A Different Day

A short story about a girl in a struggle with a shocking twist. Disclaimer: I wrote this to when I was in a lot of pain. It isn't about anyone. I am not being abused or anything don't worry.

The house was frigid. I sat there as usual hoping she would come. I typically spent this time in silence met by only the occasional melody of birds as I waited for her. However, today was different. A day like no other this summer. No glint of sunshine peeped through the curtains to fill the drab rooms. Today was drowned in intermittent rain squalls and deafening slams on the tin roof. Today felt as if it was some miserable day of winter. She had not come home to visit me for a few days. This most likely meant she spent nights full of intimacy with him but I knew she would come back to me, my touch was relieving for her. Finally, the sound I was waiting for echoed through the empty rooms. The sound of crushed pepper corns up her driveway and the buzz of the old run down 2000 Holden Commodore. The crunches slowed and came to a halt and with it so did the loud drone of her engine. A slam closely followed, louder than usual.

I sat there patiently waiting for her, hoping when she walked into this room my gleam would capture the sight of her stunning eyes. The irises were a beaming blue encrusted in a deep navy, like the Pacific ocean, and she had long, thick black lashes which framed her eyes. She had the prettiest eyes. It ordinarily took six seconds from the slam of the car door until her presence blessed this house. But it was minutes before I heard the clattering of her keys and the squeak of the front door. When inside she was mumbling and sobbing. She was trying desperately to explain something to someone over the phone. After a few minutes she shrieked and then all sound ceased, except for the incessant hammering of the rain that I tried so hard to ignore all day. There was gradual loudening of slow creeks on the timber floor. I heard the chatter of the metal knob on the my door turn. She stepped in, water trailed behind her. Her dirty blonde hair sat dead straight down her back. An isolated drip toppled from her hair adding to thepool of water which dropped from her red stilettoes. Her whole body was completely soaking top to bottom. She slipped her black coat off to reveal a white, sheer tank top clinging to her saturated body and exposed her lacy red bra underneath. She removed her black jeans with a slight struggle losing balance only once and there she stood in a pair of matching red lace panties. I could almost see her whole slender porcelain body before me. She tucked her hair behind her ear exposing her despondentface. A drip of water trickled down her cheek and another quickly followed. Over and over. The droplets trailed up her checks to her blood shot eyes; she was crying once again. One eye was swollen and outlined in purple and brown, matching the bruises that usually covered her arms and legs. She shifted her head to the left a few feet and looked straight at me. Her dull expression grew into a sickly smile enveloping her face.

A slight nervousness filled me at first. Her eyes had never looked at me so intensely before, then I was overwhelmed with contentment. Finally I thought. It had been months since I touched her beautiful skin. Some days I contemplated on the idea that she would never come back to me again, but I knew it was only time before she came back because she would fall out with him once again. Our relationship was the only thing more erratic then the one she had with him. She would swear off him one week and come to me for support. And the next week she would insist to him that she was through with me and sworn off me forever. She would swallow all her pride and then tremble at his feet and beg for forgiveness. On especially bad days, maybe after she had another screaming argument with him and he left her forlorn, it was the slight agony that she felt when she decorated her skin that preserved her from shattering inside. I was the one that was always ready to help her on the days which he’d broke her.

She sluggishly walked towards me, a slender figure and she hesitantly lifted her arm. I saw the scars lining her wrists as she reached me, each a different day, a different story, a different pain, a different struggle. Her clumsy fingers fumbled as she picked me up. Her hands were ice cold. She fiddled with me before she clenched onto me tightly like she clenched onto her relationship with him. She took a deep breath and I could feel her skin split on either side of me as I deeply lacerated it.Then, I quickly became engulfed in a ravine of crimson. Usually her emotional struggle was masked by the physical pain at this point. But today she was different, I looked up at her face and it read that I was no longer enough.