Cycles of Abuse Theme Analysis

“My father was abusive. […] Sometimes he would buy me stuff because he knew I hated it when they fought. When I was a kid, I found myself looking forward to the nights they would fight. Because I knew if he hit her, the two weeks that followed would be great. […] When I got older I realized that not doing something about it made me just as guilty. I spent most of my life hating him for being such a bad person, but I’m not so sure I’m much better. Maybe we’re both bad people.”

Ryle looks over at me with a thoughtful expression. “Lily,” he says pointedly. “There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who do bad things.”

I open my mouth to respond, but his words strike me silent.

I open the shoebox on my lap and pull out the contents. On the very top is a small wooden, hollow heart. I run my fingers over it and remember the night I was given this heart. As soon as the memory begins to sink in, I set it aside. Nostalgia is a funny thing.

I move a few old letters and newspaper clippings aside. Beneath all of it, I find what I was hoping was inside these boxes. And also sort of hoping wasn’t.

My Ellen Diaries.

“Someone once told me that there is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things. That stuck with me, because it’s so true. We’ve all got a little bit of good and evil in us. I want to make that our theme. Instead of painting the walls a putrid sweet color, we paint them dark purple with black accents. And instead of only putting out the usual pastel displays of flowers in boring crystal vases that make people think about life, we go edgy. Brave and bold.”

“We’re just alike,” he said, […] “Plants and humans. Plants need to be loved the right way in order to survive. So do humans. We rely on our parents from birth to love us enough to keep us alive. And if our parents show us the right kind of love, we turn out as better humans overall. But if we’re neglected…”

[…] I pointed at the row of trees that lined the fence to left of the yard. “You see that tree over there? [...] It grew on its own,” I said. “Most plants do need a lot of care to survive. But some things, like trees, are strong enough to do it by just relying on themselves and no one else.”

“Mom, he was trying to rape you!”

[…] “It’s not like that, Lily. We’re married, and sometimes marriage is just…you’re too young to understand it.”

It got really quiet for a minute, and I said. “I hope to hell I never do.”

[…] When she finished crying, I looked around the room and Atlas had left [...] She never did say anything about him being there. Not one thing. I waited for her to tell me I was grounded, but she never did. I realized that maybe she didn’t acknowledge it because that’s what she does. Things that hurt her just get swept under the rug, never to be brought up again.”

I run inside the store and grab the steampunk flowers and run them back to their car. Her face lights up when I hand them to her.

“I’m happy you’re pregnant but that’s not why I’m giving you these flowers. I just want you to have them. Because you’re my best friend.”

Allysa squeezes me and whispers in my ear. “I hope he marries you someday. We’ll be even better sisters.”

She climbs inside the car and they leave, and I just stand there watching them because I don’t know that I’ve ever had a friend like her in my whole life. Maybe it’s the wine. I don’t know, but I love today.

“You don’t put pressure on me to be something I’m incapable of being. You accept me exactly how I am.”

I smile. “Well, in fairness, you’re a little different from when I first met you. You aren’t so anti-girlfriend anymore.”

“That’s because you make it easy,” he says, sliding a hand inside the back of my shirt. “It’s easy being with you. I can still have the career I’ve always wanted, but you make it ten times better with the way you support me. When I’m with you, I feel like I get to have my cake and eat it, too.”

I start shaking my head, wanting the last fifteen seconds to go away. Fifteen seconds. That’s all it takes to completely change everything about a person.

Fifteen seconds that we’ll never get back.

He pulls me against him and starts kissing the top of my head. “I’m so sorry. I just…I burned my hand. I panicked. You were laughing and…I’m so sorry, it all happened so fast. I didn’t mean to push you, Lily, I’m sorry.”

I don’t hear Ryle’s voice this time. All I hear is my father’s voice […]

I just want him away from me. I use every ounce of strength I have in both my hands and legs and I force him the fuck away from me.

He’s not like my father. He can’t be. He’s nothing like that uncaring bastard.

We’re both upset and kissing and confused and sad. I’ve never felt anything like this moment—so ugly and painful. But somehow the only thing that eases the hurt just caused by this man is this man […]

I’m hurting so much on the inside, yet my body craves his apology in the form of his mouth and hands on me. I want to lash out at him and react like I wish my mother would have reacted when my father hurt her, but deep down I want to believe that it really was an accident.

