Rain

It was dark when he left her there, standing in the rain.

Dark and misty and hard to see.

She clutched her umbrella, blue as his beautiful eyes. Her knuckles turning white, she whispered after him in a voice that could not be heard. 

"Please come back."

That was what she had whispered after all those fights, every last day she had been with him. All those battles that lasted hours, filled with shouting and cursing and those terrible slaps that stung like wasps on her cheek. The slaps that became punches, that became kicks that ached beneath her skin. He was strong, and he wanted her to know.

She always believed it was her fault. Even as friends eyed her bruises with concern, even as they recommended counselors, support groups, anything and everything, she never stopped believing that she was responsible for the wounds he had caused. She had provoked him, so she should pay the price for her actions. 

Anything for him to come back to her. Everything for him to stay.

And then he began to insult her.

He called her a slut, a bitch, raked his long, sharp fingernails down her arm and always said she deserved it, that she had asked for it. Then he would calm down, have a shot or two and cry, and when she comforted him, he had always tearfully apologized, sobbed of how much he loved her. No matter how scarring the insult, no matter what nerve it struck, she always forgave him.

Anything for him to come back to her. Everything for him to stay.

She lifted the umbrella away from her face, let the rain fall into her already teary eyes and slip down her cheeks. It had been so long since anything but blood had dripped off her chin. It was so cold...and yet, so relaxing, like a weight was being lifted from her shoulders. Like nothing in the world could hurt her anymore.

He had loved her once. He loved her before he started injuring her. He loved her when he was drunk.

She had loved him always. But it had long since been time for her to take a stand.

At this very street corner, not forty minutes prior, he had given her a dozen roses and she had thrown them down, explaining through the tears in her eyes and the knives in her heart why they couldn't be together anymore, how it was because of him, how he needed to go. He had listened, and through their conversation she could see him filling with something beyond anger--something beyond rage. Something beyond loathing.

He had given her one last smarting slap and then walked off into the deluge.

She now gazed down at the forgotten flowers, blooming sadly red, the color of love and blood and anger and courage. The colors of romance. The colors of hell.

It was time to move on. Time to get away from this place, to run far away from the past, to not look back. To find someone else, who would truly love her and not control her like a tyrannical king. 

The moon watched over the wet streets and dark figures, lacing the raindrops with slivers of moonlight.

She smiled, dropped the umbrella blue as his beautiful eyes, and walked off into the night.