My hand is bruised.
All day I’ve had to look. To raise my hand and clean a table, or make a coffee, and see the discoloration of my swollen knuckles.
It actually hurts to bend my fingers.
Right hand dominated, I’ve been in pain all fucking day. I can’t seem to master the left-hand-conquers-all thing yet. It sucks. Badly.
The day has been a busy one.
Since I walked in at ten the place has been filled with people. Samantha and I pretty much tripped over each other every time there was an order just to get stuff done because there’s hardly any room behind the counter and only the two of us working. She noticed my hand almost immediately when I’d walked in. Her questioning eyes searching my face.
“We got into a fight.” I told her before pulling my short hair back behind a bandana.
She nodded without conviction.
Samantha’s met him once. She hated him immediately. And I couldn’t blame her.
He has very few redeeming qualities.
Around two the rush of people slowed down just a bit. My wrist was numb by then and the feeling in the joints of my hand had pretty much diminished as well. I had a ringing in my head, probably caused by dehydration and a lack of sleep, and the joints in my back were stiff. Guess I was looking a little pale because Sam took one look around the half empty shop before pointing me in the direction of a nearby vacant table.
“I’m okay. Really.” I insisted and then tried to wrap my hand around the little cup of coffee I’d been nursing for a good ten minutes. The end result was a whimper of pain and my sorry butt settling itself onto one of the hard plastic seats.
Unfortunately, as soon as it sunk in that I was finally sitting down my phone decided that it wanted to start ringing. Caller ID told me that it was him. I let it go straight to voicemail and then, my phone rang again, I didn’t even bother to see who it was.
I’d never had the guts to ignore his phone calls on purpose before. Fear of him always lingered, like a bad dream, just below the surface of my conscious mind. But knowing that I was able to ignore him made me feel a little more at ease.
I looked down at my hand, sat back, and began to think.
He has no redeeming qualities. He’s cruel and rude, he yells at me even when he’s not mad at me, he’s not a good person. I’ve stayed so long because I loved him. Loved the life he had promised me years before, when I was still young and he was still kind. The life I never got.