Broken, Chapter 1 "We need you to tell us exactly what happened," the man says. I sigh. "It was nothing," I say, "Really, it was nothing." The man looks me in the eye and says, "Ma'am, this is very important. We need your cooperation here. I promise that we will protect you and your information." I take a deep breath and nod. "Okay," he says, "Now start from when you arrived at the party." "It was about 80 and it wasn't quite dark yet. We pulled up to my friend's house and he got my door for me. See, he's really sweet," I say. The man says nothing. I continue, "When we got inside, everyone was already there. Most of them were drunk. My friend has a big collection of wine and they had told everyone to help themselves. I told my husband before we left not to get carried away with the drinks and he said that he wouldn't. Then we all sat around their table and talked. Harold and I had a few drinks and then we went home." The man frowns at me and looks down at the papers in front of him. I wait patiently, but after a few moments I start to squirm uncomfortably. He glances up at me and then back down to the papers. The silence stretches on for what seems like hours. Then he says, "The report says that you had nothing to drink." I try to swallow but it has suddenly become incredibly hard. I settle for a cough. "And it says that your husband had more than 'a few drinks'," he says. "Why would you lie to us?" I shrug, but there is a lump in my throat. "He's a good man, I swear," I choke out, the sandpaper in my throat like fire. The man sitting across from me says, "I'm sure he is. But sometimes good people do bad things. Did he do a bad thing?" I shake my head, unable to speak. It irritates me, but also makes me want to cry that he is talking to me like I am a little kid instead of a grown woman. "Annabelle," the man says, "we need the truth." "Okay," I say. "Okay. He didn't have a few, he had a lot. But he doesn't normally do that! Please, believe me!" The tears begin to run down my cheeks and I am surprised that I am not a sobbing mess yet. "I believe you," the man says quietly, but the fact that he refuses to look me in the eyes leads me to believe otherwise. "What happened after that?" "He got a little...loud. We went home," I say. "Then he called some of his friends and they came over. They were kind of...drunk." He asks, "Was your husband drunk, too?" I don't respond. Somewhere inside me I know I should tell this man about it, but the other part of me just wants things to go back to normal. They always do. Sometimes he gets bad, but he always comes back to me, all sweet and kind. I just have to let him come back to me. I keep my mouth shut. The man sighs. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to," he says, "but I really wish you would. I know that something is wrong, but you have to let me help you. Unless you tell me, I am not allowed to help." He looks at me for a long time, but my mind is made up. I will not talk. He sighs again. "Please stay here," he says. "I would like you to take some papers with you." He gets up and leaves me sitting in the chair. I begin to cry and wonder if I did the right thing. Outside, I hear him talking to someone. "...I know that he's just using her. I wish we could help..." "...has to admit it herself or we'd do no good...can't keep her here against her will, it's illegal..." "...have to let her go...just hope that she will come back..." They can't be talking about me. They don't know anything. Everything will be okay, in a couple of days Harold will be back to normal and I will think it silly that anyone ever thought that he... Yes, I know I did the right thing. I do wonder who called these people, though.... "Alright, I'm back." The man has entered the room again. I wish I knew his name. "Here are the papers," he says with a smile, handing them to me. "Thank you," I say. "I didn't catch your name before." "Eric," he says, and looks me in the eye. "If you ever need someone to talk to call the number at the bottom of the page." "Thanks," I say quickly. We both just stand there. "May I go now?" "Yes," Eric says. I feel his eyes on me as I walk out. --------------