Thread: Sight For Sore Eyes - First Chapter (Strong language)

I studied the picture critically, trying desperately to find someone redeemable in it. The composition was bland, the color was garish and the subject matter was … bluebonnets. This was the Hill Country Arts and Crafts Festival – there were always bluebonnets.
With a sigh I turned away and ran smack into 6-foot of male hardness.
“Oh!” I gasped. “Joshua! I didn’t see you there. It’s … uh … how are you?”
Joshua gave me his signature smile but his eyes were serious as he nodded, “Abigail. I’m just fine. How’re you?”
“Oh, I’m good,” I responded breezily. “Real good.”
His eyes scanned my face and arms, unconvinced, but then he turned to the painting. “I figured I’d find you in this section. Bluebonnets, huh?” He had a faint smile now. He was one of the few people who remembered that I’d majored in art history.
I paused. “Ah… well, bluebonnets are very homey. Comforting.” And they were. I just wanted more.
“True,” he agreed. “But still, there’s only so much bluebonnets a guy can take.”
“No,” I teased. “If you’re going to go country, you’ve got to embrace the bluebonnets.”
“Who says I’m going country?” he asked, his eyes dancing.
“Isn’t that why you’re here? You know, be a cowboy and all that.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing here?” Before I could answer, he nodded towards the back, “Have you been down that way?”
“No, why?”
“I saw a painting over there that reminded me of you.”
He’d thought of me. “Really?”
“Yep. Come on. Guess which one.”
He led me deeper into the tent. I passed a gray vase with yellow flowers, a house being consumed by bougainvillea, a horse. But as soon as I saw it I knew that was the one. It was one of the few that was of a woman but that wasn’t why I knew.
The woman had her arms flung out wide and she was in motion, twirling. She was wearing a skirt that flared out. She was twirling the way a child does, with complete abandonment. She was free. The colors were a mad smorgasbord of oranges and yellows mixed with hints of blue, and it was if the picture itself were in motion, swirling before my eyes.
I knew this is what he meant because someone as vibrant as Joshua would be drawn to a picture like this. Plus, it was good. Really good, actually. It was a joy.
“You see me like this?” My voice sounded pathetically hopeful.
“You are like this,” he affirmed.
I snorted indelicately, “Then you don’t know me.”
“I know you,” he said earnestly. “You are like this, but right now – you’re at rest. This is what you’re really like.”
I was still mulling over how to respond when I felt a familiar if not welcome presence at my back. “Joshua,” Ethan said coldly, “what a pleasure to meet you here.”
Joshua straightened slightly and nodded back, “Mr. Campbell. Good afternoon.”
Ethan put his hands on my shoulders and drew me back into his chest. “Hi, honey. What have you been keeping busy with while I’ve been gone?” I felt his warm, wet breath on my temple.
“Uh… just checking out the paintings...”
“You’re not still pouting about the committee, are you?”
I was pretty sure I hadn’t pouted at all, but responded anyways, “No, I … it was fine. I …. uh … just like seeing what the local artists have been working on is all.”
“Of course. Abby is my little art critic,” he told Joshua. “They wanted her on the judging committee this year but she just didn’t have the time to spare.” Ethan gave me a moist peck on the cheek.
All through our exchange, Joshua watched intently with too-knowing eyes. I looked away.
“Well, we’d better get you home now,” Ethan said, as he began to lead me away.
“You take care,” Joshua said.
“You too,” I murmured, still unable to meet his eyes.
Ethan was quiet all the way home. I knew I’d pay for it later, but I couldn’t summon up regret for talking to Joshua. They were stolen moments, but they were mine and I’d hoard them for a long time.

“What the fuck was that about?” Ethan demanded, the minute we were in the door of the house.
It wouldn’t do any good to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. “It was nothing,” I said quietly. I attempted a demure pose. “We just ran into each other and struck up a conversation. Nothing happened.”
“Jesus Fucking Christ, I leave my wife alone for five fucking minutes and I find her flirting with another man.”
“I wasn’t flirting,” I insisted. I knew it was probably hopeless but I had to try.
It was like he hadn’t even heard me. “In front of hundreds of people, no less. When my wife decides to be a whore, she goes all out. Don’t you?”
“No, I –“ I was cut off his hand slapped me across my mouth. My head whipped back and tears stung my eyes.
“Shut your lying mouth!” Ethan raged. “I’m sick of your lies. I’m going to show you what happens to whores with filthy, lying mouths.”
He fisted my hair and dragged me into the bedroom, and proceeded to make good on his promise using his fists and eventually other parts too. I held out as long as I could but always the tears and the begging came, which pleased him more, but didn’t appease his anger much.
It wasn’t the worst beating I’d received, but as I lay there afterwards, curled up against the dresser on the bedroom floor, I felt the shame of it acutely. Lights twinkled behind my closed eyes, twirling, but they flashed red now, not orange anymore. The throbbing in my head and in my wounds seemed to mock me: I know you, I know you, I know you…

