Running for Home - 24. November 8, 2021

November 08 2021

I tried to handle things myself but I know fuck all about choosing the right counsel for the job and one that I can actually afford, especially since I need someone from a firm that has offices both here and in L.A. Emma gave me a list of lawyers, but in particular she recommended a woman named Evangeline Whedon to be my attorney for this lawsuit. She gave me the day off to head into N.Y.C. to meet with her this afternoon. Evangeline – or Vange, as she likes to be called – is a pretty cool chick. Mutant polymorph that can turn into a dragon, fire-breath and all. We went over what happened during my relationship with Dom. She was pretty thorough, and at times it was hard to keep my emotions under control. It took so much effort to keep a lid on things that I felt pathetic. I tried to let the anger and resentment override everything else, but it just wouldn’t happen. I think Vange was trying to reign that in as well so that I could give her as objective a version of the events as I could. She was patient as fuck with me, I’ll give her that.

By the end of the meeting I was feeling exhausted but a bit relieved. Vange seemed to think my case was strong enough that I shouldn’t even consider trying to settle out of court. She thought the best outcome Dom could hope for was compensation for half of the value of the possessions in our apartment, since California is a community property state. I did sell a few things online – the living room furniture, television and video games console, dining room table, bed, dishes and pots and pans, but we didn’t really have all that much that I could sell for any substantial amount of money. Neither of us kept knick knacks, nor did we have any collections of toys or memorabilia that would be worth money. Any other furnishings and what little clothing he had that he left behind I donated to charity, even though I had half a mind to just burn it all. In sum, the money I got from the sales was a walloping $563. Half of that won’t even cover Dom’s court fees let alone his legal fees, the idiot. I’m not even sure if he’ll be able to get that out of me, since he was gone for over a month before I started throwing anything out.

Vange hoped that we’d be able to make things bulletproof, but it would take some legwork to prove that I was both providing for the both of us and handling the vast majority of domestic duties during the two years we lived together after he got out of jail. It would be tough to really show how much of a lazy fuck he’d been. Thankfully, the time we lived together before he decided to make that idiot decision was irrelevant in this case, since at the time neither of us had much money at all. We weren’t married and neither of us expressed any intent for that to happen, either.

That whole domestic duties piece was one of the important things. Dom didn’t have any diagnosed physical or mental disabilities that would prevent him from working, whether around the house or in general. He also made no real effort to find a job, beyond some infrequent under the table handyman shit. Even if he had a criminal record, there were things people would hire him to do. Fuck, I even tried to get him to go interview for a few demolition companies because his powers are perfect for that shit, for God’s sake, but he wouldn’t budge. In the end, if Dom had been doing anything at all around the apartment his case would be stronger. Oh, of course he and his lawyer will most likely try to lie or bend the truth a bit about that so we will have to find witnesses who are willing give statements demonstrating with reasonable confidence that he spent a lot of the days (and nights, and evenings) out of the apartment doing god knows what while I was at home working on my writing or doing chores. The cheating should help too, if we can get corroborating evidence.

There’s a part of me that’s angry enough that I want to see him in court and watch his reactions as Vange just completely crushes Dom’s lawyer’s balls and castrates his case. Yeah, I think she’ll be absolutely vicious before the bench. At the same time, though, a larger part of me just wants it all to go away. I’m not going to settle, though. He’s not getting a fucking cent from me, come hell or high water.

When I got back to the school late in the afternoon Jubilee came charging up to me, completely pissed. Apparently she was looking for me at lunch and Emma let slip that I was being sued and needed to see a lawyer. She didn’t give Jubes any details, but it still pisses me off that Emma even told her that much. It was a ‘personal day.’ Doesn’t that mean I have a right to some goddamn privacy? Jubes wanted to know what the hell was going on, of course. I told her I’d need a few drinks in me before I’d want to talk about it. She rolled her eyes and said ‘I guess I’m off to the liquor store, then.’

I should have known that putting things off till even later today would mean it wasn’t just the two of us having a talk. JP and Piotr ended up there too. At least Jubilee had bought me a nice bottle of scotch to soothe my jangled nerves. They didn’t get started with my situation, not right away. I was grateful for that, because I wasn’t lying when I said I’d need a few drinks. They were all peeved that it had been days since getting the notice of the lawsuit and I hadn’t told anyone but Emma yet. To be honest, I’m not sure why I didn’t say anything. I guess it was a combination of denial and shame. If I didn’t talk about it, it didn’t exist. If I didn’t talk about it, they wouldn’t know how pathetic me and my life had been for the last decade.

Of course, I was totally overreacting and catastrophizing about negative reactions. They listened and were supportive. They did their damndest to convince me that I wasn’t to blame for what happened with Dom, especially the cheating. Jean-Paul in particular was insistent about how difficult it can be to parse out what’s happening with an abusive or manipulative lover who may have secret motives and a desire to hide things. He’d had two very bad experiences in his past. He was taken advantage of by an older man when he was still a teenager, and that experience had left deep scars. He’d dealt with a cheater later in life, one who had used him mostly for his celebrity but didn’t truly love him. He told me that some people consciously or unconsciously use a tactic called gaslighting to turn everything wrong that’s happening back on the other party, to make them feel like they are the bad guy of the situation. The toxic relationship causes a hell of a lot of harm to one’s self-esteem and creates lasting insecurities even after the relationship finally falls apart. I could definitely see aspects of that in my relationship with Dom. I’m not sure if that was a relief or even more of a blow to me. Jean-Paul said I was lucky I didn’t get drawn into one of the all-too-common cycles of breakup and makeup during all of this, because in many ways that can be even more damaging.

I came to a bit of a realization while we were talking, one that I didn’t voice to the others because it made me feel even more pathetic. In a lot of ways, one could draw parallels between my relationship with Dom and the way my parents were. Mind you, in the case of my parents both of them had substance abuse problems and both were major pieces of work, but I guess I’m no saint of mental stability either. I wonder if the free but mandatory psychotherapy the government thrust on me while I was recovering from Iraq helped draw me away from the toxic lifestyle I’d been leading with the Brotherhood and Freedom Force. I wonder if I may have ended up acting just like Dom in the end if I hadn’t been given that benefit and had the balls to embrace it. I wonder if Dom wouldn’t have been such a motherfucking bastard to me if he’d been given similar psychological treatment either after Freedom Force disbanded or even while he was in jail.

There are times when your mind just suddenly cobbles together a new paradigm, a new context through which to view your life. That new hindsight can sometimes be a relief or even a transcendental experience. This wasn’t one of those times. All it did was make me feel even more hollow.