Race

The raindrops were racing.

As she sat there, she felt an itch under her woollen hat, but ignored it. The smell on the Greyhound bus was a mixture of diesel fumes, sweat, and stale coffee. She rested her head against the cold window, and watched the race.

The raindrops were racing. Blown along by the wind buffeting the rattly windows, they swooped and swirled as they merged into one another. Some had long tails, like pearls on a necklace that was slowly coming apart. Others shook, nervously approaching a nearby drop, reaching out a tentative arm, then pulling back suddenly as though touch were something impossible.

But eventually one gave in, and with a strange pop, found itself enmeshed with another, and together, they slid across the window towards the frame. As the drops rolled past her face, she followed them with her eyes, and sometimes with a finger.

The finger was grubby, for lack of a better term. Dry skin peeled around her fingernails, with a nibbled bit along one edge. For a moment, she took her eyes off the race, and gazed at her hand. She didn't recognize it. Once, those fingers had been soft, nails painted pink, a tiny gold band around one finger. Those fingers had run through her hair once - hair that wasn't stuffed under a scratchy smelly old hat - and had run through his hair, too. Those nails had tapped on tables, steering wheels, countertops while she waited for her coffee.

But now they were bitten, down to the quick, and tender where she pressed on them. All of her was tender. The bruise where she rested her head on the window was quieted by its coolness. The scarf she wore wrapped around her neck hid the fading green bruises. Her back, she knew, was still scabbed from the buckle on the belt. No matter how hard she watched the race - cheering on the drop that seemed most like her, forceful and brave until somehow it just disappeared into the other ones - she couldn't ignore the welts that dug into her bony spine.

She didn't need to look around the bus to know that others had seen her. That others had seen the mark on her cheekbone, the deep brown shadows beneath her eyes, the exhaustion written in every line of her face. She knew. She knew what they thought she saw: a woman running away.

Running away from something bad.

From someone bad.

She supposed she didn't blame them, really. It was easy to get confused. After all, busses are designed to take you places - from A to B, from here to there, from then to now. The transportation, the moving of a body from one location to another - that's what most people thought of. A race. Slow and steady, but with a finish line, with an end point, with a stop. You stop when you get off the bus.

But that's not what was happening. She had stopped before that. Long before the bus made its fifth stop at some nondescript station, lit from overhead by a flickering fluorescent light where moths tapped in some weird primitive dance. No, she had stopped moving. Her stop was just earlier than the bus's stop.

And, God, it felt good. It felt so good. It almost felt good enough to overcome the nauseating shame and fear that she felt when she let her mind peek around the corner, back to the moment that she froze with his hands on her neck, seeing the spittle in the corners of his mouth, feeling his hot, fetid, boozy breath on her cheek as he screamed at her. She'd peek around that corner, get a flash of the memory, and in a panic, withdraw. She couldn't let her mind go there. Not yet.

If she did, she'd fall back into that sucking wet muddy sensation of shame. How could she have let this happen? Why didn't she just leave? She was a smart girl. A grown girl. A grown-ass woman. And she stayed. And she felt so ashamed.

If she let herself go back there, she'd remember the sound of the glass shattering against the wall when he threw it. She'd remember the gleam in his eye when she flinched away from him. She'd remember forcing her hands down into her lap as she sat on the sofa while he scolded her and ridiculed her - because as much as she ached to nibble her fingers, in some sort of weird comfort, he'd slap them away and he'd just get angrier.

She would chew them later. In the dark. Lying beside him in the bed and listening to the traffic outside the windows. She hated the traffic. She hated the windows. She missed having fresh air and a breeze on her in the night, but he didn't like the windows, or a fan, so she'd just lay there feeling tacky and unsettled.

In the morning, she'd get up and make a coffee while she got ready for work. He didn't drink coffee, so he always seemed annoyed that she took that two minutes to scoop the bitter powder into her cup with hot water, and try to drink it quickly. God help her if he caught her pouring it out on her way out the door.

"Throwing it away, are we?"

She could have tried to explain that it was only the last dregs and that she had to get to work, that she knew there was construction on her route and that she couldn't be late, her boss needed her, but what was the use? He'd just sneer at her - perhaps repeat her in a mocking tone of voice, or worse yet, roll his eyes - so she just drank it as quickly as she could. Rolling her burnt tongue on the roof of her mouth, she'd have to follow him down the hallway to the wardrobe, where she'd then be asked what shirt and tie she thought he should wear that day.

There was no winning in the shirt and tie game. He'd have one picked out already. She knew it, he knew it, but if she didn't pretend to be enthusiastic, if she didn't pretend that she was truly invested in what he wore that day, if she didn't pretend that his outfit was the only thing she could think about - well, it wouldn't go well.

It was, for lack of a better term, a race.

She was constantly on alert. Constantly strategizing. Constantly trying to predict what might set him off, what mood he'd be in, what she could do and not do, and if doing it was worth the risk of him scolding or yelling or worst of all, choking. If you won the race, you got to sleep at a normal hour, wearing some comfortable pajamas. You might have to have sex with him - where he'd call you names - but at least you could rest. It was sort of like a water break in the race, like you'd worked hard, paced yourself, knew the terrain, and made it to a brief pause.

Of course, if you lost the race... well, you'd be a lot more tired. You'd have to wear the collar and the cuffs. Potentially (probably) a corset and the boots that made your ankles ache because the human foot is not designed to stand on its toes with a 7" heel. You'd have to say things that made you feel filthy and shameful. You'd lie. You'd flinch when he raised his hand and you'd gasp when he hit you. You'd beg him to stop and then he'd mock you. He'd stop when he decided it was time to use you, and you'd fake an orgasm to make him hurry up and end it. And then, if you were lucky, he'd accept your apologies and allow you to sleep. In the corset.

She was so tired, all the time. She was running, all the time. Day in and day out.

But that morning she woke up. She saw the raindrops on the closed window. They didn't move. They hung there, suspended - reflecting the world around them in a smooth rounded bubble, taking their time. They rested. They were their own tiny universes, each one held inside a clean, clear, refreshing droplet.

She could hear him banging around in the kitchen. He was angry, again, and she knew it was because she'd let herself sleep when he wanted her to stay awake to watch TV with him. Her need for sleep had always come second to his desires.

She put clothes on. She brushed her teeth. She grabbed the woolen cap.

Her hand on the doorknob.

His fury.

His mocking voice, telling her she was a fool, a quitter, that no man would ever tolerate her. That she was useless. That she was pathetic. That he was the only one willing to take her on, with all her flaws, with all her mistakes.

She walked out the door. She could hear him banging doors as she walked down the dingy apartment hallway, and onto the sidewalk towards the bus station.

Ticket held tightly in her hand, she sat down in her seat on the bus.

She won the race.