“I wanted to apologize for saying that you sounded like your mother. That was hurtful. And I’m sorry.”

I don’t know why I always feel like crying when I’m around him. When I think about him. When I read about him. It’s like my emotions are still tethered to him somehow and I can’t figure out how to cut the strings […]

He writes something down on the sticky note and then proceeds to pull my phone apart. He slips the case off and puts the sticky note between the care and the phone, then slides the cover back over it […]

“It’s my cell phone number. Keep it hidden there in case you ever need it.”

I wince at the gesture. The unnecessary gesture. “I won’t need it.”

“I hope not.”

He said the first night he went to that old house, he wasn’t there because he needed a place to stay.

He went there to kill himself […]

“I hope you never know what it’s like to feel that lonely, Lily,” he said […]

“You saved my life, Lily,” he said to me. “And you weren’t even trying.”

He leaned forward and kissed that spot between my shoulder and my neck that he always kisses. I liked that he did it again. I don’t like much about my body, but that spot on my collarbone has become my favorite part of me.

He took my hands in his and told me he was leaving sooner that he planned for the military, but that he couldn’t leave without telling me thank you.

He told me he’d bet gone for four years and that the last thing that he wanted for me was to be a sixteen-year-old not living my life because of a boyfriend I never got to see or hear from […]

“I’m going to make a promise to you,” he said. “When my life is good enough for you to be a part of it, I’ll come find you.”

[…] I opened the bag and pulled out the best present I’d ever received. It was a magnet that said “Boston” on the top. At the bottom in tiny letters, it said “Where everything is better.” I told him I would keep it forever, and every time I look at it I’ll think of him.

He holds up my phone and just looks at me like I should know what’s happening. When I shake my head in confusion, he holds up a piece of paper. “Funny thing,” he says, setting my phone on the coffee table in front of him. “I dropped your phone by accident. Cover pops off. I find this number hidden in the back of it.”

Oh, God.

No, no, no.

He crumbles the number in his fist. “I thought, Huh. That’s weird. Lily doesn’t hide things from me […] He chunks my phone clear across the room and it crashes against the wall, shattering to the floor.

There’s a three-second pause where I think this could go one of two ways.

He’s going to leave me.

Or he’s going to hurt me.

“I shot him, Lily. My best friend. My big brother. I was only six years old. I didn’t even know I was holding a real gun.”

[…] “I was trying to put everything back inside his head. I thought I could fix him, Lily.”

[…] “Allysa wanted me to tell you all of this because since that happened, there are things I can’t control. I get angry. I black out. I’ve been in therapy since I was six years old. But it’s not my excuse. It is my reality…I don’t remember the moment I pushed you. But I know I did…You’re my wife. I’m supposed to be the one who protects you from the monsters. I’m not supposed to be one.”

[…] It breaks me. It rips me apart from the inside out. All my heart wants to do is wrap tightly around his.

It’s been almost a mother since the incident on the stairs. Even with everything Ryle told me about his childhood, the forgiveness was still hard to come by.

I know Ryle has a temper. I saw it the first night we met, before we ever even spoke a word to each other. I saw it that awful night in my kitchen. I saw it when he found the phone number in my phone case.

Bur I also see the difference between Ryle and my father.

Ryle is compassionate. He does things my father never would have done. He donates to charity, he cares about other people, he puts me before everything […]

I am a strong woman. I’ve been around abusive situations my whole life. I will never become my mother, I believe that a hundred percent. And Ryle will never become my father.

His arm comes around my waist from behind. He slides a hand up my stomach and takes a firm hold of one of my breasts. His other hand feathers my shoulder as he moves the hair away from my neck.

I squeeze my eyes shut, just as fingers begin to trace across my skin, up to my shoulder. He slowly runs his finger over the heart and a shudder runs through my whole body. His lip meets my skin, right over the tattoo, and then he sinks his teeth into me so hard, I scream […]

He’s really angry now. “He’s in everything. The magnet on the fridge. The journal in the box I found in our closet. The fucking tattoo on your body that used to be my favorite goddamn part of you!”

I wipe the tears from my eyes and then begin dialing Atlas’s number.

I hate myself more in this moment that I ever have in my entire life.

I hate myself, because the day Ryle found Atlas’s number in my phone, I lied and said I had forgotten it was there.

