Thou Shalt Not(67)

“Okay,” she replied.

I heard the beeping again. And she started sobbing.

“April, you are going to be okay. Just get to me. Everything is going to be fine. He can’t hit you if you are with me.”

“Okay,” she said again, as if trying to will herself to believe it.

I made her tell me where she was, and what she was seeing, and I directed her accordingly. I had no intention of hanging up until she was in my driveway.

When she got into my neighborhood, I walked outside so I could wave her down when she neared my house. I had fallen asleep in my Rays’ shirt and had forgotten to change it.

I saw her headlights as she turned onto my street. I tossed my third toothpick of the night into the bushes and stuck my hands in my pockets. She’s not yours. Don’t touch her.

She parked, got out of the car, and I saw the swelling under her eye immediately. He really did hit her. That motherfucker had dared to lay hands on April. If I didn’t hate him before, I did with every fiber of my being now. I had half a mind to tell him to come over here, take on someone his own size. I had been worried he would beat the shit out of me if he ambushed me while I was at his home. But, in a fair fight without the element of surprise, I knew I could kick his ass. And I wanted to.

“Oh my god,” I said. “Come here.”

I reached my arms toward her, and she fell into them. I could feel the tears soaking my shirt right away, and her body trembled and shook with fear or anger or sadness. Or all of the above. I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. Because she was safe now. In my arms.

We stood like that for a few minutes. I just held her while she cried. You have those moments where you feel like you need to say something, reassure a person, but no words come. And it was usually during those times that I have found that words wouldn’t suffice anyway. Silence was sometimes the best option, and so I held her quietly and listened to her cry.

Her head was buried into my neck, and my hands rubbed her shoulders and arms in a continual motion. The more I did it, the calmer she seemed to get and the sobs lessened.

“Let’s get you inside,” I said.

We turned toward the house and I walked her in, my arms still around her. It had been a long time since I had my arms wrapped around a woman like this, but it felt good with April, despite the circumstances. It felt natural.

She sat down on the couch and I went to the freezer to find something to put on her cheek, underneath her eye. I wanted the swelling to go down. Thankfully, I had a plethora of ice packs in my freezer that I had used for the various sports injuries I sustained during softball, baseball, tennis, and all the other sports I recreationally participated in. I always joked with myself that you could tell how old a person was by the number of ice packs they had in their freezer.

I brought one back, and knelt down in front of her. Her head was in her hands, so I gently took hold of them and pulled them away. She leaned her head back and saw the ice pack, wincing almost involuntarily.

“It’ll help,” I said, and then softly pressed it against her cheek. Her hand fell over mine, holding it against the ice pack against her cheek. The sensation was bizarre because her hand, her body heat, was pouring through her touch, and the cold of the other side was a stark contrast.

I got up and sat next to her, putting my right arm around her and pulling her toward me. My left hand was still holding the ice pack and being held by her right hand. She rested the left side of her head on my right shoulder, and we sat there in silence.

Her phone vibrated in her lap and she flinched. I could see that Marco was calling again.

“Turn the sound and vibration off,” I said.

She lowered her left hand from my hand and did what I had instructed.

“Now throw your phone over there,” I said, gesturing to a stack of pillows near the couch.

She quickly obeyed.

Her tears had stopped, as had her shaking, and I could tell she was regaining control over her emotions. Now, I could ask what had made him hit her.

“What happened?” I said.

Her head didn’t move from my shoulder when she spoke.

“He came home and was mad. I could hear him in the kitchen clanging bottles around. I think he was already drunk when he got home.”

“What did you say to him? Anything?”

“I went downstairs and stood in the kitchen, watching him. He said, ‘What the fuck are you looking at, bitch?’ and I told him to keep his voice down because the kids were sleeping.”

He had called his wife a bitch. There wasn’t a word I hated more in the English language than bitch, and I hated anyone who used it when talking to a woman.

“Then what happened?”

“He threw a bottle of rum at me. It hit the floor by my feet.”