Any trace of cheer on his face drains at the jab, and that’s when I notice he has a black eye.
“What happened to your face?” I ask without tact.
He grows even surlier. “Some stupid motherfucker doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, that’s what,” he mutters.
That sounds boring, so I nod and walk away to the other room.
Well, I try, but walking is hard. Eventually I make it to the bedroom, kick the door closed, and collapse on my bed, feeling a bit weightless. The room feels spinny, but it’s not actually spinning, so I’m not afraid I’ll throw up. Everything just feels light and wonderful, and I wonder why I don’t get drunk every day. Life would be so much easier to handle.
“Ah, right,” I say, to absolutely no one. “I can’t afford to!”
Maybe I should be nice to my mom and Pietro to get some money.
Nope. Not worth it. Even drunk, that’s absurd.
The door creaks open and I sigh, put upon. Even though he’s close, I hear myself saying very loudly, “You should buy me more wine!”
“Why?”
“Because I love wine. Wine makes me happy.”
“Maybe your husband would if you’d be less of a bitch every day.”
“You’re not my husband,” I inform him.
He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t have to. That’s the unspeakable, and I’ve consumed enough alcohol to say it.
He crosses the room in what seems like one angry stride and lifts me off the bed, but it isn’t sexy when he does it. He’s not powerful, he’s not strong, and he tries to hurt me, digging his bony fucking fingers into my shoulder as he shoves me across the room.
“What’d you fucking say?”
“You fucking heard me,” I say, and swat away the next hand that comes my way. He pushes me back against the wall, but with his pathetic little hands, not with his body, and I don’t want his body anywhere near mine anyway.
I can see in his face he wants to hit me, but I just smile, like I don’t have a care in the world. “Go ahead, motherfucker. Hit me in the face. You’re so big and strong, you can harm little ol’ me. Go on!”
But he doesn’t. I have no idea why. Normally he would. Probably not the face, but my arms, my chest, my sides, the softness of my abdomen where he could make me double over and feel like vomiting.
He just shakes his head, looking like he hates me every bit as much as I hate him. “Fuck you,” he says instead.
“Never,” I throw back, still smiling.
That pisses him off more and I see the fist coming at me. Despite myself, I flinch, try to duck away from it, but it doesn’t connect with my face or my arm, it connects with the wall behind my head.
“I hate coming home to you!” he screams.
“So stop doing it,” I scream back, wanting to rip my long, dark hair out right at the roots. “For the love of God, you have to know I don’t want you here! Why can’t you just stay with someone else? Won’t you be happier?”
I’m not even being mean at this point, the alcohol is just compelling me to sheer honesty, and it pisses him off like I’m throwing jabs. He storms out of the bedroom and down the hall, cursing and hitting walls.
He’s gonna kill me someday.
Sober, that might actually scare me, but I’m drunk and I don’t care.
If I cared, I probably wouldn’t have snuck past two armed men to steal a couple of goddamn apples.
Suddenly exhausted, I climb into bed and curl up with my blanket cocoon. I dreamed last night that my dad was still alive and I went to stay with him. Paul existed somewhere in the world, but he wasn’t my cross to bear anymore. I made dinner for me and my dad and we sat at our old dining room table and ate Grandma’s spaghetti while we talked. There were apples in a fruit bowl between us.
Tears well in my eyes and I hate them.