He was screaming.
He didn’t mean to, he simply couldn’t control it.
His voice had slowly escalated from almost a whisper to a full-on shout.
" . . . and I can’t take it anymore. Everything’s this big secret. Everything’s so private. You can’t tell anyone anything. Not even your boyfriend. I am your boyfriend, aren’t I? I can’t really keep up. You run so hot and cold . . . "
She continued to ignore him.
Reason, she could manage.
Rationality, she could deal with.
But he was neither reasonable nor rational. He was a lunatic standing in her kitchen.
Her fingers tightened a little stronger on the handle of the sprayer. Had he been looking at her, he would have noticed the white in her knuckles. But it wasn’t about her, it never was. This was about him and his insecurities. His rant was about what he did, not her. She wondered if he even realized it. She began to rinse the last of the dinner dishes and tried to make her shaky breaths regain their natural rhythm. She told herself he wouldn’t end it. Not like this.
He saw it perfectly in his mind.
He crossed the kitchen floor, wrapped his hands around her shoulders, twisted her around and shook her until her teeth rattled.
The strength of the vision scared him. He’d never been violent. But something about the way she was standing, the casual way she ignored him, how she could continue to do the evening chores as though he wasn’t even there, let alone livid.
His blood was boiling with his anger. He was suddenly glad that he hadn’t proposed on their anniversary, though he’d had every intention to. Something stopped him. Now he knew what. He’d never known anyone so cold and unfeeling.
She blinked rapidly. Focusing her eyes on the children playing under the street lamp through the kitchen window. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. She was tired of being the only one that would cry for them. She was sick of being the only emotional one. They could never work. She’d been a fool to think that two people who were such complete opposites could come together and form anything but chaos around them. But beneath all of it, she was still praying. Don’t let him leave me. Please.
He couldn’t take it anymore. Her deaf act was the last straw. The neighbors had started banging on the apartment walls. Hell, people in the next town could hear him. He wouldn’t stand still a moment longer. He shouldn’t be held accountable for whatever happens after he gets within arms reach of her. She brought all of this on herself. She was destroying him. She was ruining them.
His strides were strong and hurried, quick but long. He reached her before she’d known he’d taken the first step. She dropped the last dish as he grabbed her shoulders and turned her. She hoped he mistook the wetness on her cheeks for back splash of the sprayer.
He saw the tears on her face and his anger dissolved as quickly as it had formed.
-- "I'm going crazy. I'm standing here, solidly, on my own two hands, and going crazy." Katherine Hepburn as Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Wow, that was not the ending I was expecting.
I like that you present it from both points of view. I liked the battle between her heart and mind. Of course, that's very relatable.
And loved the ending. I was expecting something physical or violent, and was very happy it wasn't anything like that.
I think it's always amazing that men and women both want the same things so often and seem to end up fighting each other until neither one of them gets what they want.
Bone - I just thought it was a place we'd all been to, at one time or another, in relationships.
TC - Do you ever wonder if it's because we're saying the same things but in such different ways that neither of us understands?
I remember fights with my ex-fiancee where months later he would say something and I would say "But that's exactly what I asked for." and he would say "No, it's not, you said . . . " and I would think that it was EXACTLY what I had said, just in different words - and he would think they were two completely different things.
Wow. That was a powerful piece on a relationship disconnect, where communication has utterly and totally broken down and only her tears end up melting him.
That's high drama, high tension. Would make a great, very believable scene for a book.
Post a Comment