by King, V. L.
Finally I felt his death grip leave my hair, and my hips were no longer trapped between his legs. On shaky arms, I pushed my face away from the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks. Sobs escaped my throat as I spluttered the chunks of food which found their way into my mouth after his assault. Liam remained in my peripheral vision.
“This”—he pointed at the remnants of breakfast—“was a fucking apology because I have to go on a fucking business…”
He was screaming, his words getting tighter as he reared up and out of view. Before I could intuit his next move, his leg came back and a swift kick in my ribs was issued upon me. I called out on a gasp, the tears coming faster and harder, making my stomach tense painfully.
“Trip, and I won’t be here…”
Leg pulled back, my ribs suffered the brunt end of another ruthless strike. I bowled over struggling for breath, a face smothered with food, hot coffee, and orange juice, while I supported myself on a shaky left arm. My right folded over my middle to the battered area seeking protection.
“For your birthday next. Fucking. Week.” As he punctuated the final two words, another two swift kicks were delivered.
Somehow as I fought for breath, I managed to cry out, feeling my lungs being compressed by the string of kicks while my ribs throbbed and smarted, drawing gasp upon gasp from my winded body.
When he finally moved away, my frame gave in and I fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. I watched through my tears as his hands raked back in his hair. I didn’t care that mine was getting matted and dipping in the shit on the floor. I just held my ribs, crying inanely.
How he could’ve been so composed after doing that, I have no idea. But he waltzed to the doorway like he had just given me a kiss before leaving for work.
He turned on his heel and straightened his tie, commanding one more thing of me before he left me a winded and damaged heap, at his hands, on the flooring of our bedroom.
“Oh, and clean up your damn mess once you’re done with the crying.”
Chapter Eighteen
May 15th 2012
Thirteen months before the accident…
The week passed in a blur of pain relief, tiptoeing on eggshells and utter silence. Unlike past incidents, Liam never attempted to right this wrong. He never offered any affection or comfort. Striving to regain what we were before that day apparently wasn’t on his list of endeavors either.
With a bruised ego and equally bruised ribs, I continued to go about my daily duties. I was gasping and panting, wincing and scowling all the while I was doing them, but I did my utmost to remain the good little housewife. I didn’t bother going to the emergency room. There was no point.
On hands and knees, I scrubbed and scrubbed at the stain on the bedroom floor. Six stain removal treatments later, and the traces of that monstrous morning were near enough erased. If only there was a solution to remove it from my mind, I thought to myself more often than once.
The silence that chased over the days which followed that Friday morning was temporarily disrupted when Liam stepped through the front door the following Thursday. He slammed it behind him, causing the walls to shake under protest and me to jump out of my skin with the vacuum in hand, cringing as I did so, as I made my way up the staircase.
“What the fuck have you said to her?” he shouted, his face contorted like some demon was pushing to break free from his flesh. His briefcase plummeted to the hardwood flooring in the hallway. The thunderous din made me jolt further until I felt the rigid lip of the stair above burrowing into the back of my leg.
“What did I say to whom?” I shook my head, my heart beating faster than hummingbird’s wings while my body temperature rocketed, resulting in a bead of sweat filtering down my spine. “I haven’t been out anywhere.”
Liam wrapped menacing fingers around the balustrade and began to snarl. “Don’t. Fucking. Lie. To. Me. Steinbeck just cornered me when I was getting out of the car.”
Fuck.
My head dipped. I would have sighed but my ribs weren’t facilitating that level of ease at such gesture. “She came by earlier asking if everything was okay because she’d heard quarrelling. She’d knocked several times the last few days when you’ve been at work, Liam. I had to answer. I told her that I’ve had that bug. She said to make sure you look after me, and I assured her that you already were. That’s all, I promise you.”
I watched under nervous lids as his chest expanded with a deep intake of breath. For a moment, I envied him. “That better had been all, Kady. I swear. You think you’re in pain now? That’s fuck all, baby,” he sneered.
