(HSSC2) Appropriate Behaviour?

I would like to remind the judges that English isn't my first language. I did my best to have the text spellchecked and grammar checked. Please forgive if it isn't as perfect as it should be. Thank you very much.

Appropriate Behaviour?

“How could you dare to come over here? After all that you have done?”, Brian asked her.

She stood paralyzed, watching him with wide open eyes. “Brian, please!”

“No, no way, you don’t deserve to be here! It is over!”

“Brian, please!” She didn’t know what to do. Just standing there in the living room, watching Brian, watching her son. “But … Brian … what … have …I … done?”

“YOU dare to ask? You really dare to ask?”, Brian shouted. “I have read everything, everything. Listen! Really everything!”

Her brain started to figure out what he was talking about. He read? What had he read? His words made no real sense to her. Even less sense than his phone call in the afternoon. It was her lunch break from school. Brian called her before the break was over. He started to yell at her immediately, accusing her of cheating. Him! Cheating? She didn’t understand what he was talking about.

He asked again and again: “Is there anything you need to tell me?” No, there was nothing! Nothing at all. “Heather, is there anything you need to tell me?”

“No Brian, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Heather be honest. Think it over again! Is there anything you need to tell me?”

“Brian, please, you are confusing me. Give me a hint”, she begged.

“Heather it is all up to you. Check your mind … I heard you gasp, yep this is what I mean … is there anything you need to tell me?”

She started crying. “No Brian, nothing, I have done nothing, I need to tell you nothing.”

“Heather stop crying at once. Behave yourself. There are people around you. Just tell me: is there anything you need to tell me?”

But she couldn’t stop crying. She didn’t understand why he accused her. Why couldn’t he tell her what he really meant? “Brian,” she sobbed, “please, Brian, why do you keep asking? Tell me what you mean?”

“Heather, you know it!” Brian demanded, “I know you know it. Tell me is there anything you need to tell me? And for heaven’s sake stop sobbing, it is ridiculous, a woman at your age standing in the streets crying and sobbing. What do you think people will think of you? A ridiculous old woman sobbing in the street!” Brian laughed, “Oh Heather even for your standard this is bad!” He hung up on her, leaving her sobbing, staring at her mob, still not knowing what he wanted her to confess.

She hasted home after school, not sure what she could expect. In what mood Brian would be. As usual. She always kept asking herself if she did something Brian didn’t like, something Brian would judge as being not appropriate! Appropriate! His favorite word. Appropriate reaction, appropriate behavior. She struggled hard to be appropriate, to reply appropriately, to be dressed appropriately. Nobody ever understood how hard she struggled. Her friends usually saw the charming Brian, the courteouse Brian, the understanding Brian. Brian who was listening to them, Brian who was able to advise them carefully.

They didn’t know that her Brian was different from the Brian they knew. Sure, when he was in a good mood he was as charming and tender as a man could be. But usually he was different. Her happiness was depending on his mood. Even if she got the idea the marriage was working well he could destroy this feeling in a minute. Just by asking questions she couldn’t answer.

A very popular question: “What’s up? I can feel that there is something!” He never accepted her reply that everything was OK. Brian kept asking and asking and asking. Most times she had to invent something, just to satisfy him. But usually he was never ever really satisfied. Never!

He would normally use everything she told him, especially the invented stuff, against her, to torture her. To make sure that she knew she was unworthy, not appropriate. Nothing was appropriate on her. Not her body, not her clothing, not her hairstyle, not her behavior, not her way of talking. Only the way she treated her son, seemed to be OK, or at last most times!

What the heck was Brian talking about? She asked herself this question again and again. She wanted to go home as soon as possible but on the other hand, this was the moment she feared most. Brian has never been in such a bad mood before. And his moods could be really bad moods. He never hurt her physically. No, that would not be appropriate! He did it the psychological way. Very subtly. Trying to undermine her self-confidence, to demoralize her. He was the superior one, the one who was far more intelligent than her, or alas he thought he was far more intelligent. The one who understood everybody and everything but not his own wife.

She had to sob again. This was so crazy. What was he talking about? What did he mean by “Is there anything you need to tell me?” She really didn’t understand. The longer she thought about it the less she understood. Her brain worked high speed as usual when she walked home after meeting her friends. Did she tell them anything she wasn’t suppose to tell? What would she reply when he would ask her again: “About what did you talk?”. She knew he was pretending mild interest when he just wanted to control those meetings.

She hasted home, quickly, finding Brian and her 7 year old son sitting at the dining room table. She was standing close to the table, feeling guilty – again – but not know what for.

“How could you dare to come over here?” Brian snapped. “I have read them!”

“What did you read?”

“Your e-mails! You betrayed me! All your friends think I am suppressing you. You know that is not right! You have to develop! You attacked me from behind! You are not true to me! You never told them the truth! You just told your side. You have never been objective. You pretend to be the victim. You know that this is not true! YOU DISCREDIT ME” His face seemed to be frozen, he didn’t seem to see her at all.

“But Brian …” she sobbed again.

“Heather it is over! We’ll split. I have explained everything to Timmy.”

