Told in Reverse

I died on September 9, 1991. The last thing my eyes registered was my daughter standing in front of me, sucking her thumb and watching my blood stain the walls and carpets around me. I watched that child until, finally, my breath stopped, my heart ceased it's pumping, and the final synapse fired in my brain. And even then, I kept watching that child with hollow, unseeing eyes,registering nothing.
"Mama", she whispered from around her still planted thumb
My unspeaking mouth said nothing - but my soul rose up from within and screamed a sound that no one heard. The sound of all the years of pain cumulatively escaping in one single rush. A single explosion of knowing. That I had caused this. That everyone had been right about him. That it was now too late.
My husband killed me. I haven't been granted enough time to weave a mystery for you. So there it is - He killed me. And I let him. I tell you my story so that maybe, just maybe, you'll see yourself and stop your own demise. Maybe you'll be strong where I failed to be. To rise above your loyalties to someone who demands respect and trust, but in truth,deserves none of it. It's true - what they've all been telling you.-those people on the fringes of your life - the observers looking in and seeing something sinister and dangerous.Those who love you rarely are motivated to lie to you. Believe them. They are your angels if you'll let them be.

I met my husband three years earlier, during the summer of 1988. I first caught sight of him at a local gas station. I pumped gas on one side of the pumps while he pumped at the other side. I put on my cutest smile and pretended not to notice him , while simultaneously flipping my long blond hair. I was only slightly deterred when he never took his eyes off the pump. Slightly detererred but greatly intrigued.

He was magnificent. His look was a cross between athlete and race car driver. Both of which I'm sure he would excel brilliantly at. He had long, lean muscles and broad shoulders.His golden hair was tusseled and the color of just harvested straw His blue eyes pierced the landscape of his two -day old beard which lent him a careless, reckless, somewhat dangerous look.

I was twenty years old that wonderful summer. As carefree as the wind. I had just finished my sophmore year at Illinois State and was living at home for the summer and working at a convenience store in town. Greensberg is the kind of lazy, sleepy town you usually find in the Midwest. Nothing special really, just a town like any other where people go to work, pay their bills and raise their families.. A place where days move effortlessly and fluidly from one to next like pearls along a strand. Not one much different from the other. Yesterday the same as today. Tomorrow the same as yesterday. Nothing exciting ever happens here. Ever. So the sighting of someone new and fascinating was not typical for me. Maybe he was just passing through town. This was after all, a gas station. Isnt that what people did on there way from one place to another? Maybe this was just some random stop on his way to somewhere more glamorous.
I could have gotten gas at the Stop and Go where I worked, but truthful, I hated to go there when I wasn't on the schedule. The owner, Dave Pritch and his overbearing, brown nosing manager Mike were probably both there this time of day. No sense ruining such a wonderful afternoon with the possibility of running into either of them.
I'd been at the Stop and Go for the last two summers making minimum wage. It wasn't going to get me rich, that was for sure, but at least I had a little spending money for the summer. I didn't really need too much anyway, my parents bought all the groceries and when September rolled back around, as it always seems to do, I knew my mom would announce that every college kid deserves at least a couple of new outfits.
Dad would pretend a fake heart attack when we would finally emerge from the shopping mall loaded down like burdened pack mules. There are certain perks to being an only child. And I'm not one to disappoint my parents.
Later that same summer I would disappoint them in gargantuan fashion, but we'll get to that soon enough.
Across the pumps, the boy had finished filling his car and headed into the station to pay. His tall, thin frame strode with ease across the expanse of pavement before disappearining behind the glass door of the gas station.
A perfect summer sun shone on Greensberg, the air warm and electric with possibility. June had always been a long-awaited milestone of each year since I had become school aged. I loved the way I felt knowing that ahead of me lie three blank calendar pages, each day waiting to be crossed off in permanent marker. Proof the day had been lived.
Moments later he emerged from the store, carrying himself with an aire of confidence. Each step brought him closer while I clamored for something catchy to say. He was nearly close enough to speak to, so, with the pump in one hand I sheepishly looked in his direction armed with my most alluring look and just as the word hi was about to leave my mouth I heard a fierce rushing and gurgling and the sudden sensation of being hit with cold waves of liquid . The gasoline struck me at just above the waist and then proceeded to spill down over my abdomen and proceed from there to my groin and upper thighs giving the appearance of having wet my pants. I pulled the nozzle from the gas tank, but not before the damage had been done. Smooth. Real smooth. As I stood, dumbfounded,an awareness washed over me. Mr. Magnificent had bore witness to one of my most humiliating moments. I looked up to see him standing directly in front of and only a few feet away from me, smirking in that way that so many handsome men smirk when they knew they have the upper hand.
I could feel my face growing hot and my confidence slinking away to that place where it so often hides when I feel as though I've failed. I had spent the last five minutes working up the courage to talk to him, now I just wish he'd turn and drive away. Let me wallow in my self pity without an audience.
"Looks like you got more than you bargained for". His voice was both smooth and gravelly - his eyes both kind and cutting. A package of complete contradiction.
I stood in utter embarrassment before him , searching my brain for a single simple sentence that might redeem my catastrophic first impression.
The June sun shone hot on my face. I had begun to sweat, forming a thin layer of perspiration across my chest and abdomen. The humidity was beginning to make my hair form ringlet - like curls around my cheekbones that tendrilled down past my shoulders and landed somewhere mid-back. I had always loved my summer hair. But now I just felt sticky. The smell of gasoline was making me nauseas. There was nothing more to lose, really. It didn't matter how I responded to him , or if I even said a word at all, for that matter.
He took a step forward, and then another before reaching for the gas nozzle. He pulled fthe nozzle from me, leaving my hands floundering uselessly in the air all the while watching me with his steely gaze and smiling that smirky smile. He hung the nozzle back on the pump and laughed heartily at me, but more playfully than before. His face had softened some and I began to feel less self-conscience.