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Just as the strap drops across my shoulder, I can feel the place on my back where Cody slammed me into the wall, bruising my left shoulder blade and causing me to avoid lifting my arm for an entire week while I worked at my waitressing job. I had to tell everyone that I hurt myself doing Crossfit, but as the injuries persisted and my fitness did not, my coworkers started to get suspicious.
Doing a lot of CrossFit, Serena? You sure it’s not kickboxing?
The ache in my shoulder just sends my own anger and adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream. If I could get my damn hands to stop shaking, I would have a much better chance at getting out of this in one piece. He’s so much bigger and stronger than me that if I provoke him, there’s a much higher chance of him killing me by accident than him killing himself on purpose.
Fortunately for both of us, I’ve locked myself into the room where he keeps all of his guns. I don’t know how to use them, and he knows it, but he at least can’t use them to intimidate me right now.
But I still have to get out before he goes ballistic.
His crying abates for a moment as he begins to pound on the door again. “You’re such a fucking heartless bitch, you know that? You’re judgmental and spoiled! You never fucking cared about me!”
He loves to use screaming to scare me. His voice is so big and terrible, no matter how many times I’ve heard him use it like this. I thought that after a year or so of his constant fits, I would be able to tune him out at some point.
I’m shaking so much now that I’m incapacitated by my fear. It’s so hard to focus. He’s always got the upper hand when we fight, but I promised my mother and sister that I wouldn’t be a statistic. I can’t let him prove me wrong.
They knew from the moment they met him that he was going to be bad for me. My sister wasn’t as vocal about it, but my mother and I found ourselves in so many screaming matches over Cody. She could see my future because she lived it, but I thought that there was no way she loved my father like I love Cody.
But love isn’t enough anymore.
If I wait long enough, he’ll get bored of the hysterics and escape to his friend’s house to do more coke and drink all night. He’d at least be out of the house by then, but I can’t bet on it. If the past is bound to repeat itself, there’s a chance he’ll call someone else over here just to intimidate me further. That person might have a gun.
Now that I think about it, that could be his motivation to call someone.
Since I’ve already thought of it, I have an irrational fear that he’ll somehow think of it next, like our minds are intertwined from all of the time we’ve spent together. It’s irrational, I know, but the possibility of it being true at all prompts me to get my ass in gear and get the fuck out.
I need to try to get out through the window.
With my backpack hanging off my body like a sack of bricks, I try to ease open the window without making any noise. This apartment is so old that the seal on the window is broken, so it falls on me as soon as I stick my leg out to jump.
“Everyone’s going to know it was your fault! My friends all hate you anyway! You’re going to be the most hated fucking person on the planet when I’m gone!”
I breathe deeply for five seconds. It’s all the time I have before I steel myself to fling my body out the window, hoping not to land wrong from the second-story jump.
My heart pounds in my ears, and my vision blurs with the vicious, all-encompassing grip of primal terror. Cody could burst through the door at any moment, but he’s playing a game with me. He wants to see how much threatening he has to do before I relent, before I cower and fold back into the maternal well of compassion that he needs me to be at all times.
Just as I’m about to throw myself out the window, I notice that there are rusty nails all along the base of the wood. With the broken seal and the threat of tetanus looming, I realize I’m in no position to take chances. I could really hurt myself from this jump.
I need to try and get past Cody instead.
I want to scream. I’ll have to take on the role that I hate the most, the enabling, doting girlfriend, in order to talk him down. It’s the only thing that works because it reminds him of his mother, which makes me want to retch just thinking about it.
My backpack remains strapped firmly to my body as I ease myself away from the window, feeling the tight hand of nausea clutching my throat. I step carefully over toward the door, creaking the floorboards as an attempt to show him that I’m coming nearer.
“Cody? Can we just talk about this?” I ask in a demure, sheepish voice, the only one he’ll really respond to.
“Talk about what? About how you’re fucking Tyler?” he shouts, returning to his white-hot righteous indignation. For some reason, he always thinks I’m cheating when he gets angry. I wonder if that’s just projection.
Is he cheating? Probably.
I sigh. “No, we need to get you some help, Cody. You’re manic right now,” I lie. I have no intention of calling him an ambulance or escorting him to the emergency department like I’ve done dozens of times before. He always ends up belligerent, attacking the staff verbally and getting kicked out. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve almost been asked to leave the emergency room even if I’m there by myself because they expect him to be with me.
“I’m not manic; I’m fucking angry! I know you’ve been fucking that worthless cocksucker!” he continues, slamming his fist into the door hard enough to crack it.
I’m startled, and I jump back a bit. “Cody, how about we get you sober, and we can talk about this?”
He punches the door again, splintering the dent he’d made before. “Shut your fucking mouth, bitch! I’ll say whatever the fuck I want whenever I want!”
Clearly, this isn’t working.
