Our second fight

She starts to dig, to pry, to cajole, and I try to keep my cool - just remain. I try to give her a little of what she’s after, but keep doing whatever it is I’m doing.
Sometimes it’s fine, just fine. And then, sometimes an unknown, a hidden gear, clicks into place and her mind whirrs at a speed thought previously impossible.
And then, ‘something wicked this way comes’.
That’s how it was, second time round. Me and Rachel, drinking at home.
I never really saw it coming, I’ll be honest about that. She’d say later, you knew what was going to happen, you knew what you were saying. But really, what the hell did I say anyway? And you’re about to ask her that question and then you’ve got to stop yourself quickly and make with more hugs and kisses, before fight number three kicks off.
She’d been telling me about her day. I’m watching TV and I’m tired. The drink makes me a little more sleepy I guess and, I suppose, it loosens my tongue a little too.
Maybe I let the first round off? Maybe it was my fault? Saying something about how I’m trying to relax here and not think about work. That was pretty much it – and also I said something like, if I wanted to be bored to death I would have just become an accountant too.
I can imagine you reading this. The men might be laughing or putting their heads in their hands. The women, well...
Now that I read it back I realise how inflammatory I was being, but I guess I really wanted to watch whatever it was that was on the TV.
So she’s straight back at me. Sticking the knife in about my boring job, about how I’m always so tired at the end of the day, that my job is ruining her life. That’s what she said. Unbelievable, really.
I’m just there, throwing a few comments back at her, but mainly just watching the way she’s rocking that scotch glass around in her hand as she speaks, seeing her eyes going grey and her face all screwed up so she’s almost unrecognisable as my Rachel.
I say something about her friend from work, the dumb one, and she suddenly unloads. This glass comes right out of her hand, flies by my shoulder and shatters on the wall behind me.
I jump up from the couch, scream some obscenities and remind her that this is a rented house and to look at the state of the wall.
She sits there for a few seconds, looking at the single malt running down the cream painted lounge wall, down behind the leather couch, surely ruining the carpet, and then starts to sob. I look at her and she’s shaking. Her arm is still locked in the same position as when she was holding the glass.
Her face is still contorted but I can see my Rachel there again and I get that feeling where everything drains out of you except for this cold fire in your throat and an enveloping feeling of concern for this other human being, this creature that you’re staring at.
With my every sinew I wanted to protect her from this world and bring her back from whichever nightmare her mind was playing out right then.
She let me sit by her. She seemed helpless. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were wet, but she hadn’t drawn enough breath to really cry. I grabbed her, hugged her hard, holding her head and rubbing her back like it might start her up again.
Eventually she took that breath and bawled and lay her cheek on my shoulder, gripping me so tightly. Soon I could feel her warm tears through my t-shirt.
And when the crying died down, she slowly stroked the back of my head, brushing away all the fragments of broken glass that had gathered and stuck there in my thick hair.

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This is a follow-up piece to an earlier tale: Our first fight.

Our first fight

“Here’s the thing,” I said to Rachel. “You think that I think I’m better than you.”
She eyed me incredulously. “But that’s not why you hate me. Here’s why you hate me.” I paused for dramatic tension. “You think that I’m better than you.”
It took her a second to process the information and then WHACK! She caught me hard on the jaw.
I wasn’t expecting to get hit. Well, maybe just a slap if I’d really got to her, but the surprise of the fist to the chin brought a tear to my eye.
Then she got on top of me and tried to wrestle me to the floor. We were in a bar called Shandy’s. The lights were fluorescent and the drinks were mostly cocktails. The music was chillout and dub, while the mood was generally blissed out.
And there we were, a couple of hyenas, cackling away at each other and scratching at each others skin, trying to bruise and gain advantage.
I had hold of her hands, so she couldn’t do any real damage, but she managed to shift her knee across the top of my thigh and wedge it down close to my groin. She was getting pretty near to real damage now.
As she dug her fingers in to scar my wrists, her knee finally reached its target and I jerked forward. My forehead crashed into her nose and she fell backwards towards the glass table.
I managed to grab her body back from the edge and we both slid sideways, off the bench seat and onto the carpet, the main thoroughfare between the bar and each of the booths filled with patrons.
I placed her carefully down and waited for her to open her eyes. She scrunched her nose like a child or a mouse and then smiled, showing me her straightened teeth.
I smiled too and we kissed and rolled about there on the rich blue carpet for what seemed like hours.