Numb

I remember certain things, though the whole picture doesn't quite come together the way it should. Like a jigsaw puzzle, pieces are missing. Pieces that have the ability to make the story sensible.
I remember that I was sixteen. I was blond. I had arms that liked holding his when we were in bed together. We took naps, after school. When he wasn't angry, when he wasn't mean, being around him was enjoyable. Comforting even. As if somehow a day going by where I didn't make him upset made me more worthwhile.
And there were bad days. I remember this one day. This one day his alarm clock had stopped working. He had to get up to check his sisters clock. Just shifting wrong was all it took. He got up, disappeared, and I heard something fall. I remember the hammering my heart would easily resume, as if it knew the steady thump thump thump was merely precautionary, that something dangerous was always looming around the corner in the dark. He came at me. He was yelling and though I heard him, they were words I did not understand. Nothing had happened to make him so angry. And then he was grabbing me. Yanking me towards the door. He was upset and I couldn't calm him down. He screamed that he hated me. That if I ever came back to his house he would slit my throat and leave me for his parents to find. He kept screaming at me to get out. To get out and never come back. 

And I left. I left and with every step I took my heart broke because I couldn't understand what I had possibly done to make him turn into the person I was scared of. I came home and fell into my bed and cried until I couldn't see out of my eyes. And then I just laid still. Hoping if I could stay still enough my chest would stop aching.

Hours later, I got a phone call. And he asked where I had gone. And he started promising me he had a rage black out. That he had hardly remembered what he had said. When I told him he sounded so crushed. He told me how much he loved me. How sorry he was. How he would never do anything like that to me again. How important I was to him. To please forgive him. That I couldn't possibly understand what it felt like to even go a second thinking I walked away from him. That nothing like that had happened before and nothing like that would ever happen again.

And of course I should have known better. It was not the first time he had done something so hurtful. But I foolishly believed him. Hoping, needing him to have meant it this time when he said he was sorry.

I took him  back. The next time he got mad he threw a white board at me and caused an injury so bad I still have calcified blood in my leg from it.

I realize our stories are different. I realize your stories are much more intense. Much more violent. And scarier.

But don't you ever tell me I don't understand your relationship. I walked away. I know how hard it is. And right now, the only thing that makes us different is that I'm obviously much stronger than you.