Page 112 of Rage

So, I do, because she wants me to. I rebuild my walls, trip out the robotic words; recounting my steps, my words, my actions—but not my emotions. And I think I do well, because I only start to cry at his reply.

“Do you have any proof?”

Lara is incensed, enraged—I don’t need proof, I shouldn’t have to, my wordismy proof… But I shush her, because I cangetproof.

DNA proof.

But not yet.

“I… I’m pregnant.”

inhale, one two three, exhale, one two three…

I can’t stop the tears from falling. I feel like I’ve done more crying in the past few hours than I have done in weeks. But I didn’t want to let it in, because now… it just feels far too real.

The cop rubs the back of his neck, his tarnished silver pen tapping at my attacker’s name on the lined paper notepad. The blot of warring indecision crosses his brow, a small bead of sweat appearing as he deliberates my story.

Not a story.

My truth.

I know it to be the truth. But truth can really fucking hurt.

“Well, I guess all I can do is file this for now. Until you can get someproof.”

He says it like I can’t; like I won’t; like it isn’t true.

Or maybe it’s just that it doesn’t matter to him anyway.

Chapter Three

Lara

We’re home again, in safety, back in our space, where we’ve lived together for many years. The box is still on the mattress where I left it; discarded in a fit of angry words. I can’t regret dragging her out to report it, I can’t… Even if it’s going to do no good.

I’m angered even more by the antipathy shown to this sunshine girl by law enforcement. Don’t they care that he groped and grabbed her, this precious being of mine? Don’t they care that he took her and made herdothings against her will?

Was it really only this morning that I called her mine, and mine alone? I could never, would never,havenever dared to demand. Sure, I take from her, but only because she allows me to. With me in control, my sweet girl holds all the power. So, the things he did?

It’s unthinkable to us both.

She’s so broken, curled up, crying her whole soul into the sheets that encompassed the joys of our marriage, just a few short hours ago. It’s breaking me too, seeing her so destroyed. She’s usually so full of life and warmth, a smile on her face

There are words still falling out through her tears. I can’t hear them, can’t make them out—can’t listen.

But not because she isn’t being clear.

It’s because I don’t want to. I revoke her words, refuse to accept them in the same air as my beautiful wife. But my sweet, vegan, violet-haired darling heart—the one who cries when I evacuate spiders into the wild urban streets—she continues spilling her dirty words and her pained tears onto the bed sheets.

Words like unclean; tainted; polluted and contaminated… in a voice so small, so tiny; barely a whisper of her usual vibrancy.

For my part, the underpinning sadness is hardly enough to contain my rage, these threads of anger simmering, bright and heated under the surface of my skin. Thoughts tinged with malice—pure hatred and vitriol swirling around in my head; all the violent, ugly thoughts of revenge. I’m aggrieved, violated for her, with her. I want to possess and devour all of her to show her that she’s mine, erase whatever evil he laid inside her.

And even though I might be able to do that, reclaim her body for myself, I still can’t repress all that’s inside me. I want to hurt, maim, defile… just like he did to her.

It’s not just him that is the problem though. The mark he left on her—inher—is a canyon sized void, an argument for every day, voices raised in anger and despair. We can’t agree, won’t agree, our rights and opinions dividing what is usually a harmonious co-existence.

“Kath, we need to seriously think about this! I don’t want it. I don’t want to be around something that reminds me of this… This horror. How could you look at a child like that and love it? A product of that violent claim?”

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