I fought to suppress the evidence of fear in the form of tears, which was making my vision blur at his words. Sniffling, I faintly nodded my understanding.
“Get back to what you were doing,” he ordered.
His gaze was spearing into my back as I struggled to carry the vacuum up the stairs, I could feel it. I winced and subtly chanced a glance. Immobile, he was still firmly planted at the bottom of the case, the menacing hand still coiled around the wooden balustrade. But it was the look of total indifference carved into his profile which was the bitter pill to swallow.
Alone, my Tuesday alarm came in the form of the sweet sound of the birds’ song outside my window. Liam had left the day before for his business trip to God only knows where. He didn’t leave a number, didn’t leave a hotel. Damn, I didn’t even know what part of the country his trip was or whether it was in fact even in the damn country. Still, as he left in the cab without so much as a ‘goodbye’ or a ‘kiss my ass’, I felt a brief moment of sheer reprieve.
For the first time in ten days, I curled up as well as I could in the bed and I allowed myself the time to sob, to grant my barrier of strength and persistence to crumble and disintegrate before my eyes. I felt sorrow. I felt manipulated and fragile as I filtered through every conflict that we’d had over nearly two years and every warranted punishment that’s been issued.
That night, I freed every single tear that I’d stored since the first time Liam had turned into the monster which I shared my life with.
Steadily brushing the comforter back from my body, I reluctantly ejected myself from the bed and made a beeline to the en suite. I avoided the mirror along my left above the basin, scared of what would be looking back at me. After taking care of business, I stripped out of my Hello Kitty pajamas and stepped into the shower, hoping to feel a little more alive afterwards.
Within fifteen minutes, I was out of the stall with a bath towel wrapped around my shivering wreck of a body. Ridding the large vanity mirror of steam, I stood before the basin in front of it and brushed my teeth, before studying my reflection intently. The split on my lower lip had scabbed up and mostly healed. At that point, it could easily be passed off as a cold sore, for that I was thankful. My eyes were swollen and bloodshot, thanks to my hours of irrepressible sobbing the night before, but what made me well up again was how diminished the woman looking back at me appeared to be. Her sparkling topaz eyes were dim and lifeless, as though she had nothing to live for. She looked close to breaking; she looked so close to drowning in the deathly waters which were full of regrets.
Private regrets, private beatings…private knowledge.
The sight before me shimmered and swam, the bridge of my nose burned. Blinking, a tear escaped over my lid. “Happy birthday, Kady,” I muttered into the mirror, the escaped tear being chased by several more.
I had pulled on a pair of faded jeans and a plain, black long-sleeved T-shirt, once again avoiding the full-length mirror as I did so. Looking down was another action I made damn sure not to accede to. I couldn’t and wouldn’t examine the battered area which coated the left side of my ribcage, it would make it harder to disregard. It would make that incident a reality. And that was something I wanted so desperately to elude. I knew in doing that, I was eluding the part of my life which desperately needed confronting.
A knock at the door sounded through the house while I was piling my hair
on the top of my head in a loose knot. “Please don’t be Steinbeck. Please don’t be Steinbeck.” I continued chanting my mantra as I strolled from the bedroom, down the stairs and to the door.
Holding my breath, I pulled it open and was greeted by an Irish-speaking balloon, singing ‘Happy birthday’. Everybody sounds like an idiot when they sing that song, but Walker, however, managed to pull it off.
I offered a faint smile. “What are you doing here, Walker?”
“What am I…?” Witnessing the confused expression he was displaying made me feel terrible. Guilty even. It was almost downtrodden. “Couldn’t have the birthday girl spend the day on her own while her other half is away on business, could we?” That smile which curved his lips dissolved the pang of guilt I felt moments before. With a twinkle in his eyes, he gently rocked side to side muttering ‘Happy Birthday to you’ in a somewhat persuasive yet clandestine tone.
