... well at least like 1/200th of it.
My eyes grew wide as the glass spun off of the counter, and it flipped through the air in slow motion. I shuddered as it crashed against the linoleum floor and some of the smaller shards embedded into my bare feet and ankles. And then everything was still for just a moment as I stood there, anticipating what was about to happen.
I could feel his gaze as he loomed in the entrance to the kitchen, watching me kneel over to pick up the glass with my bare hands. I was moving as quickly as I could and still trying not to cut myself. The last thing I wanted was a fight, and although I knew that it was practically unavoidable, I knew that the quicker I was to pick up the shards, the less likely he was to start something. After all, Nick had been known to get angry over less trivial things than this, and as he took his first step toward me my heart quickened, knowing what was about to happen.
His paces were quick, and before I could even process was what going to happen next, he was standing over me blocking out the light from the overhead, making his face a shadowy blur.
“Well?” he asked quietly, and my stomach flipped. It was always worse when his interrogations began calmly.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. I guess I just bumped it with my elbow.”
“What happened is that you’re a dumb ass! Get up dumb ass!” He yanked me by the wrist so that now I was standing squarely in front of him.
“I’m sorry, Nick. I really didn’t mean to do it,” I pleaded.
“No,” his voice sounded calm and I let out an involuntary sigh of relief in response to it, “you never mean to do it, do you?” His hand stung as he smacked me across my face, and before I could put my arms up to defend myself, his had already shoved me to the ground. He grabbed a chunk of my hair and pushed my face against the glass-covered surface. The glass embedded into the skin of my cheek, but I had luckily closed my eyes before the shards could get in them. A single tear escaped, burning a path from my eye to my ear, before dripping onto the floor. “Clean up your mess, bitch,” he let go of my hair, stood up, and began to walk away.
I lay still on the floor for a moment, feeling my mind beginning to shut down, the way it always did after his attacks. I could barely feel the stinging glass anymore, and I opened my eyes, waiting for him to leave the dimly lit kitchen. But before he got to the doorway, his footsteps halted and I watched his dirty old black Converse turn around and start towards me again. I braced myself as his foot connected with my back hard enough to knock the wind out of my lungs.
This time, when he turned to walk out of the room, he actually did, and I lay waiting as the seconds passed, for my lungs to fill again with air.
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