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She resisted huffing at the sight of her husband huddled over one of his old masks. I should throw those out when he’s out one day.
"I don’t even get why you wore the damn thing. You’re not disfigured or, or not even burned." She threw her arms up in a frustrated motion.
Lita honestly didn't think he looked all that bad, or at least not nearly as bad she had and everyone else had been led to believe.
He growled, turning his head toward her. A black towel sat precariously around his head, casting a shadow over his features. Old habits die hard.
"You better watch what you say to me."
She folded her arms. "Oh, really, yeah? What are you going to do, Kane? There’s nothing you can do that you haven’t done already."
"Maybe not to you, but I can bring suffering to those around you like your Matt," he spat the name of her former lover.
"Leave him out of this. I’m married to you, you know."
"And you’re just the picture of a blushing bride, aren’t you?" He sneered, recalling how she ruined the wedding dress he picked out for her. "How about I disfigure your boyfriend’s face? Would you still love him, then? You picture him when you’re with me? Wish our baby was his?"
Lita ignored his vile comments. "Would you tell me what you actually think is there, because I sure as hell don’t see what you’re seeing?" She debated getting a compact mirror from her purse, but decided against it, thinking he’d smash it.
"Don’t pretend others don’t stare, Lita. I’ve lived like this my entire life."
"I really don't want to spend the rest of our lives together arguing." She'd resigned herself to the fact that she'd be his wife for at least the indefinite future.
He said nothing.
"I think most of this is in your head, all from shit you heard from Paul all those years."
Kane only scoffed.
Alright. She’d try a different approach.
"Okay. You have the whole eye thing."
His breathing hitched, and those mismatched eyes narrowed.
She didn’t falter. "And a gap in your teeth, and the whole hair thing, I don’t know. But you’re also tall, like freakishly tall."
He reared back, thinking she had called him a freak, not liking that his wife's comment unsettled him. "Lita, I’m warning you."
"But it’s like you go out of your way to make people think there’s something grotesque about you, and there isn’t except, maybe, for how you treat others."
He sat farther back on the couch, his expression unreadable. "So you admit I’m a monster."
"Not on the outside at least. What do you expect when you give everyone a nice sob story about your childhood, and let them think you’re horribly maimed or something beneath a creepy mask?"
Instead of the expected rise in his already labored breathing or jumping to his feet to threaten her, he simply let out a small, humorless laugh. "Oh, we all wear masks, wife. You’re just lucky enough to be pretty on the outside."
Lita turned to leave. "You know, Kane, I think if you had actually been nice to me, like how you were to Tori, I could've loved you."