Black and Blue

Warning: Story contains themes of domestic violence that could be triggering for some people.

***

It started with two euphoric people and ended with empty vases, a hurriedly packed suitcase, a numb dazed woman and an extra heartbeat.

***

They used to be happy.

Everyone thought they would stay that way. In the very beginning, I did too.

Her eyes were bright, his smile was kind and they both wore rings on the same finger.

When they moved in the furniture and decorated the other walls, she painted my surface a deep midnight blue.

I stood on the northern side of the loungeroom, holding up the roof, carefully hung wedding photos and a ticking clock that marked the slow subtle slipping away of their love.

***

There was months of laughter, moments of gentle embraces and nights where she would fall asleep on his shoulder, watching the tv on the wall beside me.

And then there were fights.

Raised voices echoed off the other walls and I. I shivered. The next morning a vase full of flowers was tenderly handed from a pair of calloused hands to shaky ones. A teary hug was exchanged and the daisies were watered every day. I breathed a sigh of relief. The laughter was back, quieter and more hesitant but still there.

***

The next time I heard yelling, they were standing before me, between the tv and the sofa. I saw their expressions - the tears streaming down her reddening cheeks and the anger that danced across his face like a wildfire. It didn't match the usual carefree look on his face I had grown accustomed to. It terrified me.

The shouts and cruel words went on longer that time. I half expected the neighbours to knock on the front door, asking questions or showing concern. I hoped they would. They didn't. They never did.

The flowers showed up days later, receiving a nod and another hug, this one less like two magnets connecting and more like two icebergs colliding. The lilac roses were watered with still shaking hands. I held my breath.

***

The fights became more regular, growing like a cancer. The laughter faded like the light in her emerald eyes. I learnt to expect angry words when liquor bottles were open on the table, the smell of whiskey potent in the air. I knew to expect flowers days later, when the bottles had been cleared, the air had begun to smell fresh again and the expression on his face had calmed.

***

I didn't see the moment insults turned into closed fists... I heard it. The usual yelling didn't taper off like drizzle after a storm. It didn't end with a closed door either. One moment there was yelling and the next there was silence. When she walked around the corner, I saw it, but only because I was looking.

The skin around her left eye was red, her eye half closed. I could've sworn the clock sped up in that moment. I wanted to yell and scream, but where had that gotten her? More than wanting to shout at him, I wanted to whisper to her. A singular word balanced behind the paint on my surface but I didn't speak it. There’d be no point. Not yet.

***

I watched the mark change to black and blue; a stormy ocean and the night sky combining to show hidden devastation. The skin swelled like waves. I saw her attempt to cover the proof of what happened with a makeup sponge and brush and was left wondering how nobody saw past the foundation and concealer she put on in layers.

The flowers were accompanied with begging and pleading and the kind of apologies that could never make up for the absent look in her eyes as she accepted them. The large bouquet of colourful flowers was discarded on the table, beside the others, no vase to accompany it.

Once again, I almost whispered that one word. Instead, I listened to his endless stream of "I'm so sorry" and "It will never happen again" that were tied in silky ribbons of "I promise" and pretty wrapping like "I love you".

***

There were no fights for weeks. He kept hugging her and she kept painting a faux smile on her lips. I saw right through it and could only wonder if he was oblivious or only acted like it.

Then one day when he arrived home he had a bottle swinging from his hand. He couldn't even walk straight. When she walked through the door hours later, she saw the empty bottles lining the counter and had the same reaction as me, she tensed, her body turning rigid.

When he walked into the lounge room she quietly left. Minutes later, he followed her. She wordlessly came back. Her strategy didn't work. The next time she tried to leave the room, he grabbed her wrist. Even from across the room I could tell his grip was tight - the kind of tight that would leave more black and blue marks on her skin.

The yelling started when she tried to pull away. His words were slurred and almost incomprehensible but the meaning was unmistakable because of the tell-tale tone.

This time, when he shouted, she stayed silent. Her mouth was pressed firmly closed as if she was sinking further into the dark blue of an ocean and if she opened her mouth she might drown. I half wondered if she might.

