Better Than Starbucks!

Hardened

by Alexandra Persad

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How hard? How hard did he hit you?

It was a question that I didn’t want. I didn’t realize just how much I didn’t want it until after my mother asked it. I was sitting in the stairwell of my apartment building at two am, phone pressed against my tear-stained cheek. It fell out of my hand a few times, echoing throughout the stairwell. My hands were shaking too badly to hold it. I stuffed them into the pocket of my hoodie and watched it resting on the stair below me. I could faintly hear my mother talking on the other line.

I regretted calling her, I realized. She had asked the question so immediately, as if she was prepared for my frantic call, my uneven voice. I didn’t want her to be prepared. I wanted her to be at a loss for words. I wanted her to cry. I wanted her to scream. But she did not. Because to her, this is what men did.

And for the first time, I thought so, too.

This time, it was different. This time he had left a bruise. His fist was a hammer of knuckles that was fueled with nothing but unfiltered, sober anger, despite his claims of being drunk. He would later assure me that he was not thinking straight, his vision was hazy, and he was sorry, very sorry.

I almost believed him. I checked the bottle of spiced rum he kept shoved in the back of our freezer the next day. He hadn’t drunk any. I didn’t realize that I had been hoping he had. I was holding my breath, waiting to see that most of the bottle was empty, as if that would make it better or provide some justification.

There was no justification, I decided. I ended it and he became unbearably sad. Threats of suicide, hours of tears. But after the sadness, his anger returned, renewed and with strength and endurance that it didn’t have before. His screaming could last hours, his fist could barrel through walls, and his door slams shook the entire apartment like an earthquake.

Why was he so angry?

That was the question that I asked myself as I held the full bottle of rum the next day and as I held myself in the stairwell that night. I would continue to ask it every day, searching for the reason. But it couldn’t be boiled down to a single, perfect answer.

He was angry that I had a job. He was angry that I had friends. He was angry that I had straight A’s. He was angry that I had homework. He was angry he was angry he was angry.

Sometimes it made me cry, sometimes it made me scared, sometimes it made me angry, too. Anytime I felt anything, I left.

I went to my brother’s broken futon. He fed me jasmine rice and pistachios that I struggled to deshell myself.

Did he hit you?

That was the question that he asked me point-blank, as I sat with my head in my hands, inhaling the scent of the Asian market that he lived above. I stared at his walls. There were pages that were torn out of National Geographic magazines and posted around the room to cover peeling paint and pinholes. The Eiffel Tower, the pyramids, city skylines.

I didn’t know how to answer his question. Something gripped my throat so tightly that it burned. I felt like I couldn’t speak. My face turned to fire and tears became waterfalls.

It was shame.

It overwhelmed me whenever I ran to my brother’s apartment across town, seeking refuge from someone who once was supposed to provide comfort. My throat became tighter when I thought about his roommate, whose room was just beyond those National Geographic photos. I wondered if he knew why I was there or if he asked about me when I left. I wondered how my brother answered. Was there a polite way to say she’s afraid to be around her ex-boyfriend, the man she’s lived with for two years?

So I said no, he didn’t hit me. I couldn’t say any more. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. No he didn’t hit me, but he did. No he didn’t hit me, but I’m lying. No he didn’t hit me but please don’t believe me—help me.

The shame stopped all those buts. It forced me to cry on the walk home and wish I was sleeping on that godawful futon.

It pushed me to other men. Men who didn’t know me, who didn’t know that I was running, who didn’t know that I had anything to be ashamed of.

Did you want to stay the night?

That was the question they asked. I always said yes. Once, I hesitated. Only once. It was three am. I was watching TV with a boy that made me forget that I was running. I didn’t have to distract myself to push down the tight ball that sat in my throat—I simply forgot that it was there.