Bruises (BWWM)

21

21

Ben

"What is this all about?"

Tamra had spoken out of annoyance, after declaring for the third time that a roadtrip near the place her mother was sexually harassed wasn't helping her cope with her experience at all, and I understood, but this wasn't why I wanted to bring her here. I had a better idea in mind. We had stopped to buy three cheap containers of paint at a local store a few minutes earlier and she hadn't stopped asking questions ever since that I, obviously, found joy in ignoring.

When we finally parked up to my aparment complex, her arms were crossed over her chest, her eyebrows furrowed and her lips pursed, a sour expression plastered all over her face.

I got out of the car and circled it to open her door, but she had already beat me to it. She walked ahead of me and I followed closely as we slowly climbed up the flight of stairs. I placed the key inside the keyhole and twisted it, pushing open the door that led us inside the dusty apartment. It was brighter than I had remembered, the window of the makeshift living room letting in a great amount of light into the space.

Apparently sensing my discomfort, Tamra clutched my hand with hers, the cold of it numbing my anxiety. I walked up to my room and dropped the gallons of paint and the brushes onto the floor before the door.

"What are you doing?" she asked, still confused, but this time much more apprehensive.

"Something I should've done a while ago."

I took a deep breath in, clasping the doorknob and rotating it around itself to push the door open. Tamra lowly gasped as she recognized the pictures on the walls. The pictures that depicted bruises, scars, injuries, blood, bones, horror, hurt and pain. The pictures I used to first see each morning when I opened my eyes and last see each night when I closed them.

The pictures I couldn't forget because they were too real. The pictures that would forever stay ingrained in my mind even though I tried to erase them.

I would try again.

I stepped a foot into the room and felt consumed by a rage that had never surged through me before. I had a urge to break everything in my wrath, but I tried to remain calm.

I brought myself to the farthest wall of the room and stared at the photographs that covered it. They were the first I ever took. The first I had ever innocently scotch-taped to the wall, without knowing that so much more would follow. I tore them apart first, throwing them on the floor as I progressed along the wall. I ripped them into tiny shreds that I let accumulate on the ground, stepping onto them as I paced across the space.

I wasn't just tearing photos apart, but rather the pain I had kept encapsulated here. I was freeing myself from an enclosed burden. I had finally found freedom from the strings that tied me to the old me. I was redeemed.

When I was finished, piles of ripped pictures lied on the floor and Tamra, who had remained next to the doorframe, stepped forward, in complete shock. She tried to utter something but couldn't help but stutter the whole way through. I smiled at her and said, handing her a brush :

"Wanna join me for painting?"

"Wish you would've warned me to wear clothes I didn't care about, but sure," she replied as she took it from my fingers, still bewildered from what she had just witnessed.

I walked behind her to grab the paint when I heard her ask me :

"What made you do that? I mean, you didn't have to go back here."

"I know. I just felt like I needed to, to get a real closure."

I bent down and opened the gallon, letting her uncover the white of its color.