And that… well. That’s almost enough to cause him to snap.
He thinks, Remember. You are not like him.
But that thought is mired in rage.
He thinks, You can’t be. You won’t be. You’re better than this.
“Why couldn’t you fix this?” she cries at him, face splotchy and red. Her hair’s pulled back in a loose ponytail, little blond wisps hanging around her forehead. He thought her lovely for the longest time, even if he never felt a burning passion for her. She made him laugh and he always appreciated that. They were buddies. Beers and wings at the bar, watching the Nats get pounded again and again, Jesus fucking Christ, why couldn’t they get it together, Bryce Harper can’t do everything, come on, Nats!
“There was nothing I could have fixed,” he says tiredly.
“You liar,” she hisses at him.
It happens then.
She’s struck out at him before.
She’s hit him in the chest. She’s scratched his arms. She’s called him names. It’s only been in the last six months. Only after the death of their kid.
Now she stalks forward.
He doesn’t move, because she’s just a little thing, isn’t she? The top of her head barely comes up to his chin, and he outweighs her by a good hundred pounds.
What harm can she do?
So he keeps his hands at his sides.
Because he is not his father.
She slaps him across the face.
There’s a loud crack of skin against skin that echoes around their apartment smack dab in the middle of Washington, DC.
His head rocks back. He tastes blood on his tongue.
She reaches out and rakes her fingernails across the back of his hands, shallow little scrapes that burn.
It happens so quickly. Seconds, really.
It’s quiet in the apartment.
He tilts his head back up. Stretches his jaw.
He thinks she’ll look horrified. That she’ll be disgusted by what she’s done.
She’s not. He can see nothing but anger and hate in her eyes.
She doesn’t even care.
It’d be easy, he knows. To do the same back to her.
Only it’d hurt a whole hell of a lot more.
His father never closed his fist when he hit his wife. Closing your fist left a greater chance for bruises. Bruises brought questions.
He doesn’t want questions.
He could slap her, though.