Hello Delilah fans! It’s Lizzie Ashworth here, bringing you another short fiction.
We romance lovers look forward to sexy scenes and heart wrenching love stories. What we don’t like are stories of the downside. But sometimes those stories need to be told.
In this little piece, I explore the moment when a woman has to face reality about the man she loves. It’s a crisis point, perhaps familiar to many of you from similar real-life experiences. The story starts before this scene and ends long after this scene. But we can imagine all the rest just from this part.
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The storm door rattled in its latch. The broken pane trembled and not for the first time Augusta thought the glass would pop out and shatter to the floor. She withdrew her hand from the handle and stepped back.
Branson hadn’t stood up. His muscled frame hovered on the wooden chair as if waiting. As if not firmly caught in the direction he’d taken. As if he might spring up any second, slam his fist into something, shove her against the wall and assault her with his mouth, his body. A tremor ran through her belly. As if.
Calmly, he twisted off the cap on the half pint and emptied the last of the whiskey into his mug. She wanted to challenge him, argue, yell, throw things, stare him down. But her angry gaze caught on the black eye patch, the eye that wasn’t there, the eye that she had never realized was the place her glance went automatically, some habit of engagement with another human when your dominant eye seeks out its counterpart in the other person. She’d never known how that worked. Now, it seemed like the only damn thing that happened consistently with Branson.
Forcing her gaze to focus on his other eye, his only eye, she met his calculating, sardonic gray stare, his expression of contempt, or challenge, or whatever the hell it was that he felt.
“Go on,” he said quietly. “Get the fuck out.”
She stifled the words that sprang to her lips and turned again to the door. The cracks radiating out from the fist-sized hole blurred with the yellow residue of tape that had long since fallen away, victim of hot, cold, wind, rain. She remembered when the last of it peeled away and hung by a thin edge, curled and brittle. Once it fell, he had allowed it to lie on the threshold for weeks.
“You need to fix this glass.” She regretted her words the minute they left her lips.
Why didn’t she just leave? What was it about him that reached into her chest and held her like a fist? She had shed all the tears, tried everything. Except leaving. Maybe that’s what it would take.
“Why?” he questioned, his voice dry and expressionless. “Everything else around here is falling apart.”
He said it like he would comment on the weather to a stranger. On invitation of his words, Augusta looked around the familiar place, the tiny living room where a layer of dust coated the window sill, coffee table, the top of the television. A blanket on the couch where he spent most of his days. And nights. The floors needed cleaning. Prescription bottles, empty crumpled cigarette packs, an Elvis zippo worn to bare metal where the neck should have been, and dirty dishes littered the little table where he sat.
Spring wind hit the glass again, another sharp rattle as the door latch heaved in and out against its little catch. What would happen if she threw it open, let it bang against the outside wall, let the glass fly into glittering shards to cascade over the wet sidewalk and ground? She shook her head slightly. She knew what would happen. The glass would stay where it fell. He’d walk over it like he walked over everything that used to mean something in his life.
Cautiously, she brought her gaze back to his face, his chiseled handsome face with its gritty beard shadow and the scar by his temple and the angry gray eye, watching. His big hands turned the mug in short increments like the minute hand on a clock.
“Okay, damn you.” Her throat choked on the words. But she was right. Her gut told her. She had to leave. She had tried everything else.
She grabbed the door handle, popped the latch, and stepped outside. The wind caught her hair and whirled it into the air. Cold pellets of rain splattered her cheek. She turned briefly to force the fragile storm door closed, surprised to see him standing there like a ghost on the other side of the glass.
A fresh flurry of rain dashed against her face and she hurried toward her car. If she looked one second longer, she would lose any hope of leaving. The car ignition sent its gentle ding-ding into the noise of rain and wind. A crashing sound shattered across the yard, and she knew what she would see before she cast her gaze toward him. He stood there in the open doorway, his arms crossed, his gray stare burning across the distance until she could almost see the bloodshot rim, the slightly puffy lid. The storm door lay flat against the outside wall with one last large section of glass hanging at a forty-five degree angle and the rest of it in a thousand pieces on the ground and concrete walk.
She wanted to cry out, beat his chest with her fists. Tears burned her eyes as she slid into her car seat and closed the door. Methodically, she turned the key in the ignition. With great effort, she did not look at the doorway as she backed down the drive and slowly pulled away.
~~~
I live in the wilds of the Ozark Mountains with my cats, hound dogs, and whichever child has taken up temporary residence between grad school and relocation. I’ve been writing my entire life and can’t express how wonderful it is to share stories with readers like you. Everything I write comes from my heart in the hopes that you’ll find a bit of pleasure within its pages. Thank you for your kind words and appreciation! You make it all worthwhile.
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