The next day, I patched myself up in the bathroom mirror using the eye that still opened. I avoided the mirror and other shiny surfaces after that, not wanting to see the bumpy deformity that was now my face. I wore a thick sweatshirt to cover the black mess of bruises there.
It’s like when you look away when you’re getting a shot; somehow not seeing the wounds made them less real. Of course that did nothing for the pain. It hurt just to breath, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t broken anything, thank god. I cleaned and cooked as usual, and even managed to squeeze in a nap.
Three days later came Wednesday, which meant a trip to the grocery store. I could have possibly gotten out of it if I’d said the wounds were hurting too bad, but I knew that’d just trigger more anger or derision. As usual, I opted to avoid the confrontation and go.
I headed to the store soon after Ethan left for work. All I wanted to do was lounge in bed and cry – how pitiful, but I knew it would be the emptiest early in the morning. I was wearing a bulky long sleeved shirt with a high neck, tousled hair to cover my neck and lots of foundation. It wasn’t a particularly well-kept secret, what happened at my house, but it was still something I tried to keep private. If I at least made the effort to hide it, it was a tacit signal to say nothing, and most people were happy to oblige.
Two aisles in and I already felt beat, which I guess I was. Pushing the cart became a struggle, but I was grateful to have something to lean on when I stopped to rest. I rested my forearms on the handle and looked over like I was reading the labels, when in reality I was just trying to remind vertical. I just hung there for awhile, aching, hunched over the cart. I didn’t know how much time passed like that but I knew I felt so incredibly old.
I was heading into the aisle with the dried foods, mentally goading myself into finishing the rest of my shopping list, when the worst possible thing happened. I spotted Joshua tossing pasta into his cart.
Unlike last time, I seemed to have spotted him before he’d seen me. I considered pretending to be absorbed in reading some package, hoping he’d pass me by without recognizing me, but settled in a hasty retreat. I pulled my cart back out of the aisle and started to steer it forward toward the next aisle.
Joshua must have caught the motion because he glanced up. “Abigail?” he called out. He started towards me and I tried to shrink into myself, unsure what to do now. The smile on his face died as he got close to me. His face grew hard and his beautiful brown eyes flashed.
I looked down, but he didn’t stop coming. He walked right up into my space so that I was looking at the buttons of his button down shirt. He grasped my arms and I couldn’t help the whimper that escaped me. He immediately released me.
“Abby,” he said, his voice cracking. He’d never called me that before and I looked at him then. My eyes widened at the look in his eyes I didn’t want to name, and I took a step backwards.
“I…” God, I had no idea what to say. Nothing would make this okay. I just needed to get away. I took a deep breath. “Listen, I …”
“You what, Abigail? Tell me. Who did this to you?” he demanded, but he knew.
“I… no, it wasn’t … “
“Was it,” he swallowed. “Was it because of me? Because I talked to you?”
“No! I just … fell down … “
“Fuck. Don’t feed me that bullshit. Save it for someone who doesn’t know or doesn’t care, but not me.”
He must have seen that I was startled by his vehemence, because he gentled his voice. “Abigail, listen to me. What he’s doing is wrong. You don’t have to stay with him. Let me help you. Please.”
His eyes implored me and the hope in them was too painful.
“I… I can’t. I’m sorry.” He was just a blur then, and I realized I’d started crying. I’d ruin my makeup, I thought.
I heard him swear. “Christ, Abigail. Please. Why do you stay with him? Why? Can you tell me that?”
And I really hated myself then. More than I hated Ethan, I think, which was startling. Who was I to make this strong, beautiful man beg?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I wiped my eyes and saw Joshua just standing there looking at me, hands clenched at his sides, his eyes angry and hurt and maybe even lost. I was glad for the pain in my body, then, because it was really what I deserved for making him feel like that.
I walked away from him, pushing my cart. I just walked away and it was a relief.
What else could I say? I couldn’t tell him why I stayed with Ethan. That I stayed because I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and refused to be Joshua’s charity case. But that wasn’t totally true, because more than not wanting to be a burden on him, I also never wanted him to find out my secret.
The fact is, what Ethan said was true. I wanted Joshua and I’d never tell him, making me both a liar and a whore.

Dynamite. Great beginning. Too realistic. I hope you're not writing from personal experience.

Thanks for the feedback and supportive critiques on mine and others' posts. We need more of that around here! And it's not autobiographical, but there's a little of us in every character, don't you think?

I thought you did a good job affording an insight to how women react in such extreem circumstances. You also did a good job treating the two guys differently.

I noticed this, "I was just trying to remind vertical." Should that be remain?

This is a great read. Having been abused, I can identify with the beating scene, It's realistic. I only wish this was a longer piece with resolution for Allie.