I should have seen it coming. The way his muscles tensed up in my arms, I could tell he was about to lose it. I should have held on tighter, but I instead let him go. My worst fear of him becoming this way came true in that very moment when his fist connected with the wall in front of him. A sickening crack echoed through the garage. My eyes widened, not believing what I had just seen. His breathing was heavy, labored as if he had just got done running ten miles. Splinters of wood fell from his hands, and his knuckles were bruised in a purple hue. I was shaking, my eyes stinging with approaching tears in its wake. I found myself in the corner curled up in a fetal position, the cold ground putting my body in shock. Shivers ran through my veins, time seemed to slow down, and he ran to me before I could even react. My hands flew to my ears, and pain traced its way down my cheeks in a river of sorrow. He held me tight and whispered apologies into my ear in a gentle, deadly calm voice. My throat felt tight, and the only things that I could get out were silent sobs. This was the fear I had been dreading for months. I hoped and prayed that this boy wouldn’t be like everyone else, and he was.
As Colin tried to calm me down, I got my voice back in spurts. “Why did you do that?” I asked, my words broken. I see tears spring from my boyfriend’s eyes as he lets out a stuttered sigh. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I am so sorry.” He went on and on about how he got mad and just didn’t know how to control his feelings. He could only express himself in frustration, and he didn’t know what he was thinking. My hands were shaking in his bruised ones, and I managed to stutter, “What are you going to do when you get mad at me? Will you hit me?” Colin seemed appalled and hurt, a tear running down his face that I caught on my fingertip. He asked why I would ever think that of him. He said he could never be angry at me, much less lay a hand on me. “I promise.” He said, holding me impossibly close.
I shut my eyes so tightly, I saw stars. I wanted to stop these tears. I wanted to run far away, and not come back. However, what came out of my mouth said otherwise.
“Okay,” I whispered.
I should’ve seen it coming. I was used to hearing the yelling from my parents, to be better, to do what was right. But him? Who was he to call me names like “stupid” or tell me I was worthless and that he would be the only man that could ever love me, or shout out derogatory profanities in my face as he stepped so close, I could feel his hot breath on my cheek. I stood there in his living room, the blazing heat of the fireplace kissed my back as I was forced towards the wall, and took it all in. However, it went all over my head, believing every single word. He had gotten angry, but he still loved me. This behavior was normal. It was how this family expressed affection. It was different from how I was used to it, but I could adapt… because I loved him.
I nodded to my boyfriend after he had calmed down, and he embraced me in a hug and placed a kiss on my forehead. My body had gone numb, and as I grabbed my bag to walk out, I saw Colin’s mom in the doorway. Her face looked tired, and her wrinkles looked more defined than usual. Her eyes were sunken and empty as if she hadn’t slept in days. She was crying as she hugged me goodbye, and I never understood why she seemed to do this every time I left. I didn’t see her pain. The pain of her worst fear. Her son was becoming his father, and she could do nothing to stop it.
I should’ve seen it coming. His voice was frantic, and I could hear footsteps on the pavement, pounding on the ground hard and heavy. I asked him what was wrong, and a sob broke through the line. “My dad is drunk and I’m bleeding and I don’t know what to do!” He cried. I couldn’t contain my worry. As I reached for the home phone to dial 911, I had asked him what happened, and a real-life horror story had taken place.
His dad had driven home drunk after his band practice. He was angry, and he got into a fight with Colin after pulling him outside. “Your girlfriend is a whore.” He had said, and Colin couldn’t handle that remark and threatened violence towards his father if he had ever called me that again, to which he took a pause before saying it again, drawing the single syllable out. “Whore.”
Before Colin could even react, his dad had gone after him, fists flying. The next thing Colin knew, his mom had pulled his father away, and his hand connected with his mother’s cheek, and then Colin started running and called me.
Colin had told me later that everything that had happened was all a misunderstanding. His father had apologized, his parents made up, and he was back home and okay. Even after all of that wrong, the love he felt toward his family made it right. It was okay.
I should’ve seen it coming.
My wrist was turning red in his grip, pulling me towards his truck that was in my driveway. A bag was in my other hand, packed with things he told me to bring. My life, my passions, me. It was all me, but I wasn’t there.
****
Words can only do so much…
That was what I had admitted to you just now. In a gentle voice, your golden eyes shimmering with the sunlight. Your body moving with the grace of an angel, an angel on Earth, an angel sent to me…
Your face adorning the cutest grin, perfect teeth of the purest white, I could spot them from a mile away, my lover's smile, yet he will never know…
He will never know the stories that are told by the tears that put me to sleep at night while I think of the pain he is in. I hear the echoes, cries of excruciating agony at the sight of one burning hellfire, and I wish to extinguish, to put him out of my boyfriend’s misery, but the walls he’s built around his fragile nature keeps me from staying in his heart…
A glass box if you will, clear as day. I could see me angel from all angles, yet his smile was not making those lines across his beautiful face, His face a look of hopelessness and loss. A loss that I have created…
A place in his heart, a piece of his puzzle, is being ripped from his arms and dragged into an abandoned nothingness that can’t be escaped without the use of time. He doesn't want to sacrifice himself to a life of waiting for his love to return to him…
He thinks it may be easier to leave, I threw myself the glass, a final desperate plea of connection and appearance. The idea of being torn asunder from the love I had been seeking, I was done staying silent…
Beat by beat, I cracked the barrier, a web of promises bursting to the surface of my song. I had an oath, a determination, a thought…
My angel, he is my angel…
Or at least, that’s what I used to think.
I should’ve seen it coming....
