Hi babes, sorry I have been so inactive. College life has been keeping me busy but good news: I am toying with both a brand new story and a rewritten, very different version of the Black Wings that I will share probably not soon but hopefully by next summer - long time I know but I'm shooting to get it up eventually and preferrably when there's alot of it done so i can update frequently and keep it going. This here is a short story I wrote for one of my first major papers (I'm an English Major so expect more haha) pertaining to domestic violence that I thought you all might enjoy (and that i got a very good grade on). So I'm gonna stop blabbing and let you guys read :)
I Didn't Mean To Hurt Her
"I love her," I said as I rung my hands together. "I've always loved her. I'll do anything for her, be anything for her – anything she wants. She knows that I'll do whatever she wants me to; she knows that I'll do anything to make her happy. That's why I'm here in the first place. I want…I want to get better for her. I don't want to hurt her anymore. I never meant to hurt her in the first place. It's just that I...I haven't been thinking lately. My mind hasn't been in control of my actions so I… I just want us to get back where we're supposed to be."
The slender woman sitting across from me crossed her legs as she leaned back in her chair. She was a bird-like woman with her thin body, long legs, and sharp face. Her hard brown eyes were staring at me with underlying hatred beneath her thin square spectacles. The judgement that I knew lay beneath her stare caused me to fidget a bit. I wasn't afraid of being judged but I was afraid of her conclusion of this conversation. She was my ticket to freedom or the devil who was going to drag me into jail. I had to make sure this conversation went exactly the way I'd rehearsed it in my head. She had to know that I wasn't the person that Amy and the press were making me out to be.
"Let's start with how you met Amy," she said as she twirled her pen in her hand. "Where did you first see her? What was your first impression of her?"
"I thought she was beautiful," I blurted out as the image of the first time I saw Amy flashed before my eyes. I remembered her long pink hair, her frightened emerald eyes, and her sweet voice. I remembered the scared freshman that she was perfectly. My lips tugged up into a smile as I began to speak. "I had been walking to class on the first day of school when she bumped into me. When I say she bumped into me, I mean she literally bumped into me. I think she had been in a hurry to her next class and I happened to be in the way so she collided right into me. You'd think that our little impact may not have done much but she actually tackled me down to the ground by accident." I let out a small chuckle. "She had the strength of a thousand suns that day. But back to the point: the collision had taken us both by surprise. I ended up hitting my head against the ground and she landed on top of me. She was nothing but a tumble of pink hair and big green eyes laying on me. It was her eyes when she looked up at me that wrung me into her spell. She has these beautiful emerald gems that glow even under the terrible school lamps. I love her eyes."
"Amy said that you retrieved her books for her, cracked a joke about running over strangers, introduced yourself, and then walked her to class. Is this true?" The bird lady said as she read over something on her clipboard.
"Yes. After that day, we became quite good friends. I'd always find her in the hallway in the mornings to talk to her about her night and she'd sit at my lunch table during our free period. We exchanged numbers after a week or so – with me initiating it since she was too shy to initiate anything. I was always the one inviting her to go to school functions and such with me. I took her to the homecoming dance, football games, fundraiser runs, and all of these other stupid events our school would have. We started talking every night and hanging out almost every day. She introduced me to her parents and her older brothers long before I even worked up the guts to ask her out."
"And what happened when you did ask her out," the bird lady asked as she tilted her head. Her eyes hadn't softened the slightest bit which worried me a little bit but I kept my hopes up. I was telling nothing but the truth. Hopefully the truth would diverge her away from whatever stereotypical abuser she was imagining in her head. Hopefully the truth would set me free of the demons that had taken over me.
"I asked her father for his permission to take her out before formally asking her. I was trying to be as gentleman like as I could. I wanted his respect since Amy is really close to him. Since she's the only girl in her family, she is the biggest daddy's girl on the face of this planet. She only dated guys who her father approved of. If her father didn't approve then she wouldn't look at them twice ever again. So, that's why I gathered up my pride and asked him. He did give me the permission and the following day, I asked her out to dinner. You should've seen her face when I popped the question. She turned a bright red color when I pulled a rose from behind my back and she…she got all bashful." The smile that was playing around my lips grew as the image of her small shoulders sinking into themselves and her pink lips folding over into each other filled my head. She had twirled the rose in her small fingers as her emerald eyes met mine shyly. Her soft voice filled my head as her soft agreement fell out of her image's lips. I had been so tempted to kiss her right then and there under the oak tree where we'd always hang out at. I didn't want to scare her, though. I wanted to wait before I even attempted to advance our relationship.
"Our first date went well," I continued on. "She wore this ruby red dress that made her eyes pop, with a pair of small heels, and more makeup than I thought she needed. I don't think she needs to wear makeup, honestly. She's so beautiful naturally. She's so perfect just the way she is."
