The sound of the front door to their townhouse slamming open and shut could be heard all the way upstairs where Sam sat on the bed, waiting. Every noise she heard of tables being knocked over, clumsy hard steps and loud drunken slurs, made Sam's heart nearly palpitate with anxiety and sadness. This wasn't the first time her husband stumbled home from a late night of drinking in recent days, but she knew this had to be the last. All she could do was hold back the tears and pray that Danny's loud trek upstairs to their bedroom didn't wake their daughters sleeping in their room down the hallway.
After what seemed like an eternity of anticipation, Danny finally entered the bedroom. It took several pats on the wall before he found the light switch so he could attempt to get ready for bed. However, the moment he noticed Sam was up, he spoke in a sickeningly drunk voice, "Heeey Babe… You up for-jus' for me…?" Followed up by a low key laugh. It never registered in his head that she was clearly distraught. Sitting near the edge of the bed with her face hidden behind her skrillex haircut and arms around knees pulled up to her chest. No answer from Sam was the same as a yes for Danny right now and he stumbled towards the bed.
"Please, keep it down…" Sam muttered, still not wanting to look at him.
Danny only replied with a loud raspberry and a wave of his hand as he fell onto the bed beside her. This caused Sam to fall off balance and have to catch herself. Unfortunately, this meant also accidentally catching a glimpse of the full drunkenness of her husband. As Sam tried to move away from him, Danny caught her in his arms and started thoughtlessly and aggressively groping her breasts and licking at her neck. With only a nightgown on, Sam couldn't say that her body didn't love Danny's skillful foreplay, but the fact that he reeked of beer made her nearly throw up in her mouth. "Get off of me!" She snapped as she shoved him back and leapt up from the bed. "I'm not in the mood for it, Danny. If you're gonna be a jerk, go sleep on the couch tonight."
"Whatever." Danny rolled his eyes and slowly sat himself up. "You change your mind pretty fuckin' quick when my T meets the V…" With an overly confident grin, he gestured with his fingers to make a V and proceeded to lick his tongue in between.
This appalled Sam and with a wide-eyed gasp, she crossed her arms and turned her back to him. "Fuck off! Get out of here, Danny! I don't even want to look at you until you're sobered up…" Through the anger, her sadness that things even came to this was very apparent, but Danny was too drunk to notice.
Upset that he wasn't getting his way, Danny's head was spinning too hard for him to form a coherent argument with her. "Fine then. Be a bitch like that." He replied as he flipped her off and phased through the bed and floor into the downstairs to sleep on the couch for the night.
The moment he was gone, Sam let out a deep breath and trembled. Tears rolled down her cheeks and once again, she had to spend a night alone, crying herself to sleep.
The next morning, Sam forced herself out of bed and to just deal with the little sleep she had gotten, as she was used to doing at this point. A few cups of black coffee and needing to drive her daughters to school was motive enough to get going. The only thing slowing her down was the knife in her heart she felt every time she had to pass through the living room and see Danny's drunk ass blacked out on the couch. The worst was lying to her oldest daughter, Charity, about the situation and putting it simply as, "Daddy isn't feeling well, again." Being nearly six years old, the girl could pick up on something being wrong, but she was young enough to believe anything Sam had to say to sugarcoat the situation. As for their newly four year old, Angel, no explanation was needed. She simply saw her daddy asleep on the couch and accepted it as just that.
After dropping off Charity at elementary school and Angel at preschool, Sam immediately went home, hoping to be there before Danny had a chance to wake up and leave. Not only did she need the time to confront him, it also had upset her that the last time he did this, he stole money from their saving's jar before going. There was no way she would give him the opportunity to steal from their family again.
As she came in the front door, she sighed with relief that he was still on the couch asleep. All spread out, arms slung over the side, mouth wide open and snoring. There was once a time when she would have thought he looked almost adorable, but those days were over. Now that she knew she had time, this gave her a chance to make a quick sandwich and eat before she inevitably lost her appetite. Sam learned long ago to always eat before emotionally difficult conversations to avoid starving herself by accident. The last thing she needed was some ignorant jack-off calling her veganism into question again.
Time seemed to move slower as she waited for her husband to finally wake up, but when it actually happened and he began to stir, her heart nearly skipped a beat. Reacting quickly, she placed a blue folder on the coffee table parallel to the couch and sat in the arm chair adjacent. Sam clasped her hands on her folded knees and took deep breaths, preparing herself for anything. Just to make it easier on herself, she even thought to put a fresh cup of coffee, glass of water and a couple tablets of naproxen on the coffee table to greet Danny when he was conscious enough to notice.
