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He's closer.
My stomach drops.
The man outside looks like violence comes as naturally to him as breathing.
I've seen enough of that kind of man to recognize the danger.
My father never needed much of a reason to lose his temper.
A bad day at work. An unpaid bill. Dinner that wasn't ready when he wanted it.
Or just the fact that he'd finished one bottle of whiskey and couldn't find another.
I learned early to recognize the signs.
The way his jaw tightened. The way he'd go quiet before exploding. That horrible look in his eyes when he decided somebody needed to suffer because he was having a bad day.
My mother and I spent years trying to keep him happy, walking on eggshells and praying he wouldn't find another reason to explode.
He always did.
When I was fifteen, he lost his job. He came home drunk, slammed the door hard enough to shake the walls, and started tearing the kitchen apart.
Plates. Glasses. The coffee maker my mother had saved for three months to buy.
Everything ended up on the floor.
Then he turned on her.
I remember standing barefoot in the doorway, watching him hit my mother.
I remember her falling against the counter.
And I remember trying to scream.
Nothing came out.
My chest tightened until I couldn't breathe. My fingers went numb. The room started spinning, and I honestly thought I was dying.
The doctor at the emergency room told us I'd suffered a panic attack.
My first.
Unfortunately, it wasn't my last.
My mother divorced him a year later. We moved into a small apartment, and for the first time in my life, I didn't have to listen for his truck pulling into the driveway every evening.
She eventually remarried, finding happiness with a man who treated her the way she deserved.
But the fear never completely went away.
Loud voices still make me tense. Sudden movements make me flinch. And men who look like they could put their fists through walls?
I tend to avoid them.
The stranger outside has that same frightening stillness my father used to get.
Except he's twice my father's size.
