Jen sighed, put down her coffee mug, and said, flatly, "Spit it out, Vanessa."
All morning her roommate had been giving her funny half-looks of some weird mixture of pity and concern, which Jen really did not get, especially considering her activites the previous night. Just thinking about it made her grin. Behind the mug that she hastily picked up again. Vanessa did not appreciate being laughed at, even when she wasn't.
She shouldn't have bothered, because Vanessa wasn't looking at her anyway. The other woman stared at her fingers, and said, "Jen, I… you know you can talk to me if you're in trouble, right?"
"Er, yes," Jen said, completely lost. "What brought that on?"
Vanessa fluttered her hands helplessly. "Just that… well, I heard yelling last night."
She certainly had. Jen grinned again and took a sip of coffee to hide it.
Vanessa finally sat up straight and came out with it. "Jen, does Morgan ever hit you?"
Hot coffee through the sinuses hurt. Jen clapped a hand over her nose and made faint squeaking noises for a moment until the pain went away.
"Jen?" Her roommate looked near-panicked.
"No," she got out, finally, around the smarting sinuses. "He would never hit me! God, where'd you come up with that one?"
Vanessa, looking only slightly reassured, gestured towards Jen's back and its accompanying large and colorful bruise with her lips set in a tight little line.
"Oh, that?" Jen asked. "I got that banging into the doorframe."
"Jen," Vanessa said, sternly. "I know that's usually an excuse for domestic violence, but you have to understand…"
Oh, God, she was going to have to spell it out. "I know. I didn't fall into the doorframe. I banged into it."
The other woman narrowed her eyes. "I don't see what the diff—"
Jen sighed. "Repeatedly, Vanessa."
As irritating as the whole conversation had been, the color Vanessa turned was worth the whole damned mess.