“Walker, you’re off your tits, do you know that?” I giggled when his adorable smile appeared from behind the inflated foil after his melody.
He grabbed the right side of his chest with his left hand which made me chuckle a little more. “Tits? Nah, these are called pecs, darlin’. Can I come in?”
I nodded and shifted to the side, allowing him entrance. “Take your boots off, I don’t want any dirt trailed through,” I ordered, and without hesitancy, he slipped off his boots and followed me through to the kitchen with an approving whistle.
“Damn, some house you got here, darlin’.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I sighed, thinking backing to the first time I’d set foot inside and the apprehension and grief I’d felt as I considered the fact that it had indeed been a blank canvas. The walls and rooms had no memories embedded into them. Now all I wanted was to erase them all and start afresh with a new blank canvas, filling it with colorful memories, not menacing black ones. “Coffee?” I asked, which earned me a swift nod.
Walker pulled out a seat once the birthday balloon was set in the center of the dining table.
I made my way into the dining area, veering the island, and set our mugs down on the coasters. I pulled up my own seat at the bottom of the table.
I tried to let it go unsaid, but the question was killing me. “What the hell is with the old man hat?” I teased.
“Old man hat?” he scoffed. “Darlin’ this”—the fingers of his right hand pressed against the lip—”is called a flat cap. There is no defined age when one can start wearing one.”
I snorted. “Well, it looks ridiculous,” I said, which earned me an expression of pleading, puppy-dog eyes. God, he was adorable. I felt the coldness of the glass table surface spear through my long-sleeves as I set my right elbow upon it and braced my chin in my palm. “But you make it work,” I concluded in earnest.
“Aye.” With a sip of his coffee, he arched his brow over the rim and swallowed. “That I do, darlin’.”
Time lapsed in a companionable silence with Walker subtly perusing the area with inquisitive eyes as we sipped at our coffee. When they came back to set on me, I was staring at the balloon in the heart of the table. I couldn’t help but inwardly consider how thoughtful he was. I hadn’t received a phone call from anyone thus far. It seemed Walker was the only one making that effort to celebrate my day—a day, which after the events of the prior week and a half, I didn’t even wish to acknowledge myself. So why should anyone else?
“I have a little something—”
“There’s more?” I gasped. His hand dug into the inner pocket of his black leather jacket. “Walker, you have no idea how ecstatic I am over the balloon.”
“Ah, fuck the balloon. Here.” I was handed a pink envelope, along with a small, silver cardboard box. When I neglected to seize them and simply gaped at the offering with wide, cautious eyes, he pressed again in that irresistible brogue, “I said take it.”
With a nonchalant scratch of my head, I licked my lips and accepted. “Walker, there’s really no need. I’m twenty-six not six. Gifts for the birthday girl are no longer mandatory.”
A permanent scowl took pride of place under his cap. “Shut up and open the damn gift, woman.”
Snorting, I started on the envelope. A card with a pink bunny holding a bunch of glittery flowers was pulled out. Inside it simply read:
To Kady,
Happy birthday, darlin’,
Hope you have a great day.
Walker
My first and only birthday card I have received this year. The mere fact that he’d thought about me to take the time and look for a card, and write something so minor inside, was so meaningful. A card is worth a hundred gifts.
“Thank you,” I whispered, refusing to allow my striking tears to fall.
With a smile, he tipped his brow motioning at the silver square box lying in wait on the table. Carful hands slipped the cardboard case from the glass surface. It was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, yet I held it delicately between my fingers. A gasp was torn from my mouth as I removed the flat lid and set it on the table ahead.
“I know it’s cheap and nothing special, but—”
“Walker.” I couldn’t say anything else. My emotions were being wrung, well and truly wrung, and those tears that I refused to free only a moment ago, spilled down my face, splashing onto my hands and blurring the silver bracelet which held only one single charm: a teddy bear holding a shamrock.
