I can feel her pain. And yet she agreed to be photographed. She must have thought it was important to let other girls know what she went through.

I am connected to that girl, and the two of us are connected to Millicent and Ms. Cameron.

I lay the brochure on the table, facing down. I'm not ready to read it yet. Maybe tomorrow I will be.

When my phone vibrates again, I can tell from the
613
number that it's another call from Melbourne. This time, it has to be Mick. For a moment, my heart leaps, but then it's as if I can feel it flutter back down in my chest.

I watch as the phone continues to vibrate on the coffee table.

Tender yourself more dearly.

Sometimes a person has to be tough on herself; other times she's got to be gentle, cut herself some slack. It depends on the situation. Sometimes being tough is the only way to tender yourself more dearly. After you've been tough, then you need to be gentle with yourself again.

I don't answer Mick's call. When the phone stops vibrating, I turn it off.

Tomorrow, I'll pack up the rest of my stuff. And I'll phone Mick and tell him what I've decided—that part of me will always love him, that I'll always be grateful for what he taught me, but that I have to let him go.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to author Sheree Fitch, who, in a writing workshop, asked us to write the blurb for the book we most wanted to read. The blurb I wrote was very close to a synopsis of this book. Thanks also to Montreal psychotherapist Louise Dessertine and Marianopolis College counseling psychologist Lesley Lacate for helping me understand why some young women end up in abusive relationships and why it can be so difficult for them to leave. Thanks to the terrific team at Orca Book Publishers. Thanks to art director, Teresa Bubela, for the gift of a perfect cover. Deepest thanks to my editor, Sarah N. Harvey, who is both gentle and tough, for understanding how much this story means to me and for her wise guidance. Thanks to my friends: author Rina Singh, for being there for me in dark days and whose friendship has never wavered, and Viva Singer, for listening, reading and making me laugh. And thanks, as always, to the two big loves of my life: Alicia Melamed, for being my sunshine and heart's delight, and Michael Shenker, for making everything better.

SO MUCH IT HURTS
is Monique Polak's fourteenth novel for young adults. Her historical novel,
What World
Is Left
, won the 2009 Quebec Writers' Federation Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature. In addition to writing fiction, Monique teaches English and Humanities at Marianopolis College in Montreal. She is also an active freelance journalist whose work appears in the
Montreal
Gazette
and in Postmedia publications across Canada.