“You just can’t involve Timmy”, she cried. “He is to small for that, he can’t bear it.”

“Heather!”, Brian strictly said, “Timmy is much stronger than you expect.”

To Brian, Timmy was always stronger than she thought. But Timmy was a very sensitive boy. He noticed more than they thought. Brian wasn’t able to understand that Timmy’s little problem — he still wasn’t able to use the toilet during nighttime — was nothing Timmy did to annoy them. Just a reaction to the terror in the family. A reaction to Brian.

Most nights Timmy was as well frightened by nightmares. He was hardly able to awake from these nightmares. Brian forced him to awake, very cruel and brutal, mentally brutal. She always stood close to Timmy’s bed, paralyzed to break the brutal force of his father. She kept telling herself that it was helpful for Timmy to have his mom close to him.

“Brian, I expect that you will leave Timmy out! Don’t tell him what is going on!”

“You expect? Oh yeah Miss ’I-am-better-than-you’ expects that everybody does everything like she wants it! Ha Heather, just stop henpecking me!”

“But Brian, Timmy is just a small boy.” Her voice trembled.

“Heather spare me your tears again. I told Timmy everything and fullstop. And if you still not know what it is all about. I came across your e-mails. And now take your time to think it over.”

“Brian you didn’t have the right to read my e-mails. It is illegal.”

“Shut up. Who cares if it is illegal? I am your husband. I have the right to know what is going on in my house. And if you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t need to care about me knowing your e-mails.” He looked cold and angrily at her. All of a sudden he left the room heading for his office. She was left alone with Timmy.

–––> part II

Timmy reached for her, hugging her with his soft little arms. “Mommy don’t be sad. It is OK, that daddy talked to me. But you shouldn’t have told your friends about daddy and you.”

She sobbed again. “Oh Timmy, you cute little boy. But it is a bit different as your daddy told you!” He looked interrogatory at her. “Timmy you remember Kevin, the little boy hitting you at the swing?”

“Yeah Mommy, he was nasty.”

„See, you had a problem with Kevin and didn‘t know how to solve it because Kevin refused to talk to you. Therefore, you talked to me and we both found a solution.“ Timmy nodded. “See and like you and me talked about Kevin to solve the problem, I talked to my friends to find a solution for some problems with daddy.”

“Did he also refuse to talk to you, mommy?”

“Yes always.”

“Poor mommy.”

She checked her e-mails, just to figure out that he had checked them very carefully. He must have used the search function to check every account, every folder, then forwarded those of importance to him. She still didn’t know why he logged into her computer while she was away. But she knew he wouldn’t tell her, as usual. She should know it all of her own. Start to think. He kept telling her to start to think, denying that she was thinking all the time, always worrying, always checking, always trying act appropriately. She hardly remembered that their life had once been different. She even didn’t realize the change. All of a sudden, that’s how it appeared to her, it changed. His feelings towards her. Then he started to torture her, for her own sake, to help her develop spiritually. Brian considered it necessary.

The next morning she found his marriage ring on her plate. She knew it was over. All over. But what should she do? She didn’t know.

Brian stopped talking to her! She was of no existence for him. He took the food she cooked but he refused having his meals together with her and Timmy.
When he looked into her direction he pretends not to see her. He just looked through her. No doubt, he did not only ignore her. It seemed as if she had died in his eyes.

She started leaving little notes to him. He took no notice of them.
He did not care about her feelings, of her cry for help, of her aim to get in touch with him.
This was the situation which has led the tow so far. He always refused to talk to her about her feelings, about her problems. He considered them as being no real problems. “Come back to me when you are able to name the real problem,” he demanded. Again, he defined the way she had to feel, to think, to judge.
Yearning for understanding she got in touch with her friend writing those e-mails, which now let to the splitting.

She felt hopeless. More than hopeless. She wasn’t able to cry anymore but still couldn’t stop it. Brian has not talk to her for more than a week now. Even Timmy was suffering due to this situation. Last night he asked Brian: “Daddy why don’t you talk to Mommy? I don’t like it this way!”

“Timmy, your mom doesn’t want me to talk about it to you!” Brian explained smirking. “But I will explain it to you! This is the way Daddy treats traitors.”

She cried desperately that night. She cried her soul out of her body. She really didn’t know what to do. Brian considered her to be a traitor. She found herself in the middle of the night in his office, holding his knees, pledging: “Brian, forgive me. I never meant to do you any harm. Please Brian please!” She banged her head on the floor — several times, folding her hands as if she was going to pray and pleading Brian’s forgiveness but Brian just ignored her.

She knew she didn’t do anything harmful. Only making her mind up. Brian claimed that they weren’t bolstering each other, which she couldn’t believe. So she had to ask her friends who encouraged her in her point of view. But Brian never believed that she never discredit him. He got his point of view, and that was everything which counted in Brian’s eyes.
She didn’t know how to go on. Now she was standing at the bus stop. She got the feeling that she was of no earthly use, neither for Brian, neither for Timmy and most of all, neither for herself.

It was so easy!

The car,

a jump …

… the END!

Hi orange. Great job and the ending haunts me.

Rush

thanks rush

haunting halloween!