Because I Love You

Because I Love You

“Damn it Daisy! Why are you making me do this? You’re the one forcing me to do this. It’s your fault.”

His voice almost quivered with hesitation. He lets go of my neck, I don’t bother gasping for air.

“God, you’re so stupid,” he continues on his train of thought.

He takes my face in his hands and looks me straight in the eyes. I can’t stand the sight of his face. Staring at the cancerous mutation that the man I loved has grown into has become more tortuous than his ‘timeouts’.

“This is for your own good, it’s because I love you.”

I’ve stopped asking what I have done to offend Don, I know that he loves me, and that’s what they say is the most important part of a relationship.

His soft hands grow tough as he shoves my head on the wall with all of his force, and the world became a familiar haze as I slide away to my own fantasies.

I am sitting at the kitchen window, holding a cup of tea. When we were buying the house, Don and I used to joke that when we grow old, our wheelchairs would  stop in this exact position and we’d pick the food stuck in our dentures. Don doesn’t go into the kitchen much anymore.

While he is at work, I sit here and I people watch. Jose and Mariana across the street have six children! Mariana’s hands are full, Jose looks like he ages at sonic speed, but their kids are happy, and so Jose and Mariana are too. Daniel from two blocks down goes on a run every morning at seven am. He looked like he was getting in shape for an event, but I haven’t seen him in a while. I assume that his event passed, but it feels like time has stood still. Then there’s Ted. We used to walk together to the town park and play chess, Ted would sometimes say he “let” me win. He always smelled like a teenage boy, pizza and cheap deodorant, and he wore goofy band t-shirts. Ted still walks to the park every Monday afternoon, but he looks more professional now, and walks with purpose towards a job, a girlfriend, towards a family, as if I would ever know. I see him glimpse through my windows as if he were looking for me to come out, but he keeps walking.

Today the sun is shining in not-so-sunny San Francisco, and I expect to see Daniel running on this lovely Thursday morning. I wait for him at my window. I see black hair peak out around the corner block, and Ted stumbles out, like an awkward little child. I try to hide behind the window curtains so he won’t try to find me or enrage Don again. I am too late, his steady, brown eyes have already found mine. He walks to the window, and draws me out.

We walk to the park, he doesn’t ask me where I have been, or if I’ve been okay. He carefully treads around the rationalizations I have for standing by Don, but I can hear in my own rationality the sounds of an uncertain symphony. We walk into the park and I see the concrete bench we used to play on. I’m not sure if it was the memories flooding back to me or the reminder of what Don would do if he found out that I was with Ted, but I clutch the sleeve of Ted’s shirt and whisper by his neck that we have to go.

I find myself talking to a downtrodden police officer. She is young and has her hair and nails done, but her lips are constantly pursed and she makes no attempt at small talk. She says nothing reassuring as she steps out of the room and calls the sheriff in. I feel tears in my eyes knowing the variability of situations like these, but I feel wholesome knowing that tonight I can rest. I feel empowered by Ted, giving me the ability to rest.

Ted takes me home. We walk in a wavy line towards his home and act like giddy children void of worry. He is cautious that Don will still be at the house and that he will be very upset. I don’t contest Ted’s logic, and I continue walking by my dead grass and crooked porch.

Ted’s house isn’t far, but our feet are dragging in synchronized motion as we approach the brick steps that line his apartment.

“So why did you come for me?” I smile at my feet, then grow serious.

“It’s because I love you,” his head shakes a bit in reassurance and care.

He takes my face in his hands and looks me straight in the eyes. His hands seems to melt as his eyes close, and I can taste his lips on mine. I can taste warm blood.

“Damn it Daisy.”

I sit up from my unconsciousness and a stream of blood trickles out of my mouth and onto my chin.

Don’s face is centimeters away from mine, his hands are clawing at my hair, pulling my head into the air and dropping it on the tile floor. “Don’t ever do that again,” his voice flickered between meekness and fuming anger, “Don’t flinch away from me,” he is screaming like a child now, but his face is chaotic and stressed.  He grabbed my hair in a fist and lifted my head off the floor again. “It’s because I love-”

I let the sleepy haziness consume me, as my skull came crashing down.

Ted was waiting for me by the window, he had been waiting for me as I finished my tea. He waited because he loves me.