I hate myself, because the day Atlas placed his number in my phone, I opened it and looked at it.

I hate myself, because deep down inside, I knew there was a chance that I might one day need it. So I memorized.

“Hello?...Lily?”

[…] I hate myself, because he knows the tears are mine.

I don’t even know where to start. I know you don’t know anything about my current life or my husband, Ryle. But there’s this thing we do where one of us says “naked truth,” and then we’re forced to be brutally honest and say what we’re really thinking.

So…naked truth.

Brace yourself.

I am in love with a man who physically hurts me. Of all people, I have no idea how I let myself get to this point.

There were many times growing up I wondered what was going through my mother’s head in the days after my father had hurt her […]

I hate that I can empathize with her now.

People on the outside of situations like these often wonder why the woman goes back to the abuser. I read somewhere once that 85 percent of women return to abusive situations. That was before I realized I was in one, and when I heard that statistic, I thought it was because the women were stupid.

[…] I love my husband, Ellen […] Preventing your heart from forgiving someone you love is actually a hell of a lot harder than simply forgiving them [...]

The things I’ve thought about women like me are now what others would think of me if they knew my current situation […]

I’m sad that those are the first thoughts that run through our minds when someone is abused. Shouldn’t there be more distaste in our mouths for abusers than for those who continue to love their abusers?

“I know this is the last thing you need to hear right now. But I have to say it because I’ve walked away from you too many times without saying what I really want to say.”

He pulls back to look down at me and when he sees my tears, he brings his hands up to my cheeks. “In the future…if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again…fall in love with me.”

“My brother loves you, Lily. He loves you so much. You have changed his entire life and have made him someone that I never thought he could be. As his sister, I wish more than anything that you find a way to forgive him. But as your best friend, I have to tell you that if you take him back, I will never speak to you again.”

It takes a moment for her words to register, but when they do, I start sobbing.

She starts sobbing.

She wraps her arms around me and we cry over the mutual love we have for Ryle. We cry over how much we hate him right now.

His hand wraps in my hair and in an instant, I’m transferred back to that night.

I’m in the kitchen, and his hand is tugging my hair so hard it hurts.

He brushes the hair from my face and in an instant, I’m transferred back to that night.

I’m standing in the doorway, and his hand is trailing across my shoulder, right before he bites into me with all the strength in his jaw.

His forehead rests gently against mine and in an instant, I’m transferred back to that night.

I’m on this same bed beneath him when he slams his head against mine so hard I have to get six stitches.

My body becomes unresponsive to his […]

When he pulls back and looks down on me, I don’t even have to say anything. Our eyes, locked together, speak more naked truths than our mouths ever have.

She grabs my hands and holds them while I cry. “Don’t be like me, Lily. I know that you believe that he loves you, and I’m sure that he does. But he’s not loving you the right way. He doesn’t love you the way you deserve to be loved. If Ryle truly loves you, he wouldn’t allow you to take him back. He would make the decision to leave you himself so that he knows for a fact he can never hurt you again. That’s the kind of love a woman deserves, Lily.”

[…] I thought I would have to defend myself to her when I came over here. Not once did I think I would come over here and learn from her. I should know better. I thought my mother was weak in the past, but she’s actually one of the strongest women I know.

I decided to go with a nature theme. The bedding set is tan and green with pictures of plants and trees all over it. It matches the curtains and will eventually match a mural I plan to paint on the wall at some point [...]

As I stare back at him, I think about how easy it is for humans to make judgements when we’re standing on the outside of a situation. I spent years judging my mother’s situation.

It’s easy when we’re on the outside to believe that we would walk away without a second thought if a person mistreated us. It’s easy to say we couldn’t continue to love someone who mistreats us when we aren’t the ones feeling the love of that person.

“‘He held me down while I begged him to stop. But he swears he’ll never do it again. What should I do, Daddy?’”

He’s kissing her forehead, over and over, tears spilling down his face.

“What would you say to her, Ryle? Tell me. I need to know what you would say to our daughter if the man she loves with all her heart ever hurts her.”

A sob breaks from his check. He leans toward me and wraps an arm around me. “I would beg her to leave him…I would tell her that she is worth so much more. And I would beg her not to go back, no matter how much he loves her.”

[…] We hold each other. We hold our daughter. And as hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.