Kerry had come home from work early, it was their one month anniversary and she thought that she would make a nice dinner for her and her husband, Scott. She was humming and smiling as she cooked anticipating the look on his face when he came home from a hard day at work to a nice home cooked meal. She made Lobster with actual live lobsters that she had bought when she got off of work. Scott always loved lobster and she thought this was a special enough occasion to make it for him even though there budget had been a little tight since the wedding. Everything was finished by the time he was supposed to come home, but he didn’t show up. She assumed that he had to work late and forgot to call because he was in surgery which was okay with her because she knew that those things happened. She ate by herself and then sat down on the couch to read. After a while her eyelids got heavy and she drifted off to sleep with dinner on the table and dishes in the sink.

“GET UP!” She was startled awake by Scott who had just came in the door, and he looked less then happy with her. She rubbed her eyes and stood up wondering why he was so mad at her, she yawned slightly but apparently she wasn’t moving fast enough for him so he grabbed her by the arm roughly and pulled her to the table where his lobster was sitting, waiting for him to come home. “What the hell is this Kerry?”

“Lobster?” She replied already pretty shaken with the fact that he had grabbed her and literally dragged her over to the table. She was still half asleep but she was frightened because she had never seen him act this way. He raised his hand like he was going to hit her but then quickly put it down to his side, but his grip on her arm got tighter.

“LOBSTER? We are both working FULL TIME jobs to pay off this DAMN HOUSE and you go out and buy LOBSTER?” He yelled at her and she winced slightly, he was a big man at six foot five with a very muscular frame. She hadn’t yet ignored the fact that he had raised his hand to her and she eyed it cautiously getting ready to duck or defend herself if needed.

“I just thought…”

“You just THOUGHT? Looks like you DIDN’T THINK to me! And what the hell is this?” With out warning he jerked her forward and into the kitchen where the dishes were still sitting in the sink. She looked at him for a moment and then the hand that had a tight grip on her arm.

“Scott you are hurting me…” She whispered as she twisted her arm trying to get it out of his grasp and suddenly he let go and shoved her forward and into the counter by the sink. She swallowed hard and turned to look at him holding herself up against the counter, she had never seen him like this before and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

“Do the damn dishes…then get your ass upstairs and come to bed.” He growled at her and he left the room but not before taking his plate off of the table and throwing it to the floor, and she could swear that she had smelled alcohol on his breath. She was to terrified to confront him or disobey his orders, and when she heard his footsteps going up the stairs she sunk down to the floor and started to cry softly, she never began to think that it could get worse then it was at that moment.

There had been a few more outbursts from Scott since the whole dinner thing but she knew that it only happened when he drank and so she thought that it wasn’t that bad. With any abusive relationship you usually don’t realize how bad it truly is until you get out of it. She had shown up at work with bruises and even a black eye once but then he stopped hitting her in the face so people wouldn’t get suspicious. All of a sudden she loved being a work and she would use any excuse she could to stay longer or take on a double shift because she never knew when Scott would come home drunk. She told herself that it was okay to stay with him because she knew that he loved her and she told herself that she loved him. Sometimes he would come down from surgery looking for her and that’s when she would hide, she would go into the supply closet which could only be opened with a key and sit in a dark corner until he had given up on finding her it was one of the only places she felt safe.

One night she came home from work late, expecting Scott to already be asleep but he was sitting up waiting for her with a bottle of gin in one hand and an evil smile on his face. She shuddered involuntarily unable to predict what he was thinking.

“Sorry I’m late there was a double trauma and…”

“I’m beginning to think you don’t love me Kerry.” He said softly as he watched her hang up her coat but he didn’t stand up which made her feel a little bit better. “You didn’t even call you know how much I worry about you.”

“I know I’m sorry Scott.” She said before heading towards the stairs hoping to make it up the stairs before he decided to come at her, but she didn’t make it there in time. He stood up and walked over to her before backing her into the wall that was by the first step.

“Where were you today when I came looking for you? I wanted to take you out to lunch.” He got very close to her face and she could smell his breath which was just laced with the smell of gin. She turned her head to get away from the smell but her put his hand up to her face and roughly moved it so she was forced to look into his eyes, “Are you seeing some one else? HUH?” He took another swing from the bottle he was holding but he didn’t let go of her face.

