Page 5 of Traces Of You

When she rounded the corner, she saw the doors were open to the three rooms up there. It wasn’t a large house, but she’d be cleaning it for hours.

Their bedroom and the spare across from it looked worse than the living room.

The bathroom no different.

Drawers opened, clothes thrown around, the bedding ripped off and on the floor, the mattress overturned.

Bile rose as the destruction hit her hard in the throat, threatening her airway.

Childhood memories of rage that she’d lived with.

Her mother and the men that changed like seasonal wardrobes.

She slumped against the wall, tears in her eyes while she tried to control her shaking.

After a deep breath, she walked into the bedroom and saw her clothes everywhere. Whoever this was, they violated her possessions. Not that she had a lot, but what she had, she worked for.

A tear dropped on her hand, the raised white line there from a knife cut always a reminder of the darkness she’d endured.

There’d been no escaping it as a child. She was always breaking the promise she’d made to herself as an adult too.

No more.

She returned downstairs where Oliver and Randy were talking in angry hushed tones.

They each had another beer in their hands.

“It’s been like this since you got home?” she asked. It was five thirty now. “That was two hours ago.”

“I called Randy,” Oliver said.

“And drank,” she said. “Rather than clean up or call the police. I don’t understand.”

“The cops don’t need to be involved,” Randy said.

She didn’t understand any of this.

“Why?” she asked. “I’m going to call now. Someone broke in.”

Oliver grabbed her arm and yanked her back hard enough that she heard a pop in her shoulder and yelled out.

“Don’t do it,” he snarled. “It’s my house and my call. Go make dinner and then clean this place up. Randy, let’s finish this outside.”

He shoved her away from him, forcing her to catch herself on the wall after she tripped over the leg of the end table.

When the back door slammed shut, she ran upstairs and into the bathroom.

Her tears were cascading down her cheeks like a broken faucet.

Just like her life. Broken.

While she sniffled, she cleaned the bathroom, her hand landing on Oliver’s sleeping pills that were sitting on the counter. She clenched them tight, shut her eyes, her hand twitching enough the pills rattled around inside like a silent message.

Maybe tonight was the night.

It felt like a prank for her to walk into the house like this, but maybe the joke would be on him before the night was done.

Could she finally do it? Did she need more time to plan it out, or was this her best shot?