Silent War

         Screaming echoed through the apartment so loudly I was certain the police would have knocked at any moment. They didn’t come, they never did. I wish they had. But no one got involved. Everyone in that tiny apartment building kept their distance, never doing anything to stop it. Afraid or uncaring, I was never really sure. But their pitied glances would catch my attention the next day. And the day after that, and the day after that. I’d become so accustomed to them that I scarcely noticed them any longer. So for the time being, the screaming match continued…well, him screaming in my face.

         Hot tears blurred my vision but they were still able to make out his face hovering inches from mine, still screaming. Had I not been in fear, I might have laughed at the bulging eyes, the tight skin around his lips, the way his face turned red as if he had forgotten to take in a breath. I don’t know at what point he’d finally stopped or how long I’d enduring the verbal onslaught of being called a bitch and a whore, but once he had finished, I fled into the bedroom, locking the door behind me. Just in case he decided he wasn’t done and came back for round two. Or would it have been three?

         Our bed had become a battlefield and I refused to sit on it for the longest time, instead choosing to pace back and forth in the small room. A feeling I’d grown used to started swelling in my body: the feeling of being trapped, unable to do anything, unable to leave, unable to just survive. I’d walk up to the window, glance out, wondering if I jumped out headfirst just how far out I’d have to go before my head smashed into the concrete sidewalk. I wondered if it was possible to do that on the second story of the apartment complex or what the drag queen below would think when he saw my broken, limp body on the cement the moment he looked out of the window. No. No there had to be another way.

         Another round of pacing, tears flowing freely from my eyes without hesitation or embarrassment. My nose was so plugged I couldn’t breathe through it any longer. Without even having to look I knew that my face was blotchy, eyes redder than any of the hundreds of times before. This was it though, the last straw. I couldn’t live like that, not any longer. Pausing long enough to listen, I pressed my ear to the door to figure out what the monster was doing. Gunfire and radio calls drifted back to my ears.  Killing people in video games. Well he’d have a live victim to deal with soon. He didn’t care that I was visibly very upset, that he knew I had talked about taking my own life before. In fact he had baited me often. “You’re never going to do it,” or “I’ll call the cops, then everyone will know just how fucked up you are. Do you really want that?”

         This was to be my life. Everyone else that I knew had been pushed away by him. By me. I had no one to turn to. My friends had been gone for months and I had inadvertently driven a wedge between my family and myself, distancing myself from them almost completely. There was no one and as I continue to pace back and forth between the bedroom and the window, I knew that I had only two choices: continue to live like this or escape. And there was only one way to escape in my mind.

         About the fourth or fifth time I passed in front of his dresser, I saw it. He carried it with him all the time and made a show of it, so why he didn’t have it on him in that moment I’ll never know. My saving grace was only an arm’s length away and all I could do for a long few moments was look at it, stare at it as if it were a venomous snake. For all intents and purposes it might have been. My mind blanked as I reached for it, curling my trembling fingers around the grip. The weight was familiar; I’d shot it plenty of times before. Heavy but not so much so that it was hard to lift or to move around. At some point I had sat down on the bed, my eyes glued to the handgun I was clutching, ironically enough as if it were a lifeline. It was to be my saving grace and it seemed rather poetic to think about – killing myself with his handgun. His words, his actions, his threats had put it in my hands. He was the one that had murdered me. I was just going to hurry up the process.

         Every detail became etched into my head; the way the light glinted off of it as I turned it over in my hands. The safety was on, but the gun itself was loaded. He had always said that it didn’t make sense to leave it unloaded and locked up: if someone broke in then there would be no time to unlock and load the gun. I didn’t even have to look; I knew there was a bullet in the chamber. That bullet was to be my salvation, my escape. A voice spoke in my head telling me that all I had to do was put it to my head and pull the trigger.

         Will it be painful? I wondered.

         By the time you feel any pain, you’ll experience the bliss of freedom. Freedom from this daily abuse you’ve had to endure for nearly two years. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to finally be free?

         Abuse. It had been the first time that word had crossed my mind and even in the face of my own death, I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact. I’d never been beaten badly enough to have gone to the hospital. And certainly if I was being abused, someone would have noticed by then right? Right? Maybe not. No one seemed to care anyway, why would anyone have actually told me?

         My breath hitched as that thought crossed my mind. No one cared. He was right: he was the only one who could ever love me – the only one who could have ever stood me long enough to be my friend, let alone date me. Fingers moved from the grip to trace the outline of the gun, hesitating at the safety for a moment. Before I could flip it off, though, my hand continued on but my eyes were glued to that little mechanism. The safety. One little lever meant the difference between lying six feet under or living through that hell.

         It was an easy choice to make when the option was posed that way.

         So why wasn’t there a resounding click?

         The voice inside of my head goaded me on, to do what I had spent twenty minutes thinking about doing. No one will miss you, it was telling me. In fact, people would be better off without you. The worst part was that I believed that voice. Moving the gun so that it was facing me I continued to tremble and sniffle, but I had no more tears left at that point. Nothing left to shed, nothing left to live for. Though the safety was still on, my body shivered in anticipation, but my mind was torn into two pieces. I didn’t really want to die but I couldn’t stand living. Perhaps if I closed my eyes…

         What happens if you miss? A type of thought resounded through my head, a voice of sorts different than the other. Calmer, kinder. Concerned. You know how thin these walls are. What about the people next door? There’s a kid that visits whoever lives over there, you hear him practicing his tuba all the time. What if he’s sleeping on the other side of that wall? What if you flinch at the last minute and your so-called “salvation” skims your head but hits the person on the other side of the wall? Destroy yourself if you have to but don’t risk taking out someone else in the process. Don’t destroy another family. That’s just selfish.

         With a strangled cry, my eyes shot open and my arm, of its own accord, pulled away, violently, moving the handgun away from my head to face the ground, the safety still on. The tears that I had thought were gone came back full force and soaked my cheek. My nose became plugged up again as did my head.  There was an invisible war going on inside of me – one that no one would know of, that very few to this day even know of. Put it back. Pull the trigger. Keep it away. Don’t hurt anyone else.

         How long I clutched at the weapon, my hands trembling, I’m unsure. Never once did he come to see me, to check on me, to ask if I was alright. I never expected it – he never would. That was just the way it was. If there had been the sound of his gun firing, I’m not sure he would have cared enough to come and check on me. His gun maybe, but not me. Never me. 

         My strength had been exhausted. I could barely stand. Legs shook and trembled from the weight of the rest of my body plus the gun in my hand. Back toward the dresser where the cold steel had first caught my attention as I walked. Get rid of it. I knew that as soon as I put it back that would be the end of it. My fingers and arms and legs and body trembled too much, my strength had left me. I would not be able to pick it up again.

         The moment my fingers released the heavy object I choked on sobs once more. My legs gave out and I collapsed next to his dresser, my head in my hands. Every ounce of strength had depleted and I was nothing more than a sobbing pile of jello sitting on the floor. Weak but alive, though I was unsure if that was a good thing or not. The concept of time escaped me and I had no idea if the entire ordeal took five minutes or five hours. Eventually I had crawled into bed, unlocking the door in the process. But never once did he come for me. He never came, not until he wanted something: this case sleep. He never asked, I never told. I would never tell him. Nor anyone else.