Chameleon by Rebekah Jennings - © Copyright (e manga reader txt) 📕

demands aren’t even logical, there’s something wrong with him.”

I nodded a sort of slow nod, my lips wanting to press together and wrinkle up but the attached feeling suggested a non-believing sort of ‘are you crazy’ quality. I fought the puckering urge and relaxed my lips, edging them up a little on both sides. I sped up my nodding a little too; that would make my smile more believable.

My friend Melanie at work had been going through a terrible divorce lately. Recently he’d thrown several full stubbies of Vic Bitter at her. The incident took place in the garage, attached to the house. Thankfully his glasses were quite distorted causing a lack of symmetry, a stretching of proportions and poorly executed motor skills due to his drunkenness. His sober throwing abilities, quite respectable as they were, were expected by him at this current moment. He did not allow for his inebriated state. This resulted in a premature show of jauntiness, a celebration of his success prior to his actual victory that stretched beyond the failed throws a moment too long before realisation had set in and his face became a snarl.

Upon separation Melanie found he was begging her to stay, calling her at work and pleading at her front door to be let in. Neighbours, who’d come to see what all the noise was about, had been attacked, their door pulled from its hinges one night when he’d tried so ardently to talk her round.

“Please, I’ll change. I won’t drink anymore I promise. Anything, I’ll go to counselling, whatever you want. Just let me come home.”

She moved to her mother’s for a while in the hope he wouldn’t know where she was. It hadn’t worked though. He had let himself into her mother’s house and attacked her, pushing her over a chair with his hand encircled tightly around her neck. She phoned me for assistance, begging me not to call the police, just to come over and help. I agreed in order to get her off the phone. The moment we’d hung up I phoned triple zero to ensure police got there before I did. I mean how was I going to calm the situation? She thanked me afterward.

My sister was disgusted when I told her. “What an arsehole. How did Melanie stay with him for so long?”

Indeed, how did she? “She apologised to me recently, you know. Said she’d been lying to me for ages about things he’d done.”

“Really, like what?”

“Well, all the times she’d said his wallet had gone missing, been stolen out of his car, he’d actually gone and blown the money at the pokies or bought drugs or alcohol.”

“It’s amazing the secrets that can be kept,” my sister said, shaking her head.

“She said he’d hurt her a lot of times but she knew she’d look stupid for not leaving and didn’t want to be judged so she lied about it. It didn’t surprise me at all, I know women lie about that kind of thing and I always wondered why she stayed when she hated him so much. It turns out she was just too lazy to move, her words. Too much work she said and where would she go. Personally, I think it was depression.”

My thoughts went back to an email I’d sent to Mum the day I found out she had sold their motel for half the amount they’d purchased it for a year before. They’d also broken the lease agreement on the building they rented for their two dollar shop and moved all the merchandise into their family home. Mum was broke slowly having to sell off her three rental properties in Tassie and cashing in on her shares.

“It’s not his fault.” She’d flared, protecting him after she’d read my scathing email imploring her to leave the good for nothing, money spending fiend. Bristled, she said she was taking a break from me.

“Why can’t she see it?” my sister asked then.

“She sees things through a different set of glasses to us.” Resigned and deflated, I shrugged. Then furrowing my brow “What’s that in your hand bag?” I nosed the air in the direction of her bag.

“Oh, this is the cat bowl I was telling you about. Shane didn’t like it. He told me to take it back.”

“But that’s the small purple one you told me you liked so much when you found it.” She shrugged, resigned and deflated as well. “He wants to be there when I buy the next one.” Louise had just moved her cat from Mum’s to Shane’s house.

“It was awful you know.”

“What?” Louise asked.

“Being your support during your first relationship with Shane.” My face open, relaxed yet pleading understanding, “You wanted to talk to me, to tell me stuff about Shane but you were afraid you couldn’t control my responses. You didn’t want me to say anything bad about him even when you described horrendous situations to me. You told me you didn’t want to hear anymore about him if it was negative. Then in the same conversation you recognised your situation, once even showing me that pamphlet you’d got about domestic violence.”

Louise nodded, “I know. But it’s different this time. I’m stronger, I don’t feel desperate like I did then and he is the vulnerable one now. You need to trust me.”

“I can’t trust any woman living in domestic violence or family abuse situations. A person like that may be honest in every other aspect in their life and yet still lie in order to protect their abuser. Perpetrators are extremely manipulative, it doesn’t matter how strong you are, they are dangerous and will find a way slowly, very slowly to bring down your self esteem until you are vulnerable and they've got you where they want you.”

“I won’t let it happen this time.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well I don’t know what to say. It feels like you’re asking me to break it off with him.”

“I don’t believe he has changed.”

“I’m just having some fun right now.”

“You will be hurt. We all will be”

Louise stared at me silently.

“I need to take a break from you. You’re not the person I thought you were. You have plenty of friends so I know you have support and that’s really important to me because you’ll need it, but it won’t be from me.”

I left her then, getting into my car and driving off. I watched her as I went. She stood, looking after me as I disappeared down the road. I watched her watching me through the rear view mirror. I knew she was watching me with her purple glasses. Mine were steamed up, blurry, foggy. Tears blocked my clarity but I wiped them away.

Imprint

Publication Date: 01-09-2010

All Rights Reserved