Something about just being aware of my own existence irritated me.
On my hands and knees I picked at the blood staining the grout under the sink, fuming behind a mess of tangled hair. Drops on the linoleum and the sides of the counter like spilled paint. The taste of iron was cloying on the back of my tongue. It was late, the smudged window in the living room letting a mellow glow and little else in the way of light. Every few seconds I would catch a reflection in the glass door of the oven and mutter something violent and disgusting about the image. Sucking my teeth, pulling my lips back like a restrained animal in a wire enclosure, spit building on my tongue as something bored a hole through the top of my head. I jolted up against the cabinet under the sink, my spine curling between my shoulders, anger seizing in the tight muscles across my chest and stomach, the tips of my fingers stinging as I clutched at them. The breath caught in my throat sounded like fear. Something shifts.
"Stop muttering."
He kept his voice quiet, obviously. A dull threat in the back of his throat, as if shouting would spook me.
From my place curled back against the cabinets, it was only a dark shape reclined on the couch, framed in the yellowish light glowing like a thin halo above him. One foot propped on the opposite knee, looking at the TV without any real interest, but he could hear my pitiful mumbling.
"God damn, if you don't fucking shut up -"
Another sound, tighter this time. Through gritted teeth, maybe. A bit closer now, standing above me but not an immediate threat. I ducked my head away like a skittish animal, my hand coming up to cover my mouth, a string of apologies melting together in the breath I was holding. A pathetic string of 'I'm sorry's that he brushed aside carelessly.
"You're like a fucking dog sometimes, I swear," his voice shook somewhere on the word dog, but not the way he's supposed to mean it. Like he had to clear something out of the way before speaking. There was a quiet "God" somewhere, and the hand hanging at his side twitched like it was meant to hit something. A spasm. No patience. "How's that hand doing?" He prompted, fake casual, a quick change of heart as he knelt in front of me, a quick move for my wrist. I scooted back. "Let me see. Gotta make sure it's healing, that you haven't been fucking with it."
"Leave it!" I flinch, almost a spasm, a burst of fear, an electric shock racing up and down my arm. A desperate warning, out of my hands, reflex. I was shocked to hear my voice loud and harsh in the quiet, a bark, a shaking scrap of a sound like ripping fabric. The static flared, then died behind my eyes in an instant, cold fear soaking in like a drug. His hand gripped my upper arm, dragging me up to the kitchen table like someone might drag a cat by its scruff. An easy feat; I weighed nothing, I'm sure. I had come out of the past few months of withdrawal and isolation painfully lithe. Lean and angular, fragile. But as he sat me onto the edge of the kitchen chair I knew it wasn't an issue of lightness or sudden fragility. It was an issue of submission and the power of a hand bigger than mine.
Just like another time, and another, wishing they were long ago and forgotten.
"Let me see it." He looked down at me, my hand limp, and no heat this time. Still a demanding tone, just not the same impatient bite. It sounded just the way he used to, softening me up enough for him to hold me when there was a particularly nasty episode, to wrap himself around me and the pillow until the world was dark and warm again. That sort of voice. And I let him see it.
Inky blood was drying along the scabbed-over the cuts on my knuckles where the bits of glass found their way under. Despite my best efforts to dig them out with my fingernails and teeth, the wounds only continued to bleed more profusely until he had brought over the tweezers and gauze. He wiped the still oozing cuts roughly with his shirt and made me spread out my fingers for a minute, counting all ten just to be sure. "Fuck, Cole, why can't you behave for five goddamn minutes?" He sighed, tossing my hand back into my lap like I shouldn't have the use of it anyhow.
"Don't touch me," I grumbled to my bleeding hand and I knew as soon as it was past my teeth that I shouldn't have said that. I saw something, a moment where his fingers jerked like they wanted to touch. Maybe with anger, maybe with some other intent, but they twitched regardless.
He scoffed. "Why don't you have some food and relax for a minute? Take a shower before bed, cool off, we can forget this ever happened. Whatever." He looked away from me, waving a hand at me. The same word on repeat, over and over, forget forget forget. That's all he ever had for me, these days. Fake smiles and advice, instructions and reminders, a stiff drink on the couch. Somehow through everything, that method has held up and hung on by a thread. "Come on, stand up. Want some soup?"
God, I hate the way he baby-talks to me, it's a pain so irritating and uncomfortable, the soft fondness reserved for an infant, or an animal. I slipped off the edge, steadying myself on the chair beside me. The static had cooled to the back of my mind, simmering just past my awareness. I shifted my weight back, rolling my shoulders and finally feeling the lingering strain in my muscles. The ever growing pit sat heavy in the bottom of my stomach. I wasn't ready to eat anything yet. "Not hungry."