"Amy spoke of your dislike to her wearing makeup. She mentioned that she didn't think that you disliked it so much that you'd verbally abuse her every time she put it on – or hit her for that matter." My smile immediately fell as the demons beneath my skin began to grow irritated. I was doing so well at keeping my composure – at keeping the demons at bay. However, even just the mention of their work seemed to awaken them. I clenched my jaw as I struggled to remember where I was going with my words.
"I didn't have a whole lot of money to take her anywhere especially fancy. I didn't exactly have a whole lot of money to spend since I was saving for college. My family doesn't have the money to pay for it in full so I got a job to help with the bills and my savings. However, I did have enough money to take her somewhere nice. I drove her in my dad's old truck to this little restaurant downtown on eighty-seventh street. It's a really small, romantic place with candles, dim lighting, delicious food and all that jazz. Juliette loved it. She really enjoyed the dance floor that they had in the middle of the restaurant. She practically swallowed her dinner whole in an attempt to get to the dancing faster. I don't really know how to dance so I was a bit nervous about dancing with her since she seemed to have some experience but she eased me into it. She put my hands on her waist before locking her arms around my neck. Then she lay her head on my chest and we rocked to the rhythm of whatever song was playing. I kissed her on that dance floor when she looked up at me. Her eyes were twinkling under the candlelight and she was smiling and I just… I kissed her." My smile returned as the memory of her sweet, soft lips on mine for the first time filled my mind. I had kissed her in such a gentle, tenderly way as if not to break her. She was encouraged by my action and deepened our soft kiss into a more passionate one. Our lips and tongues had never been more in sync with each other before that night and I have to admit that I reveled in every moment of our first kiss.
"And your relationship with her advanced from that point on," the Tweety lady asked although the answer was obvious. The demons inside of me crackled like a fire as their irritation grew. They were beginning to shift around under my skin, waiting anxiously to let loose.
"Yes. Our relationship bloomed quickly. While I had mentioned that we were always together before I'd asked her out, now we were truly always together. I would walk her to every class, drive her to and from school, sleep over her house on the weekends, and buy her gifts whenever I had the extra money to spend. I thought she liked it at first. I mean, she didn't seem to mind the fact that I walked her to each one of her classes, drove her around wherever she wanted to go, and spent every moment I could with her on the weekends. I didn't think she hated all of my attention so much until she told me that we needed a break. She had laid it down easy on me but I… I was still concerned about the fate of our relationship. I wasn't sure if she still wanted me or not and the thought scared me half to death. I loved her and all I wanted was her love in return. She'd told me that she just wanted space but how could she want space when just a few weeks before she had told me that she loved me. She couldn't have said it if she hadn't meant it, right?
"I gave her the space she wanted, though. I figured that maybe after she got the breather she needed then she would come running back to me. I waited around for her the whole summer before my senior year of high school but she never came around. At first, I thought maybe something happened to her since her father would always tell me that she wasn't home. But when I talked to her friends, they all told me that she was fine."
"And how did that make you feel? How did you feel about not being able to be with her?"
"Awful," I blurted out. "During that summer, I was dealing with a lot of different emotions that I'd never felt before. For some reason, I was always either in a bad mood, irritated with my family, or wishing that I was alone. I only wanted to be with Amy; if I wasn't with her then I didn't want to be with anyone. I used to stay up all night looking over the pictures we took together and reminiscing over her beautiful face, her soft laugh, her smooth skin… I missed her so much. I just wished she knew how much I loved her."
"What happened when you did finally get back into contact with her," the Tweety-looking woman asked as she looked back down at her clip board.
"She was with some other guy when I had tracked her down at school. She was laughing at one of his jokes or something and she was standing dangerously close to him. At first, I thought maybe he was just a friend but then he leaned down and kissed her."
"Then you punched the guy. Do you remember that?" The woman said as she looked back up at me. "You broke his nose and would've done worse if your buddies hadn't pulled you off of the poor boy."
"Look, I didn't… I lost all control over my body in that moment. All I felt was this…this fiery rage that had filled my body. I mean, you try to picture the one you love making out with someone else. How would you feel? You wouldn't want to hurt the other person to make them feel the pain that you feel? You wouldn't want them to understand just exactly how bad they were hurting you?" My demons had seeped out of my skin a bit, causing my tone of voice to become a bit harder. The bird woman didn't seem phased by my change of attitude as she continued with her questions.
"What happened when you saw Amy later that day?" the woman asked.
"She yelled at me. She asked me what my problem was and then tried to tell me that the guy she was kissing was only her friend. Of course I didn't believe her because obviously they were more than just friends. But then she told me to be mad at her… She told me that if I wanted to be mad at someone then to be mad at her."
"Did you get mad at her?"
"If only mad could explain the anger I felt when I'd finally let go of all of the pain that I'd been building up inside of me over the summer. It was as if her permission was all that my emotions needed to let loose. I yelled at her, I cursed at her, I grabbed her and pinned her against the wall when she threatened to break up with me – and then I hit her. I smacked her right across the face when she yelled that she hated me; when she yelled that she never wanted to see me again. I hadn't meant to hurt her; I was just so blinded by my emotions that I just lashed out without thinking."
