Where the Violets Grow

Chapter 2- Anything I need to Know?

"You're extra jumpy today." Daniel notes flatly.

He smoothly takes the beer bottle out of my hand, walks to the kitchen table, and sits down. He twists off the lid and drinks in one long, slow pull while he holds me frozen with his stare.

"Anything I need to know?" he asks finally once he sets it down on the table.

I stand in front of the refrigerator for a second too long, I guess, because he then rolls his eyes with an exasperated sigh.

"Before you blame it on me coming home from work early on a Friday," he emphasizes as if it should be obvious despite the fact that he's never been home before his regular time in six years. "You should be grateful to have a boyfriend who comes home to surprise his girl when given the chance, instead of.." his eyes rake over me like hot irons "whatever it is that you do instead of getting chores done and having dinner ready on time." He begins to cut up his food and eat, saying nothing else.

I know better than to say anything, to remind him that I was getting my chores done, and dinner was ready on time— he was just home nearly an hour before that usually happens. Getting defensive only ever feeds into the game he likes to play. Putting my head down, I sit at the table and pretend to be interested in the food on my plate, less than half the portion he has on his.

I know better than to serve myself too much and leave less than a respectable amount for him to have a second helping.

"It won't happen again." My voice sounds robotic, like it's someone else talking for me and I'm just a speaker, the track set to autoplay.

Everything I do feels automatic, I drift through shifts at one of my two jobs without thinking. The bills don't care if I'm exhausted. The lights still have to stay on, groceries still have to be bought. Daniel works too—but his paycheck disappears into gambling, beer, and whatever else he won't tell me about. At least when he drinks enough, he usually sticks to bruises people can't see.

I won't have you walking around with that stupid kicked puppy look on your face, begging for attention. He had said one time as I had been applying compresses to the fresh battle wounds on my legs.

Bruises on my arms and legs are easier to explain away if my sleeves have to be rolled up or I wear the approved capri pants with our work uniform. The occasions are rare, though. Long sleeves and pants, even in the summer, draw far fewer questions.

I come back to the present when Daniel scoffs, the knife squealing on the plate as he cuts his food with palpable tension. "Yeah, you say that every time. I really thought you'd have your act together today, and yet here we are." he gestures to the table with both arms. "Messy house." He waves his knife at the plate of half-eaten dinner. "Shitty food."

I don't even try to register confusion anymore— I could have had an hour extra rather than an hour less to clean and he still would have complained. I'm so busy trying not to let tears of frustration well up that I don't notice his other hand creeping towards his beer as he gestures to my clothes. "You look like a complete mess." he says with more irritation "You can't even handle the simplest tasks. I can't even get a cold beer with my dinner after working all day!"

The last part of that sentence explodes out of his mouth.

Then before I can even flinch, he hurls the bottle towards my head.

I duck just in time as it grazes by and shatters against the wall behind me. Brown shards of glass scatter across the floor and before I straighten up out of my seat, he is out of his seat and storming towards me.

I don't have time for my reflexes to tell me to duck, even if I did I wouldn't— fighting back or even just blocking or evading only made him angrier. The blow of his palm striking my cheek sends stars dancing across my eyes and leaves my left ear ringing. Pain explodes in my face, and the next thing I know, I'm on the floor. My chair is knocked over and jagged pieces of glass are cutting into my arm and leg as I lie on the floor. I'm frozen in fear. I don't feel the pain yet— it just feels like laying on ice. Daniel towers over me with pure resentment carved into every line of his face. Every feature was sketched in a pen filled with hate in that moment. I close my eyes so I don't have to watch myself in his eyes. I wait for the next blow, but it doesn't come.

"Now look at what you've done," I hear him say. "Here."

Something lands on my leg with a soft thud. I open my eyes and see the blue hand towel he tossed at me.

"Clean up your mess and get me another beer." he says from the table. He's already sat back down and has started eating again.

It wasn't his callousness that shocked me, it was the mercy. Normally, that first hit is only the beginning.

I pull myself up out of the glass, and I realize that the "mess" he was referring to was my own blood. There are four jagged puncture wounds in my forearm and two in my leg from where curved pieces of the shattered beer bottle sliced through skin and muscle. None are deep or wide enough to need stitches, just bandages. I wrap my arm in the towel and tiptoe through the hazardous mess to retrieve his drink. Once I place the bottle on the table, his hand suddenly lunges out and grabs mine. He squeezes my fingers hard enough to make me gasp before softening his grip. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he brings my hand to his lips and places a soft kiss on the back of it.

"Sorry," he says. "I didn't want to have to do that on your birthday. Do better next year and maybe we can go to dinner or something instead."

Each word is another nail driven into my heart. He doesn't hammer them in with one brutal strike. He taps them in gently, one word at a time, until they're buried deep enough that I can keep functioning through the pain. I can ignore the soreness in my muscles from being tense for so long. I can ignore the sharp pangs in my ribs from when he kicked me too hard the night before. I can plaster on a smile after he completely forgets about something important to me.

Not this time.

Today, as I'm wiping away the evidence of his foul temper, I let the tears fall.

...

Happy birthday to me...