“No…you know I love you Scott…”

“It’s that Carter isn’t it? He wants to take you away from me…he’s trouble all he wants is sex but I want you for YOU not your body!” His voice was getting increasingly louder, yes Weaver was friends with Carter she was like his best friend at the time and even though she entertained ideas of being with him she knew that she would never cheat on her husband even if things were bad. He leaned in and kissed her roughly, out of all the times he had come home angry he had never forced himself on her but now it was different.

“He’s just my friend…”

“I don’t want you to talk to him any more…ever!” He took another drink from the bottle finishing it off before throwing it against the wall angrily where it shattered and she winced feeling tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “God you are hot when you are scared…” He kissed her again and started to roughly unbutton her shirt and she closed her eyes for a moment trying to pretend that it wasn’t happening.

“I have to work with him…”

“SHUT UP!” He backhanded her as hard as he could but held her in place so she wouldn’t fall to the floor. She put a hand to her face after crying out in pain and surprise she didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. “That’s right…shut up and strip for me like the whore you are…”

“W-What?” She stuttered as her hand gently rubbed her face where she had just been swatted. She was surprised to see him acting like this, he had never done this to her before.

“You’re my WIFE you do what I SAY Kerry!” He back handed her again this time the ring he was wearing made a cut across her cheek and she cried out in pain again. “STRIP!” She started to cry softly and he backed up just a step as he watched her slowly get undressed. She didn’t think she had ever been so humiliated in her life but things were only going to get worse from there…luckily Carter was going to be there to pull her out of the black hole she was being sucked into.

Kerry had started to become more emotionally drained then she ever imagined and she could barely make it through a day at work with out going back to her corner, not only to hide from Scott but to cry. When she found out that she was pregnant she didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know if she should even bring a baby into a relationship that was incredibly sour. The day she found out about it she couldn’t keep anything down and ended up having to go home.

All she did that day was lay on the couch with the TV on, though she wasn’t watching it she was just crying wondering how she was going to explain this to Scott. Recently he had started to treat her like an animal or a toy she had to do anything he asked her to with out question or else she would be punished by whatever means he thought was necessary. All she could do now was wait for him to come home so she could tell him the news.

For the first time in almost a month he came home and he hadn’t been drinking which made her think that things would be different, maybe he wouldn’t be angry with the fact that she was pregnant. When he came into the room he sat down next to her and put his arm around her wondering why she looked so depressed.

“Scott…I’m pregnant…” She said softly and after a moment of eerie silence he pulled his arm back and punched her in the stomach as hard as he could obviously trying to get her to miscarry. Her whole life all she wanted was a child and he had known that before they even got married, or engaged. She cried out and doubled over in pain wondering why he would do that to her after she had hoped and prayed for a baby night after night.

“You WHORE!” He yelled at her and she was now on the floor on her knees doubled over in pain from the blow, he stood up and looked down at her in disgust, “I know it can’t be MINE!” he added before kicking her in the side and storming off towards the kitchen no doubt to get a beer and she started to sob, but silently because he only became more angry when he heard her cry. She knew it was his, he never used protection and she wasn’t on the pill but for some reason he thought that it wasn’t possible to get her pregnant. He knew that she had complications with that in the past so he assumed that he would never be able to get her pregnant.

“Scott…” She slowly stood up and reached for her crutch but he came back out of the kitchen and moved it away from her, he had done this more then once and although she could make her way around with out the cane it was tiring. Her stomach began cramping and so she sat back down on the couch and doubled over once more.

“Carter…you’ve been sleeping with him haven’t you?” He growled at her holding her cane in his hands like he was ready to beat her with it, “HAVEN’T YOU?”

“NO! Scott I’ve only been with you! I love you!” She cried trying to cower away from him so he wouldn’t hit her again. He glared at her for a moment before taking a long drink from the bottle of vodka he had retrieved from the kitchen.

