A Puzzle

Short story of an interaction between two lovers following a significant event

You tell me I’m quiet. I nod. I can’t know it at the time, what it means to process something, but that is what I’m doing. Yet, you still need something from me, as a young son looks to his mother for approval. Talk to me, you say. I don't think you want to hear, I reply.

 

 

I just watched you break a man’s leg, because I was cold. You did that for me, I say, still shocked. In my mind, I can’t put those two utterly separate states together, yet somehow it was clear in your mind that those two puzzle pieces fit together. I don’t understand your violence--it makes no sense to me. How can I love you when you can hurt, inflict pain like that? I watched you transform into someone else--I didn't know who, what, you became. What are you hoping to get from me? I'm not a princess in need of a castle, here to worship at your feet. I feel my heart closing so tightly that I unconsciously clutch my hand to my chest.

 

 

You reach for me and hug me so tightly. I’m protective of you, you whisper. I did everything for you, babe, you say as your hands play up and down my body, warming me. We had been waiting out in that snowy, cold air, in this crazy New Year’s town, for an hour--standing in line like good little soldiers for a damn taxi and that drunk f**k tries to cut in and take our cab? What was I supposed to do? Jesus, your hands were turning blue! The best place for that a*****e was in a hospital anyway--I did him a favor, you explain.

 

 

In your mind, you have so easily rationalized that sound, that sickening crack that I won’t soon forget. I know you want me to lay my arms down and surrender to you, melt into you as I inevitably, always do. Believe that the man who is so tenderly caressing me now, who has never laid a hand on me in anger, won’t someday crack again in flame, only then--it will be me.

 

 

I ask myself: what was it that you wanted from me so badly, so much so that you resorted to violence? Not something I can ever give you--submission. What you did repelled me--clearly not the reaction you were hoping for. The push that pulled me back.

 

 

You want me to turn it all around and believe it all is real--this love, I tell him. I would never hurt you, you say between gentle kisses, and I know you mean it. But in my mind, I see so clearly now--you only have so much to give. Yet I only have so much in me, and there’s no longer enough for you. I take deep breaths of you, though my heart is bursting. I get up from our bed and gather my clothing.

 

 

Yes, I’m cold and shivering, but it is no longer from the frigid air.

 

 

That man's broken leg will heal, but it is me that you have irrevocably hurt.

Author's Note

Wrote this for a contest, though it was rolling around in my mind anyway. Had in mind an incident where a guy broke a drunk's leg in cold weather after the drunk cut in a taxi line. The girlfriend's face was utter shock. The boyfriend was all "But I did it for you babe. You were fucking freezing out here." I always wondered what their story was so I made up my own.

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[Eagle Cruagh]

Some men live with a consuming rage.
Born with it, or acquired in child hood.
Some men use it to get sex, others are
over come by it and in the end destroyed
by it. The cunning man uses
it to conquor the world.