Confessions from the Quilting Circle Maisey Yates (ebook reader 8 inch .txt) 📖

the bruise bloomed darker, like a perverse rose.

She looked at the officer, nearly defiant. But the other woman’s expression was a study in neutrality. There was no pity there, no sympathy. But no judgment, either. And Avery found she was thankful for that. She photographed her face quickly.

“Anywhere else?”

Avery nodded slowly. And with glacial movements, took hold of the hem of her sweater, pulling it up over her head. She had a tank top on underneath that, but she pulled it up over her head as well. The room they were in was completely closed off from the outside. She was almost certain there were bruises down her back, from where she had been thrown up against the wall the other night.

Tears pooled in her eyes as she pushed her leggings down her hips, exposing the bruises on her hips, her thighs. She held her arms out, extended slightly from her sides. She closed her eyes as the police officer circled her, taking pictures. She listened to her own breath, echoing in her ears, and her heartbeat, moving quickly, terror making her limbs weak.

Her heart beat, and the camera clicked.

Victim.

It was documented, all those bruises.

Avery had gotten really good at living for the moment she wasn’t in. At just moving herself outside of her body. Which was what she did now. She felt like she was standing with her sisters, staring at this thin, bedraggled woman in her underwear. Having pictures taken of her body. Exposing herself, but not just her skin. The way she’d been living for quite some time. The things she’d been hiding, desperately.

Here it was all out in the open.

She was caught somewhere between power and devastation.

“We have enough to make an arrest,” the officer said. “We’re able to hold him for about twenty hours. And in that time, we will submit all of this to the district attorney. That will decide if the case proceeds.”

Avery nodded, as if that made sense to her. None of it really did. That she was standing here didn’t make a whole lot of sense. That her life had brought her to a police station.

That her marriage vows had become... Nothing. They weren’t anything.

It wasn’t a marriage. Not anymore.

She went to bed every night with the man that hit her. She let him kiss her.

After those hands hit her, she let him put them on her body.

And it wasn’t good David and bad David, it was all just David.

“I’ll let you get dressed.”

Avery dressed, her fingers cold as she pulled her shirt back on, tugged her pants back over her hips. Then she just stood there in that room, the fluorescent lights buzzing as she tried to orient herself.

She breathed in deep. Felt her feet connected firmly with the floor. Felt the air fill her lungs.

She was still here.

She hadn’t fallen apart.

She swallowed hard, then turned and walked out of the room. Lark and Hannah were standing outside, both standing, holding the straps of their purses, their right legs bent, left legs straight. And it was so absurd, the two of them standing just the same with concerned looks on their faces.

She wanted to laugh, because it would horrify them to know they looked so alike.

But she didn’t have it in her.

“What do you want to do?” Lark asked. “Do you want to go buy cake?”

“No,” she said. “I think I just want to go home. To The Dowell House.”

“Then let’s go home.”

As they walked out of the police station, and out onto the darkened street, she felt like she’d left her pride on the floor in there. That when she’d picked her clothing back up and put it on her body, she hadn’t been able to reclaim that. And she wondered how long it would be before she felt... Good. Certain that she’d done the right thing. Proud. Like a survivor. Like something other than a woman staring at a life that was shattered beyond recognition.

You weren’t the one who shattered it.

She clung to that. Like a diamond in the middle of lumps of coal. She hadn’t done this. She wasn’t perfect. But she had never abused his trust. And he had done it to her now, countless times. Over and over again. He demanded better of her constantly while giving nothing more of himself. He had pushed it here. He had done this.

She tried to feel angry, and didn’t have the energy for it.

But someday she would.

Someday, she would think about that, and she would feel... She would feel angry. Angry like Hannah. At him, and maybe at herself. And she would cry. She would cry just like Lark was. But for now, she found she couldn’t do either. So she let her sisters take her by the arms again, and let them feel all the things she couldn’t quite yet.

17

The best part about being in the studios is we get invited to the parties after. Champagne and brilliant food. Everyone is so beautiful. Sam says he’s going to help me audition for a role that’s more than just background and I can’t wait.

Ava Moore’s diary, 1923

Hannah

Hannah felt completely drained by the time they brought Avery back home. They poured glasses of wine, but then Avery had suddenly been overcome by exhaustion, and she and Lark had helped her up to bed. She wanted to be unconscious when the police went and handcuffed her husband.

Hannah couldn’t blame her for being tired. It echoed inside of her. It was just such a helpless feeling, and Hannah didn’t like helpless. Selfishly, she had it up to the very top of her being with helplessness. Because even though she knew it wasn’t the dissolution of the marriage, or abuse or anything like that, she was still so... She was so angry about the principal chair position, and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing at all. She also had to put it on hold while they dealt with Avery, which was fine.

Except it was eating at her.

Her own