I woke up to the slamming of our front door and screaming the instant he got into the room. I sat up and grabbed the first pair of pajama pants I could find and walked down the hall to see what was going on. I looked into the room where the expletives were coming from and saw that the early rising sun was barely lighting up the room. I switched on the light and saw that the screaming was coming from him, James. He had slammed his hand between the grill of the truck and the hood while trying to close it after having changed the oil. I saw that his hand was bleeding. I grabbed a towel from the drawer next to me and walked over to help him. I approached slowly so as not to startle him, not being sure if he’d heard me enter the room. “James. I have a rag to stop the bleeding. Let me help”.


I slowly reached out for his hand. His face was beat red from all of the screaming he had done. I took his hand in mine and slowly pressed down on the wound to stop bleeding. I heard a small ‘meow’ from behind me. The cat had jumped from the floor to the counter next to us. James winced as I pressed down a little harder with the towel. All of a sudden I saw a dark black blob flash in front of my face. I accidentally pulled on his hand and made the bleeding start up again because I had made the wound bigger. “ James I’m so sor-“. Without warning the hand I was just trying to heal came straight at my face. I had no time to react or no time to try to stop it. He smacked my face as hard as he could have. The pain left behind throbbed and endured. I looked down feeling shameful. “James. I didn’t mean...I’m sorry” I cried out trying to apologize for the mistake. In that instant that same hand grabbed my arm and pulled me in closely to his body, close enough so that I could feel the heat from off his face. He gazed into my eyes and I no longer saw the James that I had fallen in love with. I only saw anger and disappointment. “ Don’t do it again, you got that? If you do, you will regret it more than you just did”. He picked up the towel, put it on his hand, walked down the stairs and out of the house slamming the door behind him so hard it made the windows rattle.



I collapsed onto the floor, tears welling up in my eyes. I didn’t want to believe what had just happened. All I could see were his eyes still burning into my face. He no longer looked like the person that I had given my whole life to; no longer looked like the person that held me up high. He was once the person that was the source of all my happiness. Now he was the one who created pain and heartache. I looked up and saw that the sun was beaming onto my face, creating more heat, making the tears on my face dry up faster. I grabbed the counter to pull my self up on my feet. My legs were numb. I kept my hands out-stretched in front of me on the counter to keep my balance. All I could think of; all I could say to myself was that he was just hurt. It won’t happen again. I can change it. He still loves me. Maybe he didn’t mean to do it.