Her head hurt. Mostly it was the left side of her head. Her left arm and her left hip hurt, too. But mostly it was her head. The crack she heard as she hit the floor surely must have been her skull splitting. Or her teeth clamping down on her tongue, cutting through until they smashed together. For just a second she thought of a baseball bat. “The crack of the bat” was a much nicer sound than the crack of her own head meeting the floor. She wondered if a bat upside her head would have felt any worse.
The pain was strong but instinctively she knew not to respond to it. Something inside told her not to move. If she could just lie there, maybe the pain would go away. Maybe the moment would go away. Maybe he would go away.
Fighting every thing her brain was telling her to do, she lay there on the floor, her entire left side throbbing and screaming for attention. Her arm was twisted backward beneath her and her left leg landed a little too far from her right leg, almost as if she were trying to do a split as she hit the floor. It wasn’t a perfect split by any means, but her legs were just far enough apart to cause a new pain in her right leg and in her groin from the unnatural stretch. She ignored the pain long enough to wonder if her figure presented a believable heap on the floor, or whether her refusal to move was the dead-give-away that she was conscious. She couldn’t afford to take a chance now so she remained still. She had to believe herself that moving meant more pain, not protection from it.
Her hair, always worn down, was splayed across the right side of her face, hiding her eyes, her mouth and any contortions that her brow might have made as she had landed. This convenient veil allowed her to relax her facial muscles just a little in an effort to gain control of her breathing. Naturally her body had tensed during the moment, but now that it was over her muscles needed to let go of their fierce desire to flex and beat off the hard obstruction that had caught her. She was briefly thankful that she was in the kitchen for there would be no rug burns. The cold tile was slightly soothing to the already bruising skin of her arm and hip. Her head would need more comfort. The cold, unyielding tile was not calming the anger that her head felt. It pressed back against her skull and she felt every throb and tear at her scalp as if her head were pulsing up and down on the floor. She knew that it was not possible that he could see her head bob up and down with the pain, but she did her best to swallow slow against the pain, just in case.
She was pretty sure that she hadn’t blacked out but suddenly wasn’t sure how long she had been lying there. Was he still there? Could she move? She couldn’t be sure of anything but the steady and constant reminders of what had happened. It was no longer just her head and her arm and her hip and her groin and her right leg. Now her teeth hurt. Ironically her tongue and cheek did not hurt, but all of her teeth did. Carefully she took her uninjured tongue and slowly, gently, ran it along the inside of each tooth, pushing, just a little, to see if it would move. Counting each one, she was sure that at least 32 seconds had gone by with the confirmation that all 32 teeth were still securely in her mouth. She couldn’t understand how this could be possible as all 32 felt like they were throbbing, too.
Those 32 seconds was certainly enough time for the next blow to come, but it didn’t. Maybe he had quietly walked away. Maybe he would leave her alone this time. Maybe…
Then she heard his breathing. Right above her. Still there. Just watching her. Or waiting. Watching or waiting for what she wasn’t sure, but he was still there. Her heart began to beat faster and once again she swallowed slow to control her breathing, the pain, the fear.
And then he stepped over her and headed across the room. His shoes padded over the tile and when they hit the carpet there was a quiet swish sound as he continued up the stairs. She continued to block out the pain by counting each swish. At 14 she heard the door easily and gently click closed.
She was alone in the basement apartment.
Relief was fleeting and not comforting at all. It was replaced by a pain that her head could not begin to comprehend. She was not free of further abuse. She was not free to lie there and cry. She was not free of anything. She was a prisoner to an absurd longing for guilt, remorse and redemption: emotions that he would never feel on his own and that she could not force out of him.
She was sad and he was not sorry. He did not care whether she got up and she was in disbelief. She was full of regret and he was empty of it. Her pain - physical, emotional and psychological – meant nothing to him. He had left her there. He had stepped over her and left her. She was worthless to him.
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