"Shit…" Was the first thing Danny uttered as he turned over and slowly opened his eyes, though as he did, he needed to shield them with his hand from the sunlight coming in through the window. "Does it have to be so fucking bright in here?" He asked as he sat himself up and noticed Sam sitting in the chair beside him. The next thing to come into his focus was the water, coffee and pain killers. Without hesitation, he grabbed up the naproxen and the glass of water. "Oh my God, thank you." He added before swallowing down the pills. "My head is fucking pounding…" Danny started massaging his temples.
"I'm sure it is after last night. Let me guess, you had too much beer again?" Sam spoke with a distant, cynical tone. As well as not looking at him directly.
Danny was able to pick up on this and frowned. "What's up with the attitude all of a sudden?"
Sam finally looked at him, her saddened eyes and disconnected disposition meeting with his look of defensive confusion. "Danny, we need to talk and we need to talk now." It took all of her courage, but she managed to keep a stern tone to show the seriousness of the situation.
"Seriously? Right now?" Danny muttered as if it were just another inconvenience as he glanced down at the coffee table. It was when he picked up the coffee mug to take a drink that he noticed the folder. "What's that?" He asked before taking a drink.
"You'll see…" Sam replied. It was at this time, she pulled off her wedding ring and placed in on the table.
Even more confused, Danny glanced at the ring, then to Sam and finally back to the folder. After putting the coffee back on the table, he quickly grabbed the folder and opened it. Once laying eyes on the contents however, he stood up and threw it back down on the table, revealing legal documents. "You're divorcing me?!" He snapped loudly at her, making her flinch. "What the fuck, Sam?!"
Gathering up her courage, she spoke up. "You're not giving me a choice! I can't take you anymore!" This was followed by a long pause. Danny had never expected to hear that from his wife. The woman he'd loved since high school. The woman he'd had two children with. With a tear escaping and ruining her eyeliner, Sam continued. "It was one thing when you needed some time to yourself a year ago to deal with the accident, but you've only gotten worse. I didn't get angry when you quit your job so you could take time off to grieve. I didn't even get angry when you started occasionally drinking. But now it's like you don't even care about us anymore. All you do is ghost around with friends, party with teenagers, get smashed and…" Sam pulled out her phone and looked for something to show him, but muttered as she did. "...a friend of mine from the poetry club sent me these…" More tears escaped as she stood and handed Danny her phone, showing pictures of him at several raves and parties, having oral sex with various women and men. "You're cheating on me, too?"
Looking through the pictures and hearing Sam begin to cry as she sat back in the chair made Danny feel like literal shit. What was worse, he barely remembered any of these, although could recall enough to believe what he was seeing. "I'm sorry… but it's hard not to start playing the field when the spark in your relationship bites the dust..." He said, handing her back her phone, shamefully. "So this is real, then?" He asked in a serious, yet calm tone as he sat back down. "You're really ready to end it? Split our family apart? Have you even thought about how this will make the girls feel?"
Sam glared at him through the tears. "Don't you dare try to manipulate me, Danny. I'm doing this because I love them and they deserve better than a dad who's never around and when he is, he's drunk and making me upset. You have no fucking idea how tired I am of lying and making up excuses about you just to keep them from realizing just how bad it is between us. I shouldn't have to subject my daughters to this and I refuse to keep doing so! I don't want them growing up to think that it's okay to be in a relationship with an irresponsible fuck-boy like you!"
"You mean growing up to be with a super hero? You don't want them with someone who saved the whole fucking planet?" Once again, Danny became defensive. "Last time I checked, there's a fucking dedication statue to me in every God damn country. Charity and Angel couldn't ask for a better role model in their life." As he grew more and more angry with the situation, Danny aggressively grabbed the pen from the folder and signed his part of the divorce papers, followed by pulling off his own wedding ring and throwing it on the table. "I hope you're really fucking happy now, Sam Manson." Danny insultingly called her by her maiden name as he stood and headed for the door.
Sam hurt worse than she ever had before, but she quickly stood and called to Danny. "You're not even going to stay and say goodbye to them when they come home from school?! Are you even coming back at all?"
"Just make something up. You're good at lying to them apparently? I don't know if I'll ever come back. Don't fucking follow me if you know what's good for you." That said, Danny went ghost and flew out of the home, needing to get as far away as possible from Sam before he did something he'd regret.