"No one saw this encounter," the bird woman asked as she raised one of her thin eyebrows.
"No, we were at the oak tree where we used to hang out. It's behind a small wooded area near a pond; not many people know where it is so it's pretty secluded." I ran a hand through my hair as I continued on. "Anyway, I tried to make it up to her after I hit her. I tried to explain that I wasn't thinking, that I hadn't meant to hurt her. She fought against me as I held her close to me and kissed her hair and rubbed her back and apologized. Eventually, she calmed down. Her loud sobs drifted into her falling into a soft sleep. I carried her back to my house and held her as she slept."
"Was she still upset when she woke up?"
"Not really. She forgave me; she told me that I didn't deserve the treatment she gave me. She'd blamed herself for the way I acted but when my irritability with her grew, I knew that she wasn't doing anything wrong. See, there are these…these emotions that I can't control. I call them demons because that's what they are. They started off as little annoying bugs over the summer when I wasn't with Juliette that was causing my bad moods and such. They would just irritate me by not leaving me alone and I'd express that irritation to the rest of the world. They'd always tell me that it was my fault that Amy didn't want me anymore and that I wasn't good enough for her. When we got back together, they blamed her for their presence in the first place. They caused me to hit her in the first place. Not too long after I hit her the first time, the bugs crawled beneath my skin and settled themselves into the depths of my soul. I wasn't their puppet anymore. Instead, the bugs – or demons as I like to call them, were me. They were the ones who would get irritated with her clothing, with her makeup, with her friends - with everything she did. They were the one who'd yell at her and persuade her to change her actions. She'd always refuse so the demons would take over my body so that they could do what they wanted. They always made me watch. They wanted me to see that it wasn't fair how I complied with all of her wishes yet she couldn't respect any of mine. They'd whisper in my mind that she deserved to be punished for the wrong she was doing to me; she needed to learn to obey.
"I never believed any of their words so they went on with taking over my body without my consent just as they had always done. They would yell at her, give her bruises, and then leave me to clean up the mess. My efforts of trying to make her feel better eventually stopped working, however. She stopped listening to my soft words and clawed me away from holding her close to me; she was done with the thought that I could make things better."
"Tell me about the last night you abused her. Do you remember that?"
"Yes, I do. I have nightmares about that night. I think Amy was tempting me with her body and then refused me in an act to make me upset. While she did make me upset, she also made the demons inside of me very upset. They don't appreciate being played with so they…they took over my body and they… You know what they did to her. Once again, they made me watch but this was more painful than any of the other experiences. I hated watching her scream and writhe under my body. I hated the way the demons laughed in my head as they watched me internally wiggle in their mental chains that prevented me from fighting back against the actions. They tortured us both that night… She never forgave me after that."
"She called the cops and got you arrested for abuse charges. Isn't that why we're sitting her today?" I reluctantly nodded. The thought of what Amy had done by calling the cops caused the demons to settle over my consciousness and take their place in my control panel. My thoughts immediately switched around from those of my own into those of the demons. They thought of the woman as the female version of the devil and wished nothing more but to rip her head off. "Well, I've read up on some of the other conversations you've had with the other psychiatrists and I also agree with the fact that you have bipolar disorder. It's rare that an abuser isn't driven by their own motivation to hurt their loved one. Those little 'demons' you keep mentioning are your bipolar mood swings taking over. It's perfectly normal and can be controlled with the proper medication."
"Are you going to prescribe me the medication," the demons asked in my voice as they tilted my head into my palm.
"Yes I am. You do want to get better don't you, for Amy's sake?"
"Of course," the demons lied. "All I want is for us to get back to the way we used to be." I mentally scowled at the way they mocked my words.
"Okay. Well, you can go for now. I'll talk with the police and see if you should be held truly accountable for your actions. Don't think you'll be getting off easy."
"Wasn't counting on it," the demons muttered as they forced me to get up. I walked out of the bland room into the quiet hallway. I walked past all of the closed doors until I reached the waiting room. Amy was sitting in a chair, twirling her pink hair between her fingers. Our eyes locked together when her emeralds looked up from the floor. I could see her eyes widen the slightest bit as the demons pulled my face into a deadly glare. Amy's shoulders slouched down as she opened her mouth to say something. Before she could though, the demons forced me to walk away.
"Sonic," she called as she ran after me. "Sonic, wait!" The demons didn't stop me from walking. Instead they continued on, leaving her scrambling on after me. They knew that she was going to run after me, get into a car with me, argue with me, and then expect me to hit her. The demons and I both knew that she was too afraid to fully break it off with me. We knew that she loved me too much to let me go. She knew that the demons weren't going to go away no matter how much medication the psychiatrists prescribed me. She knew the demons would forever have a hold on me. She knew that the demons were going to continue to hurt her. Yet, she always wanted to come back. She will always come back.
I just want to note that the bipolar isn't to give a reason or excuse for the abuse, I needed a solid problem with him for the context of the story to happen in the way that it did and to better understand his mind on my part.
Review if you wish...