“Kady, there’s no need to cry. It’s only something cheap and—”
The reproach in his words instantly had me dragging my blurry vision up to his face. “Don’t.” I shook my head, more tears tumbling. “Don’t find fault with this, Walker. You have no idea…”
As I choked on my words, he instantly lifted himself from the leather seat and lugged it closer to me. His arm around my neck, he pulled me into his chest to show comfort. I found myself taking it, simply by his scent alone.
For the first time in a long time, I felt acknowledged—acknowledged and accepted that I was a human being. One with feelings and with faults, yet I was still a person. I wasn’t an animal that needed to be taught lessons. I wasn’t a punching bag. I was an individual with needs, and in Walker’s arms, I felt appreciated and accepted.
And that made me cry more.
I was blindfolded and escorted down the front steps and into the pickup. Why he felt the need to blindfold me, I have no idea. Persistently probing, I was answered with: “It’s a surprise, don’t start.” So I listened and complied like a good girl.
The difference between complying with Liam and Walker was, with Liam, it was under duress. I learned not to fight back because the consequences of doing so just weren’t worth it. With Walker, I felt his enthusiasm…I felt safe.
As we came to a halt at a set of lights, I assume, I craned my blindfolded gaze towards the Irishman behind the wheel and asked, “Can we put the radio on?” I found it somewhat amusing how I couldn’t see him, yet I could still tell he was smirking at me. I lifted my right arm, and my newly acquired silver bracelet jingled as I pointed a chiding finger in his direction. I knew it was something that I wouldn’t be able to wear when Liam was home. It wasn’t something I could tell him about either. Another secret to add to my life. One which would evoke a happier memory, a contented feeling.
I pouted. “Don’t you smirk at me.”
“Fascinating, are you sure you can’t see?” His tone was laced with glee.
“Trust me. I cannot see a damn thing. Now, can we put the radio on?”
“What’s the magic word?”
I sighed. A small sigh, but a sigh nonetheless before I tipped my head back defeated. “Please, oh the amazing Walker, can we have the radio on?”
His buoyancy was contagious as his rumbled laughter echoed in the tight space between us. “A simple ‘please’ would have done it, darlin’.”
The speaker crackled as he brought it to life. I rested back into the seat, patiently tapping my fingertips against my thighs. It’s funny how time-consuming things seem
to take when you can’t see the world around you.
“Kady, can you do me a favor, darlin’?”
“Hmm…” I rolled my head in his direction, still waiting for those damn lights to change.
“Look to your right and give a smile and a wave.”
“What?” What kind of request was that?
“Just do it,” he ordered softly, so I did. I felt a total idiot blindly staring out of the window waving at someone I couldn’t see, but he found it comical, the ass.
Finally pulling off, I slumped back into the bench seat listening to a man’s husky voice warbling about not waiting for a hero to save us. I smiled, dwelling in the hollows of my mind, unconsciously valuing the reference, as it was drawn from the speakers.
At long last, we came to a stop. The sound of the leather of his jacket protesting as he flopped back into the seat and twisting after turning off the ignition, had me drawing my blinded attention towards him.
“Are we here?” I asked warily.
“Yes.”
When nothing followed, not a sound, not a movement, I sensed the creases on my brow deepen. “Walker?”
“Hmm…”
“Can I take the fold off now?”
“Not yet.” His voice was barely an octave over a breathy whisper.
A few seconds ticked past before I whined his name again.
“Yes, darlin’?” he replied.
“Why are you so quiet?” Why was I whispering? “What’s going on?”
“Shush…I’m just taking a moment.” His words were sweet, enriched, and velvet soft. If they were edible, I’m sure they would’ve had the consistency of heated caramel.
Isn’t it bizarre how even blinded you can still sense when something is placed in your line of sight? How your other senses heighten? I licked my lips, and though I felt the warmth of his hand a few centimeters from my cheek, I didn’t move. Inside, I was trembling with longing and pleaded for him to make that single connection. Outside, I played dumb and allowed him to continue with whatever it was he was going to do.