makeup to cover up the mark, so I stayed home. We ended up having a good night watching a movie, but he wouldn’t go to bed until I promised I forgave him. So I did.
We are working so hard on the relationship. I think it’s making a real difference. We’re not in therapy, not yet anyway. Simon says we can’t afford it. But we’re talking a lot and he really wants to change. I know it. We’re going to get through this. Together. I love him and he loves me. And that’s what matters. He’s had such a hard life. I mean both his parents died not that long ago. It’s traumatic. Even though his father was really abusive to him and his mother, it’s still really hard. He’s going through a lot. I’m really hopeful for our future and I know I can help him change. I just know it!
I don’t see my friends anymore. Simon hates them. All of them. He says he doesn’t trust them. Calls them a bunch of phonies. I told him he’s wrong, but he’s so sure of it that he said it’s either them or him. Like what I am supposed to do with that? Leave? Move out? And go live where? I have no money. None. And we’re working so hard on us, too. I’ll give it some time. I know we can figure this out. And then I’ll ask Marie if she called me a bitch behind my back like Simon said she did.
Simon’s been horrible lately. I think he yells at me just to see me cry. It’s like I do nothing around here. I cook. I clean. I work. I contribute! I am important, but he makes me feel so insignificant sometimes. I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells. He says I’m always upset about something and that’s why my friends don’t like me anymore. Maybe he’s right. Before Simon came along I was nothing, and without him I’ll be nothing again.
I’ve stopped cooking because Simon’s being so mean to me, which is really pissing him off. But he’s always upset with me about something, isn’t he? I’m perpetually subpar in his eyes. Any chance he gets, he’ll point out how other wives treat their husbands, but not me. I’m not a good wife at all. It’s hard to take these constant comparisons, but I guess the verbal slaps are preferable to the other kind.
Simon hit me again and I told him that was it. I was going to leave him. He said if I did that he’d kill me. He said it quickly, too, like he had planned it out already. I don’t know what to do. Honestly, I’m really scared. He’s been in this black mood for the longest time. I feel too ashamed and embarrassed to go back home. I mean, I ran away. My parents haven’t heard from me in years. I’ll never live it down! No, I have to figure this out on my own. It’s my fault. I’m doing it. I’m triggering his behavior. So if I’m responsible, I can fix it.
Nina passed through episodes of more heartache and abuse. Allison fell short of Simon’s expectations time and time again. The beatings did not end.
I’m a week out of the hospital. I can walk fine. The leg will heal. Everyone believed Simon, like I knew they would. I’m clumsy enough to have fallen down the stairs. If only they knew. But I can’t tell my friends. I can’t tell anyone because I’m afraid. He’ll kill me if I try to leave him. I know he will. I should kill him first. I should stab him in his sleep, a knife right through his cold, beating heart. But you can’t do it, can you, Allison? Because you are weak and pathetic, just like he says you are.
Allison even repeated something in her diary that made Nina shiver with grim reminders of the last words Simon had spoken to her:
Like Simon says, there is a right way and wrong way to be, for everything and everyone.
As Nina neared the final entries, things seemed to take a turn for the better. That’s when Allison got pregnant.
I can’t believe it. I’m going to be a mother. Maybe this will change everything. Maybe a baby is all that we’ve been missing. God, I pray that’s so. Please. Please make it so. I’m so excited but nervous, too. I can’t wait to tell Simon. He’ll be overjoyed.
And from