"Then have a smoke or something, or shower. Shit, do anything you need to, alright? Just – something. Relax, Cole, for Christ's sake." A small jolt of worry pricked the edges of his voice, then fizzled away in a moment. "Won't change much to lash out all the time, you know."
I grumbled something unintelligible and made a rude gesture in his general direction without really looking his way, but I'm sure the intent was clear enough. I wasn't in the mood to acknowledge what I was feeling, just shove it aside long enough to sulk off and pretend I'm not affected by anything in the world. He pressed the pack of cigarettes he was carrying into my hands, then strode back towards the bedroom to be alone, shutting the door harder than needed. He, too, was trying not to acknowledge the obvious stress between us – or trying to placate it, anyway. A half-assed attempt at playing husband. A poor performance.
With the lights off and the curtains closed, I climbed up onto the couch and lit a cigarette. The night outside the thin and flimsy curtains was near pitch-black, the living room cast into shadow. The flickering screen illuminated the wall behind me, the blueish glow making the beige paint that much less offensive. My eyelids itched with exhaustion. The cigarette dangled, burning, and I shifted around a moment to get comfortable. I turned over, rolled back again, pressed into the corner where the cushions met. Tipped sideways and buried the side of my face into the pillow.
When I blinked it felt like a jarring fall back into reality and he was crouched beside the couch, saying something to me. The taste of smoke hung heavy on my tongue, and I inhaled with it. Disgruntled by his presence, the tone of his voice, I stretched back against the pillow and squinted into the dark.
"Hm?"
"You never even got out of those stupid pajamas." He was holding another bottle, not an unfamiliar sight. He reached over and toyed with the hem of my shirt. One of his old tees that threatened to slip down over my thin shoulders again, the sleeves pulled down and wrapped into fists by my thin fingers. I hummed something vaguely agreeing. He hummed back at me, turning and knocking back a heavy gulp. Chasing sleep and an apparent alcoholism. I watched his hand set down the bottle of whatever he was drinking this week - bourbon or vodka or rum, it's all the same. He ran a hand through his hair, muttering something I didn't care to listen to. He mumbled in the same way I spoke, distracted or uncertain or weary. A common trait between us.
I rolled over, my back to him. The air was chilly now, and the shirt did nothing to stave off the heat leeching from me. My fingers and toes had fallen numb, a chill in my veins. As I wiggled them and the pulse started beating through my limbs, he began talking to me, uninvited and unnecessary. But necessary; to hear someone talk to me, babble nonsense and complain about some menial thing out of my control seemed natural. Human.
"You know that guy I was telling you about, the one I can't stand? You haven't met him. The brat in training?" He didn't wait for a response, just continued on the same like I cared. "Not even his kind of business, just overstepping and ignoring boundaries all over the place, you know. God, something's wrong with that guy." He sounded stressed, overworked, drained. I knew they'd been keeping him overtime lately. He worked in a car shop downtown as a mechanic. It was low-class work, gritty, but the owner was apparently an excellent man to work for if the paychecks were to be trusted. Apparently. And me, having dropped out after sophmore year, no career aspirations or plan for my life. There I was, of little to no value to this world. I sighed.
"Awful taste in music, too," he added on after a pause to take another swig. What a grievance, awful music taste. Isn't there something else to lose your head over?
My neck was strained from the tension of keeping my head up for so long. My words muffled, thick with exhaustion and an ever-present uneasiness. "Sleepy," I mumbled as I stretched, my voice thick and slurred like mud.
There was a sigh behind me, and the couch depressed as he leaned onto the arm closest to me. "You should sleep then, sweetheart," he murmured to the bottle he had pressed to his bottom lip. I grumbled and sighed, more tired than compliant, rolling onto my back. His hand covered mine at my side, one finger combing through the spaces between my own. An easy gesture, fleeting and meaningless. He wasn't even looking my way, really. Just wanting to know I was still there, and I curled up to him in some instinctual display of affection. Warmth spread around his palm, sinking into my wrist and up my arm, soothing. He leaned in to plant a kiss to the corner of my mouth, leaving a sort of sticky and bitter taste there. Alcohol. His lips were flush and tingly. He held my face up, brushing messy hair from my forehead with gentle fingers. It always warmed me, almost shocked me, the realization that he cared for me still. Even with the fighting and drinking, and silence between us like a chasm. I wished I didn't know. But in the sleepy dark with a smoke smoldering by the couch, the gentle tilt of his words and the heat of him leaning down beside me were just enough to remember. I needed some reminder that he wasn't gone, really, just sitting on a shelf and out of reach.
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