He Cannot Break Her - She Cannot Tame Him
The first time she hits him, they’ve been in an all-out fight for half an hour. Funny, how everything can spiral out of control in such a short amount of time; she would have thought it would take longer to burn every bridge they shared, and a few they didn’t. Perhaps this is simply their breaking point. Maybe they really were never meant to work things out in the end.
Such a thought hurts almost as much as her scalp where the white-knuckled hand is gripping her hair.
Her left hand is clutching his arm; her right is digging chipped fingernails into his skin.
“Let go of me!”
For a response he yanks, pulling on bleached and dark brown curls alike. It is this that snaps whatever resolve she has left, this childlike, terrifying action that reminds her how vulnerable she truly is. Never has it gotten this bad; although they’ve gotten to the ‘knock-down drag-out’ stage before, he has never reacted in such a menacing way.
Elizabeth is afraid, deeply afraid, because she can see the predatory rage in his eyes and all she can think is that if he rapes her, the neighbors will say it’s just what she deserves.
It is an unconscious motion, one that she doesn’t realize is happening until her hand has already curled into a fist. She’s never punched anyone before, but her body remembers how it felt to be hit and what his fist looked like before it connected with her face, and extrapolates from there.
Before she can think about stopping it, her hand slams into his jaw. The blow shakes John enough that he lets go. Her second punch, with all of her rage and fear and desperation behind it, knocks him off his feet.
A sickening crunch echoes through the tiny house as his head collides with the dingy white wall.
She turns, sobbing, and flees into the relative safety of the cluttered den. She doesn’t even wonder if she has killed him; to her, John is invincible, undefeatable. Most of the time that’s a good thing, because she knows he will defend her against anything and emerge unscathed, especially when the men at the café start their harassment. It means that he is her knight in shining armor, even if that armor is a T-shirt and oil-stained jeans instead of gleaming metal.
Now it only means that she cannot kill the monster.
Light moves slowly across the stained carpet as she lays on the couch, arms wrapped around a worn pillow in a search for comfort she once would have said only John could provide. Her mascara has run down her face in thick black streaks and she sniffles, staring out the window at the trees and cloudless skies. A cardinal perches on a nearby branch, its brilliant red contrasting with the peaceful green of the foliage. It twitters, bobbing its head up and down as if to better see through the cracked window of the dilapidated house.
“You don’t want to be in here, little bird.” She whispers to it, legs drawn up against herself, chin propped on her wrists. Then she pauses, wondering if she means it. A tiny voice says quietly that she doesn’t, that in fact if she could leave she would not. Why else would she still be here, in his house, waiting for… something? The door is only a few stride away; she knows how to jumpstart his motorcycle.
And yet she is still here.
So much, they have been through so much together. Every time she’s had to pull an ice pack out of the freezer and hiss as she puts it on a bruise, he has been there as a pair of strong arms that wrap around her, a head buried in the crook of her shoulder, a heart-felt apology. When she misses the last bus home from the café, he pulls up to the curb in the pelting rain and tosses her his leather jacket. If she calls and asks him to be home on time so they can have a dinner she made, he avoids the bars and shows up early with a bouquet of flowers.
He’s never promised her a castle and a kingdom; he has always been upfront and honest. And he has never, in the two years they have been together, ever said he did not love her.
Sliding off the couch, Elizabeth rises, looking for the man she will spend the rest of her life with.
He is sitting on the landing, head resting against the wall, staring at his calloused hands. She takes them, kisses them, lifts them to her shoulders so he can hold on when she leads him up the rest of the stairs.
When he is lying in bed, she sits on the opposite side with her legs dangling over the edge, assuming he will not want her near. Before she can stand and leave, though, one of his hands hesitantly lays itself on the curve of her waist, near her hip; their unique contact, the unspoken message of ‘I want you nearer’. She squeezes it, swings her legs back over and closes the distance between them by a few inches.
It is not the same, and perhaps it never will be. Something like love has been broken and forged again in this fire, with Elizabeth revealing herself to be stronger, John trying to accept this change. In the afternoon sun filtering through the thin curtains, they are different people than the ones that slept in the same bed last night.
