Interlude 3

interlude 3

She sat on the floor in front of the bed. She sat on the floor and cried silently.  She was naked and she cried.  She wasn’t devastated because she couldn’t feel.  But she was something.

Maybe angry?

She wasn’t sure.  She was devoid of hope on almost every level though and this she knew: death sounded good. Death sounded like heaven on days like these.  She didn’t pray for death.  She didn’t pray at all anymore.  She longed for it.  She hated him more than anything.  She hated that she didn’t know how to leave.  There she was, stuck in that hotel room silently crying while he was passed out on the bed.

She held the glass in her hand.  The rum was still cool even though the ice had melted long ago.  She had held vigil all through the night until the sun had finally started to rise.  Naked and drinking, she forced herself to stay awake during the comedown to keep him from trying to kill himself again.  It was ironic really, because she wished him to die and couldn’t allow herself to let him do it.  Not because she didn’t really want him dead but because she was afraid of the guilt that might consume her if she allowed him to do it, if he actually succeeded.  Not that he would succeed.  He was shitty at doing things right the first time. Or the second time. Or even the third.

The rum had stopped being effective hours ago.  Maybe days ago.  She hadn’t slept in two or three days.  

She let out a sigh.  

He would wake up eventually and the nightmare would start again.  He wouldn’t remember what he did to her in his insane state of being high for days on end.  Even, if by some chance, he knew inside his heart what he had done, he would never allow her to know it.  He wouldn’t allow her to know understanding.  

He was as dead inside as she was.  He made himself the victim too.  They blamed each other for the insanity and rage.  But she knew.  She knew it was his fault that she was here on the floor in that damned hotel room, naked and crying, trying her best to stay awake so he wouldn’t die.

He stirred.  Her heart nearly stopped and she prayed that he wouldn’t wake up.  The panic began to set in.  The anxiety was so overwhelming she couldn’t do it.  She couldn’t handle it.  She started rocking back and forth, unable to stop the comfort reflex. She rocked and threw back the last of the rum into her thirsty mouth as tears streamed down her face.  She wiped the tears and the snot away with the back of her arm

“What the fuck are you doing on the floor?”

She didn’t respond.  She couldn’t.  She just couldn’t.

“What the FUCK are you doing on the god damned floor?!”

She rocked.

He sat up and leaned forward and touched her shoulder with his cold hand and only then was she able to react. It wasn’t quite human; it was more as if she were almost an animal. She let out a wail and dropped the glass that was still in her hand, it thudded to the carpet as she rolled away from his touch still crying, snot dripped down her face. She turned as she pulled away to turn and faced him.  She emitted another wail as she saw his face and met with his eyes.  

His look back was one of confusion.

“Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

She breathed and tried to reconnect with reality. Any reality. She breathed. Finally forcing words out of her mouth.

“You bastard, you god damned bastard. You raped me and you act like nothing happened? You pretend as if I should be fine with it? Like it was nothing?? NOTHING? NOTHING?!” her voice had started low and calm and was escalating into screams of rage almost not even making sense.

“Please” he responded calmly and coolly, “You could have left and you know it.  You didn’t even try to walk away from it.”

Tears kept rolling.  “You were going to kill yourself if I didn’t, you fucked me while I cried no.  I screamed no.  And you kept going.  You would have actually tried to kill yourself too wouldn’t you? WOULDN’T YOU?!”

His face was stoic and completely unresponsive to her anger, “You didn’t have to. God, Hannah you’re so pathetic. PATHETIC. You want to say I raped you when you laid there and let me do it just ‘cause I said I was going to kill myself? You’ve completely gone batshit.”

She couldn’t do it.  She just couldn’t.  Her panic reached into her throat and she began to hyperventilate as she rocked.  She looked around her. The world was spinning and she couldn’t get it to stop.  She dragged her broken body across the floor and saw the rum bottle next to the bathroom door still half full.  He was still talking, calling her names and telling her she was pathetic.  She barely heard.  She grabbed the bottle and crawled on her knees into the bathroom, shut the door behind her and locked it.  She promptly vomited on herself unable to get to the toilet. And then she drank until the bottle was gone and passed out naked, alone, in the dark of that bathroom on the cool tile floor for as long as she could remember.  

In the haze she heard him beating on the door.  It felt like it was in a dream though.  There was nothing in her left to care.  That cool tile floor felt more real than anything else in her existence.  She breathed.  She slept.