Cold Metal

Cold Metal

She fondles the metal. The barrels are cold and reassuring. For a while, she wonders if she is doing the right thing. A memory slips into her conscious mind, unprompted.

She is lying on the floor, in a tight ball as protection against his fists and feet. He grabs her and pulls her up and shakes her. Her feet aren’t even touching the ground. Her head feels like –

As her hands form fists, she knocks a loose bullet off the table and it clinks on the floor, bringing her back to the present. She looks down at it and doesn’t move. The memory has shaken her. She wants to run. Sometimes she can escape it by running.

Running from the kitchen out into the hall, she can hear him crashing after her. Terror gives her wings and she scrambles up the stairs, but he is close behind and he grabs her foot, yanking it out from underneath her so that her head slams on the edge of a step. The nausea and dizziness mean that she can’t feel the rest of it as much as normal, but she is still barely conscious when he gives up.
Her position whilst he was hitting her meant that the sharp wooden edges of the steps dug into her back with every knock, and for some time after that she struggled to sleep.

The bruises have long faded, but the memory hurts as much as it did at the time. Her eyes sting. After all this time, she still wants him to love her. She remembers when they met. He was young and ambitious. He had big plans for life, whilst she was just being a student. Their first kiss had been in his parents’ greenhouse.

Her eyes, which had softened, narrow as she moves forward in time, onto less pleasant memories.

The first time was only a few years after they’d married.
It was late. She was asleep on the sofa as she waited for him to come home. He crashed through the front door.
“What happened? You said you were just going for a meal…”
“And we went to the pub afterwards. What’s the big deal?”
“You went to the pub? Why didn’t you ring me? I was really worried.”
And he shoved her, hard. She tripped backwards over the coffee table, stunned. As he stormed up to bed, tears formed in her eyes. He’d been aggressive with alcohol in him before, but this was the first time he’d really hurt her.
She didn’t go upstairs that night.

She becomes colder; more distant. She picks up the bullet that fell and opens up the pistol. Slowly, almost absent-mindedly, she fills the empty chambers with new bullets.

She’d known for years that she ought to leave him, but she had never had the conviction. She blocked out the memories of the bad times when she was with him and he was loving her. When she’d talked to friends about ‘marriage troubles’, they’d advised her to stick with it. After all, everyone experiences difficulties in their relationship, and he was such a charming man!

Although she knew that they were only seeing one side of him, she was inclined to agree with them. She was, in truth, too afraid to take action, and it was easier to block out what she didn’t want to believe. She knew in her mind what she should do, but her heart interfered and confused her. Her heart told her no, and she listened.

Her heart is telling her not to now, but she’s listened to her heart for years. Her head told her to get a divorce the first time he hit her, and she should have listened at the time.

She snaps the chambers back into place and curls her fingers around the grip of the handle. He’ll be home soon, but she has plenty of time. There isn’t much left for her to do. She moves to a chair that she has placed facing the front door. She sits down and slides her finger onto the trigger. Nervous despite herself, she raises the gun up by her head.

In her mind’s eye, she sees him walking through the door. She’s no longer seeing the past, but picturing the future. Every day she used to dread his arrival, but not today. Today he won’t be able to do anything to her any more. He’ll be too late. He can’t stop what she is going to do.

She hears his car pulling up and tenses herself. She hears him curse as he drops his keys. She knows what she wants his last image of her to be. As the keys jingle and the lock swivels, her finger tightens on the trigger. She holds the gun ready and, as he walks through the door, she fires the bullet straight into his stone-cold heart.