Black As Snow

Part 2

"Stop, please that hurts, stop!" I wailed as he grabbed my wrist. He stormed down the garden dragging me in tow. With a single thrust of his arm, he threw me into the shed and locked the door on his way back to the house. I curled into a small ball trying to conserve as much heat as was possible. I had never been in the shed in the whole time I had lived in the house, I looked around the cramped space. There was a hole in the roof about the size of a basketball. The snow effortlessly drifted in, landing just at my feet. On the walls, hung the tools of any man. Saws of varying shapes and sizes, hammers, pliers, rope, tarpaulin, and many other objects I had never known.

Snap! The sound of a breaking branch startled me, breaking the silence. "H-Hello? Who's out there?" I stammered. "Oh, darling I'm sorry for scaring you." The familiar voice shook me full of fear. The lock on the door turned and the door swung open to reveal him, only this time he was calm and radiating a sense of safety, which was my kryptonite. He scooped me up into his arms, apologising for snapping as he carried me into the warmth of my personal hell. He placed me carefully on the rug in front of the fireplace. "Let me grab a couple of blankets and we can talk about your little moment of madness." He left the room, I so badly wanted to run but I knew I wouldn't make it in the blizzard with no shoes or jacket to keep me warm. I stayed still not even risking the slightest movement. As he returned my mind began to race. What did he want? Was he insane? Was there something wrong with me that made him this way?

As he walked back into the lounge, he seemed to read my body language as if it were a book. "Are you ok? You seem very tense and on edge." He asked in a manner that suggested genuine concern and care. I wouldn't fall for that trick again, I couldn't. Could I? He crouched down and drew me into his embrace and reassured me he wouldn't lose his temper again. I knew better than to believe him and brushed it off as another empty promise that would be broken before the day was out. What scared me the most about the incident, that happened only hours ago, was the fact this was the first time he had gotten physical with me. I wanted to crawl into a ball and die in that shed. While we sat in front of the log burner, as if nothing had happened, he started to stroke my head. "I know I get angry sometimes," he started to say, "but sometimes you go out of your way to make me mad." I wanted to scream in his face and tell him that I have never done anything to anger him I have done as I was told from day one, but I stayed silent. "I love you, Marissa, you do know that right?" I knew that he 'loved' me but I was starting to believe that this was just another worthless statement backed up with no emotional evidence and was his way of keeping me under his thumb.