He shook her and then threw her to the floor like a ragdoll. She hit the coffee table on the way down. I don't know how he didn't flinch at the sickening sound of her body hitting the wood. The yelling continued. He didn't leave until she was crying, her body trembling from it. She stayed there on the floor long after he left, hugging herself in the kind of way he'd never be able to hold her.

I hoped he wouldn't come back. He did.

The roses were red this time. She put them between the white lilies and yellow tulips that were starting to wilt. She avoided looking at them.

It was summer but when she left the house she always pulled her long sleeves down to cover the hand shaped blemish on her wrist. Every time he reached for her she flinched slightly. He pretended not to notice, so did the visitors they had over for lunch. I watched them take my hope out the door with them when they left. Had they not seen or had they not cared?

***

I smelt whiskey before I heard the familiar sounds of fighting. The callousness to his words made me feel sick. Not as sick as the awful sound of knuckles meeting skin. He slammed the bedroom door soon after the crying started. When he passed through the loungeroom, he swiped his arm across the table, knocking the vases to the floor, relishing in the shattering sound of glass. I hoped and hoped and hoped it would summon the neighbours. Still, they didn't show up. Nobody did.

When he marched out of the house the crying stopped. The first thing I noticed when she walked past me was a slight limp. I had gotten good at assessing the damage he'd done and detecting where it was written on her body.

She went to the fridge, finding ice to press to the discolouration on her neck. I fought the urge to say that word, the word that should change everything but I knew would change nothing.

It was the familiarity in the gesture of tending to her own wounds that undid me, the blank look in her eyes that made it almost impossible not to say something.

***

The earth rotated again, the sun rose and the flowers appeared - pale pink carnations that she numbly placed amongst the collection of others. This time she spent less long doing her makeup but wrapped a scarf around her neck and practiced walking without a limp before she left the house.

Each time the door handle turned, I hoped and wished and longed for it to be someone coming to help, someone coming to take her far away from here - away from him. It never was.

***

The cycle continued for months. Liquor bottles giving way to yelling that lead to bruises which were followed by fresh flowers. I knew by now she must've wanted to throw them away immediately but she must have feared that would only speed up the next step of the pattern, so she placed them in a vase on the table, but never bothered to water them. Not anymore. The smells of them all mixed together but did nothing to outweigh the smell of whiskey whenever it made its guaranteed appearance.

***

I knew something was wrong when I heard a sudden sob from down the hall. I knew something was out of the ordinary because he wasn't home to cause that desperate sound.

When she slowly made her way into the loungeroom and collapsed despairingly on the couch she was holding something in her hand but I couldn't see what it was. She was rocking back and forth repeatedly - the kind of motion that should've been accompanied by tears and probably would've been if she'd had any left in her. Instead, she stayed silent, arms around her knees as she cradled herself.

I knew what I'd see even before she placed a white tube-like object on the table in front of the line of flower vases. I knew it must be showing two lines without needing to see it. I knew what this meant. There was another heart involved, another heart that could be broken, a heart she didn't want to let get broken.

She stared at the test on the table - the positive test - while the clock on my surface ticked louder and faster than it ever had before. That was when I knew it was time.

The word I'd been choking on for a small eternity rose in me. I couldn't say it before because it wouldn't have mattered, but now... well now I only had to say it because she was finally thinking it - not just considering it, but deciding it. All she needed was to hear it aloud.

Leave, I whispered. It was somehow freeing to me, finally telling her the only thing that could save her. I only hoped it would free her too.

She jerked her head up, startled, looking all around her. She breathed harder, checking the room once again to see if anyone was around.

Leave, I said again. This time she was calmer. She must have decided it was God or her subconscious. I didn't know. All I knew was that word spoken at that moment was exactly what she needed.

She slipped the test in her pocket as she walked from the room. I heard zippers and cupboards being opened and closed. When she appeared next her face was clear of makeup, her wrists and neck bare. She had a bulging suitcase in her hand.

Before she left she took the flowers from the vases and dropped them in the bin. I thought I saw something like a light begin to burn in her eyes.

She walked out the door, suitcase in hand.

I never saw her again and all I could do was pray he didn’t either.

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Note: This story is inspired by the following songs:

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