Abigail M. Schilling

(Prompt via Kat.)

Why are you doing this?

He looked me in the eye (there was never any way to tell if he was lying) and actually asked me, doing what?

I hated the way he would do that. Always shifting the blame. I couldn't yell because then my tone would cover up my words. But when I was even-toned, my words were suddenly covering up something else. He'd resort to those excuses when he didn't feel feel like lying. Then I'd have to defend myself.

Hurting me. Why are you hurting me?

He paused as he decided which route he wanted to take. He could say that he wasn't hurting me or he could say I had no right to be hurt. Either was bad and I kept up with the discussions because he pleaded with me to stay. I told him I would only stay if we had the discussions. (Discussions was our code for fight.)

I'm not intentionally hurting you.

But it was too late for him to lie about intentions. I made a quick mental list in my head: (1) He actually was intending to hurt me. (2) Intent didn't matter. He shouldn't hurt me.

That was our last discussion; we reached somewhat of an impasse with his denial and my truth. I warned him not to hurt anyone else I loved.

I didn't expect him to listen (he never did), but it still caused more of a stir than I thought it would when he pulled through on his end of the deal.

I'm not going to hurt her, he said trying to sting me. Sometimes he actually got caught up in the lying and would contradict himself with something like that. It was all in the voice inflection.

But he was lying again.

It's hard to measure being hurt or being angry aside from saying a lot (or a little). But I was able to gauge that I was more angry with his second offense. It was one thing to abuse me (I let him), but completely other to abuse her.

Good thing I had that punching bag.






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