Maybe now, free of their cocoons, they can spread their wings.
Maybe… this is what needed to happen all along.
Such a thought hurts almost as much as her scalp where the white-knuckled hand is gripping her hair.
Her left hand is clutching his arm; her right is digging chipped fingernails into his skin.
“Let go of me!”
For a response he yanks, pulling on bleached and dark brown curls alike. It is this that snaps whatever resolve she has left, this childlike, terrifying action that reminds her how vulnerable she truly is. Never has it gotten this bad; although they’ve gotten to the ‘knock-down drag-out’ stage before, he has never reacted in such a menacing way.
Elizabeth is afraid, deeply afraid, because she can see the predatory rage in his eyes and all she can think is that if he rapes her, the neighbors will say it’s just what she deserves.
It is an unconscious motion, one that she doesn’t realize is happening until her hand has already curled into a fist. She’s never punched anyone before, but her body remembers how it felt to be hit and what his fist looked like before it connected with her face, and extrapolates from there.
Before she can think about stopping it, her hand slams into his jaw. The blow shakes John enough that he lets go. Her second punch, with all of her rage and fear and desperation behind it, knocks him off his feet.
A sickening crunch echoes through the tiny house as his head collides with the dingy white wall.
She turns, sobbing, and flees into the relative safety of the cluttered den. She doesn’t even wonder if she has killed him; to her, John is invincible, undefeatable. Most of the time that’s a good thing, because she knows he will defend her against anything and emerge unscathed, especially when the men at the café start their harassment. It means that he is her knight in shining armor, even if that armor is a T-shirt and oil-stained jeans instead of gleaming metal.
Now it only means that she cannot kill the monster.
Light moves slowly across the stained carpet as she lays on the couch, arms wrapped around a worn pillow in a search for comfort she once would have said only John could provide. Her mascara has run down her face in thick black streaks and she sniffles, staring out the window at the trees and cloudless skies. A cardinal perches on a nearby branch, its brilliant red contrasting with the peaceful green of the foliage. It twitters, bobbing its head up and down as if to better see through the cracked window of the dilapidated house.
“You don’t want to be in here, little bird.” She whispers to it, legs drawn up against herself, chin propped on her wrists. Then she pauses, wondering if she means it. A tiny voice says quietly that she doesn’t, that in fact if she could leave she would not. Why else would she still be here, in his house, waiting for… something? The door is only a few stride away; she knows how to jumpstart his motorcycle.
And yet she is still here.
So much, they have been through so much together. Every time she’s had to pull an ice pack out of the freezer and hiss as she puts it on a bruise, he has been there as a pair of strong arms that wrap around her, a head buried in the crook of her shoulder, a heart-felt apology. When she misses the last bus home from the café, he pulls up to the curb in the pelting rain and tosses her his leather jacket. If she calls and asks him to be home on time so they can have a dinner she made, he avoids the bars and shows up early with a bouquet of flowers.
He’s never promised her a castle and a kingdom; he has always been upfront and honest. And he has never, in the two years they have been together, ever said he did not love her.
Sliding off the couch, Elizabeth rises, looking for the man she will spend the rest of her life with.
He is sitting on the landing, head resting against the wall, staring at his calloused hands. She takes them, kisses them, lifts them to her shoulders so he can hold on when she leads him up the rest of the stairs.
When he is lying in bed, she sits on the opposite side with her legs dangling over the edge, assuming he will not want her near. Before she can stand and leave, though, one of his hands hesitantly lays itself on the curve of her waist, near her hip; their unique contact, the unspoken message of ‘I want you nearer’. She squeezes it, swings her legs back over and closes the distance between them by a few inches.
It is not the same, and perhaps it never will be. Something like love has been broken and forged again in this fire, with Elizabeth revealing herself to be stronger, John trying to accept this change. In the afternoon sun filtering through the thin curtains, they are different people than the ones that slept in the same bed last night.
Maybe now, free of their cocoons, they can spread their wings.
Maybe… this is what needed to happen all along.