The Beautiful Disaster

Have you ever stood in silence until it was unbearable? Until the silence became louder than the screams that were just hurled at you? By someone you loved? Not some one, but the one. The one who was supposed to care about you? The one who was supposed to protect you and love you, but instead couldn’t even remember your name when they came home? 1

I can’t hear anything; not the clock, not the angry breaths of air he takes every few seconds, not even the sound of Raven crying in the next room. She’s crying, but I can’t hear her. It’s just him and I, me and him, the two “lovers”. I hear nothing. 2

It amazes me how loud nothing can be.3

I’m not even surprised anymore; Bill’s been like this for months now. Ever since Raven came into this world, I could see little pieces of him gracefully disappearing into thin air one by one. At first he was angry when I told him I was pregnant, but he had to understand that birth control isn’t a 100% guarantee. After a few days of letting the news sink in, he was supportive, like he always was. When I’d lay next to him in bed at night, letting him hold me while I would tell him how truly scared I was, he’d tell me not to be and would kiss me on the forehead. He would let his lips linger long enough to make me giggle and hug him tighter. He’d tell me that everything would be alright; that he’d be there for me, through good and bad, thick and thin, ugly and uglier. 4

It was a mistake to believe him. I guess he was alright when the baby was inside me, but once she was there, in his arms, he looked lost. He looked scared, more so than I was. He looked depressed. However, we pretended we were happy and named her Raven because of her hair colour, jet black and beautiful. 5

She is six whole months old now, and Bill has come home again from another bar, smelling of booze and cigarettes, with a mark on his neck that I know I did not give him. His once vibrant brown eyes now seem dirty and hopeless to me. They’re extremely bloodshot. He used to be beautiful, he used to be sweet. He used to care. He wants to see Raven, but I tell him to sit down.6

He smells my hair, gropes my ass with his spider-like fingers and growls into my ear, “Mmm, you smell pwetty.” It takes all my inner strength not to break down and throw some clothes and a toothbrush at him, telling him to leave. It takes all my physical strength to push him off of me and show him to the couch, his body weighed down with intoxication and remorse. He’s breathing heavily and his demand is ragged. “Let me schee mah girl!” he slurs, and his voice breaks the silence, but not the tension. Raven starts to cry, and all I do before I leave him is tell him that he’s not seeing her in the condition he’s in. I am almost out of the living room when he throws the nearest object – a glass – at the wall I’m facing. I whip around to see him standing strong, something morbid in his eyes.7

And then he starts yelling. A lot. He pleads with me to let me see her, that she means everything to him, and so do I. He tells me how much he loves me, but he doesn’t say it nicely; he’s angry and frustrated, and I don’t know if this outburst is him or the alcohol talking. He punches me square in the gut when I just stand there and glare daggers at him, and the wind is knocked out of me. I crash to the floor and fearfully look up at him. He doesn’t look sorry. I cough as I struggle to get up on my feet again, and once I do, I just view him. His jaw is clenched and tears are streaking down his dirty face. For a moment I pity him; for a moment I look at him and see him as the most beautiful thing I’ve ever come to know. 8

A beautiful disaster.9

The moment passes and I muster up all my courage to utter the two words I never thought I’d say to him. “Get out,” I tell him, and I lift a shaky finger to point to the door. I brace myself for another punch, a scratch, anything, but he just turns and leaves, quietly. I let out a heavy sigh of relief. Or heartbreak. One or the other.10

I run up to my room to find Raven screaming her lungs out, so I bundle her up in a blanket and hold her close to me. After a few minutes of cooing and shushing, she stops crying and looks up at me with those same brown eyes, only much more vibrant.11

“We’re leaving,” I say to her, and I call my friend Victoria to ask for her hospitality. She understands, of course, and says she’ll be over in a few minutes to pick Raven and I up. I shove anything Raven needs and all of my clothes into a suitcase and go outside to sit on the front steps, waiting for Victoria to get here. I cradle Raven in my arms and swallow my tears. My anger moves to my legs, and I kick at the air. My foot comes into contact with a rather large rock on the bottom step. I reach forward to pick it up and notice there is a piece of paper underneath it. I look around to see if Bill is still here, to see if he’s just waiting for me to take him back. I know it’s from him. I just know. I inhale sharply and look at the pathetic little piece of paper. There are two words, just two words written on it: I’m sorry. The anger swells in me again and my hands move of their own accord. I rip it to shreds and let the wind take it away into the night. I kiss Raven on the forehead and tell her everything will be alright. When Victoria arrives, my last thoughts are of Bill and what a disaster he turned out to be.12

A beautiful disaster.13