“You love me so much you’ve been sleeping around! You are sleeping down here tonight.” He then spit on her angrily and stormed up to the bedroom with the bottle of vodka in one hand and her crutch in the other, turning the lights off behind him leaving her in almost total darkness. She started to cry again as the pain in her abdomen got worse, she knew she was going to miscarry it was only a matter of time but she also knew that she wasn’t going to be able to go to county to get help. There was no way she was going to let anyone find out about this and she started to feel like it was a mistake. Not that it was a mistake to tell him about the baby but a mistake to get pregnant in the first place. She truly believed it was all her fault that she had gotten pregnant and that she deserved to lose the kid for being so irresponsible. She waited there on the couch for a long while waiting for him to pass out. By that time she was in too much pain to stand up, so she ended up crawling slowly to the phone. She picked it up and called a taxi knowing that she wouldn’t be able to drive to mercy herself.

By the time the cab had gotten there she had blood spreading across her inner thighs and down the fabric of her pants. She grabbed her coat and purse, thanking god that Scott didn’t come in and hide it from her again and very carefully made her way outside. She was going to have to call off work for a few days to recover and her mind started to sift through all the excuses that she hadn’t used yet. She was taken to Mercy and treated and released late the next day. She had called into county and spoke to Carter who just happened to answer the phone, she told him that there had been a death in the family and she had to attend the funeral. At this point in time no one even knew she was married, Scott didn’t talk about it and he told her not to either so she didn’t. When Carter had answered the phone she almost burst into tears wanting to tell him everything that was happening but instead she lied.

It was a few days before Christmas and Weaver had been out that week because Scott had beaten her terribly leaving bruises on her face and hands and there was no way she was going to go into work looking like that. Scott was trying to get her to quit her job so she could stay home all the time to take care of his every need but she was positive that the only thing that was keeping her sane was going to work. Scott wasn’t home that night he was out of town visiting family, or so he said, she was never really sure of where he went when he went out of town but she was glad that he was gone. He had taken all of her credit cards and canceled them a few months back and she wasn’t allowed to ever carry more then ten dollars in cash because he was afraid she would make a break for it if she had more money. When he left her at home he took her car keys so she couldn’t leave and he had a security code installed into the house so if she opened the door the alarm would sound. She was becoming a prisoner in her own home but she was way to jaded to even realize what was going on.

That night she was upstairs running a hot bath, but that wasn’t all she was planning on doing. She had been taking sleeping pills lately so if Scott got up and decided that he wanted to have sex with her she would be way too out to even care. She didn’t like the fact that he used her body that way but another part of her told her that she was the wife and that was her job, to please her man. She had the bottle of pills sitting on the counter by the sink and a glass of water next to them, she planned to overdose on the pills and climb into the bathtub, that way if the pills didn’t succeed she would drown instead of waking up and vomiting them out of her system. She had just opened the bottle of pills after scribbling a note to Scott for when he found her when she heard the phone ring. She ignored it and poured a handful of pills into her hand when the answering machine picked up and she heard a familiar voice.

“Hey Dr. Weaver it’s Carter,” The message started and she looked out of the doorway to the bathroom towards the phone that sat in the bedroom not very far from where she was, “You know I’ve been really worried about you lately and I just wanted to make sure that…”

“Hello?” She had raced to the phone and picked it up before he could say anything else, she had put the pills back into the bottle and grabbed the phone, desperate to talk to anyone that wasn’t Scott. She started to cry silently as they talked and since she was used to not making noises when she cried he didn’t know that she was crying.

“Is everything okay? I mean you seemed really stressed out lately and you’ve been coming to work less and less.” He replied, he didn’t know why he had decided to call her that night but he had gotten this gut feeling that something was wrong. Of course at the time he had no idea that she was getting ready to say goodbye to the world, and he certainly had no idea that he had just stopped her from doing it.

“Yes everything is fine now…” She whispered back looking down at the bottle of pills she had in her hand before throwing them across the room in anger, “Thank you for calling John…I think I just need some one to talk to is all.”

They talked for a few hours that night and into the early morning and with every passing minute Weaver began to feel so much better about her life and her situation she didn’t want to ever get off the phone with him.