Work Text:
You tell yourself this isn’t like the other times, but there’s nothing about the scene that makes you sure. You all are fighting, and all couples fight, so it’s not as if what’s happening isn’t normal, isn’t typical. But something about that glint of rage in his eyes makes you clutch the corner marble counter tighter as he paces back into the kitchen.
It’s not that you’re scared of your husband, but he is a 6’5’’ man with broad shoulders and ebony arms laced with muscle. And even that vanilla musk on him doesn’t make him soft, unthreatening. There’s a dot of spit on the corner of his mouth when he speaks to you.
Licking your lips, you bite your bottom one and listen the way your mother has always told you to. But it’s not long before your tongue pushes the teeth away and urges you to speak. I don’t understand how we don’t have money for the repair man this week, but we did have money for that pen last week.
When I say we don’t have it, I mean that portion of our budget is maxxed out, Lindy. It’s simple, really. We have three categories: the things we need, the things we don’t need but should have, and miscellaneous. I need that pen for my work, it’s different.
And I don’t need a working dryer for mine? you ask.
His jaw tightens.
And why don’t I ever get to see anything? My name isn’t on half of the stuff, and I always have to ask you. Yet you never consult me on most of the purchases. Crossing your arms, you continue. It’s not fair, and I think I’m owed transparency, especially if we’re going to be buying fancy pens for tablets before we get the important things fixed.
That’s how you see it.
Just me, huh?
Yes.
You snort, but before it fully escapes your glossy red lips his hands are around your throat, the veins in his arms popping as he pushes his thumbs deeper and deeper into your neck. A choked gasp escapes your lips.
An inky black begins to crowd the frame of your vision before he thrusts you into cabinet. Pain shudders through your body, throbbing across every nerve as you blink and try to bring the world back to center.
He disappears through the kitchen door.
As you stand, your head is pounding, crackling like static. A hard, painful lump sits in the back of your abused throat, but you don’t dare touch it. Instead you go to the freezer, take out a few ice cubes and wrap them in a gingham cloth to press to your left wrist, which feels as if it got nicked on the fall down.
Your eyes wander to the window, that dim blue sky that sits before the day truly starts. All couples fight, you sigh to yourself.
Lindy. It’s his voice, coated in something rough and velvet.
You turn.
Setting the checkbook on the table, he says, Listen, I’m sorry. Can we— I have to go. That’s for the repairman. He taps the checkbook.
Before you can say anything, he’s already gone. His eggs are still on the table, now cold and slimy.
Looking back out the window, you ponder your life for a moment. You reevaluate the kitchen’s most recent scene and think over how you could’ve done better, done worse. All couples fight, but you’re quite sure not all fight so— with such fervor.
That man is a troubled one. But you knew that getting into it, didn’t you?