Page 105 of Rage

Picture You

By: L.R. Douglas

Prologue

Kathy

It’s only a little later than Lara would have expected me to be home.

Just a little.

She said she wasn’t going to wait up for me, so I’m not surprised to see the house in darkness. In fact, I’m glad.

I am glad.

Glad she’s not awake to see me break. On the floor, in the bathroom, the pile of borrowed clothes—herclothes—cast off in a heap, unwanted, soiled… Tainted.

Tainted byhim. By his touch, his hands, his sweat, his…

breathe in, one two three… breathe out, one two three

I switch on the water, climb into the small shower cubicle, robot hands turning the heat up. One. Two. Three clicks on the dial. I want to burn; want to scald and scorch and char it off my skin, purge it from my brain?—

But I can’t.I can’t, and it won’t help anyway. It’s gone, it’s done, it happened, he?—

I dry heave in the stall, spitting saliva down the drain, watching it mingle with the waterfall of tears. There’s nothing left inside me, nothing to expel… I threw it all up in the moments after, when I was left shivering, shell-shocked on the expanseof concrete wasteland, the oblivious cars rushing by overhead, blood rushing through my head my heart my limbs my body, my fuckingspace…Mybody, not his.

But he made it his, and now it doesn’t feel like mine anymore.

I know better than to walk under the freeway at night. Ishouldknow better than that, I’ve lived in Seattle long enough. But I was foolish, riding the high of my first major gallery opening, didn’t see the danger until it was too late…

Too late.

It’s too late.

I towel off, unfeeling, uncaring, climbing into our bed. Lara—my love, my life, my heart—grunts as I curl back into her body, her arms opening to accept me in, to spoon, to hold, as if she could collect and gather the bits of me that are trying to leak out.

I need to be whole, to pull myself together, unwilling and unable to pile more stress on her with everything she has to deal with at the moment. I spot the luggage piled in the corner, a reminder that she left the event before me because of her early flight, so I have got some time. Time to muster, time to rally, time to sew myself back together.

I’m fine.

I’mfine.

I will be fine.

The opening reception at the prestigious art gallery was supposed to be the pinnacle of my career. Now? Now I’m curled into a ball, trying to hold my insides together, to piece myself back together,keepmyself together so I can bring myself to be someone real again; so I can be Kathy. Finally, Kathy the artist, not Kathy the freelance photographer who could barely make ends meet.

I wanted to be that woman. I did.

But now, I don’t know who I am anymore.

My wife’s hand snakes around my belly, reminding me that I do know. Because whatever else I might be, I’m still hers.

Chapter One

Lara

Seven weeks later

---