The Sting of the Slap

“You stupid bitch.”
I feel the wind of her movements like a hurricane wrapping and warping around me. She’s a bull. An angry one. And I’m the red cape. I always am. She charges toward me, her right palm raised, and her eyebrows in a furious knot. She’s a foot shorter than me; her height doesn’t correlate with her sizzling intimidation. Her emotion—and instability—know no bounds.
I’m standing in our living room. I can feel the plush velvet of our sage-green loveseat behind my calves; it’s the only thing keeping me upright. I’d topple over if I didn’t have something to hold me up. I can hear the static charge of her feet sprinting along the shaggy carpet with each thunderous step.
She truly despises me in this moment. Or at least I feel as if she does. Of course, she would deny it. My feelings are always wrong even if, to me, they feel awfully accurate. Or she’d say that it’s my fault for making her this enraged. As if I have the power to control her behavior. She always taught me not to say “hate” because it’s a strong word but to me it feels like the right one, right now. She thinks I’m worthless. Scum. I’m everything she hates about herself, and my father.
I disgust her.
My heart wallops the inside of my chest, an eery imitation of what my mother wants to do to my face. Will she hit me? Will she go through with it this time? If she does, there is no turning back. I can no longer turn a blind eye. In a way I want her to hurt me. I want her to see the physical proof of the abuse she hurls at me every day with her nasty words. She often blacks out, so her words are easily forgotten. To her, at least. Not to me. But if there was evidence, like a big red splotch etched into my acne-dotted complexion, surely she couldn’t deny that. Could she? Then again, she would probably convince herself I had done it to myself.
The wind is rushing toward me but it’s also being sucked away. The room has become a vacuum, sucking all of the air away from us. I’m holding my breath. At last, she reaches me. She draws her hand back further. I’m clenching my jaw so she can’t tell I’m trembling. I’m about as solid a house of cards in a windstorm. I’m terrified.
It takes all my strength to maintain eye contact with her. I don’t like what I see. It’s evil and dark. I wait for the slap and the sting against my teenage cheek. It doesn’t come. Why not?
“I should fucking slap you,” she screams, pimples of saliva freely flying. For what? I can no longer remember what I’ve done wrong. If anything. This is what most days are like at home. Home. Sweet home. It’s too cliché to say that I spend my days walking on eggshells. I walk on shattered mirrors. Barefoot. My every move reflected, distorted, below my bleeding feet. 
“Do it,” I say. Somehow I’m able to keep my voice from breaking. All of my concentration is working on keeping my tears safely stowed away until I’m alone. I don’t want to show weakness. She will laugh in my face. I want her to smack me so that I have a reason to leave. A real reason. One that can’t be refuted.
We stand there, face to face, with her smoke-stained and booze-drenched palm inches from my skin, for what seems like hours. Heat radiates between us. Even when she lowers her hand, I’m too scared to move. What if she’s bluffing? Has she thought of a worse way to punish me? Still, for what, I’m not sure. Yesterday, after school, I emptied the dishwasher without being asked and she yelled at me for fifty-two minutes. I watched the clock.
“Go to your room,” she barks.
It takes me a second to unstick myself from my spot against the couch. Carefully, I place one foot in front of the other until I’m stiffly walking down the hall toward the front door. I’m a robot. My bedroom is outside of the house. It’s a long story but when I was fifteen she made me move into the guest suite, adjacent to the garage. I’m a visitor in my own house. A tenant.
I reach my door and fumble with the handle. It sticks, my palm is slick.  I wipe my hand on my Abercrombie tank top. Slowly I get a grip, turn it, and step inside. As quietly as I can, I close the door and engage the lock. That’s one good thing about this room: the lock. Although, I know if she really wanted to get to me she would just break down the door, and then make me pay to fix it. For her size, she is strong. 
It’s not until I’m safely huddled in the fetal position on my sprawling bed that I allow my tears to flow. I cry. I sob. My body shakes. It convulses. I hate myself. I wish my mother didn’t hate me, too. I wish I could run away. Escape. But I know the retaliation will be worse if I try to leave than if I stay. By tomorrow she will be calm again. She will pour my cereal and offer me a ride to school. She’ll force a kiss onto my forehead even though I don’t want one.
And it will be the same as always. Like nothing ever happened.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