4: Dissociation

(TW: themes of violence and verbal abuse)

Yanire's vacant eyes found their usual spot on the wall as chaos started to engulf the room around her. Smash! A vase filled with fake gardenias crashed against the empty wall in front of her as an animalistic sort of shout escaped from Martien.

"Damn it, Yanire!"

He kicked a hole through the drywall near the bathroom next, throwing everything off the dresser in his rage. The brunt of objects there had been notebooks and decorative pieces. Yanire's body didn't move- even to avoid any projectiles which might be tossed this way or that. Even knowing she might very well be hurt in the ensuing temper tantrum, she was unable to shake the weight from her mind, and it wasn't as though she was freed from the handcuffs around her limbs anyways.

"How can you be so fucking ungrateful?"

The words were much more a statement than a question as the delirious figure began to pull at his greasy dark locks. He paced this way and that, chest heaving with rage, eyes wild and unnaturally wide. He was unable to find relief from his emotions even as he took them out on the contents of their bedroom. This had been a very common experience during their marriage, unfortunately. 

Crack! He took a hammer to one of their old photographs, a tiny shard of glass springing back up at him. Again. The back of the frame cracked apart, ripping the photograph as it went. Again. More projectile glass pieces. 

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to find you?"

The woman remained still, eyes staring emptily at the portion of the wall where paint had started to chip away.

"Any idea how much trouble I went to?"

She could feel herself slipping away. Her mind grew fuzzy and warm and eventually she started to watch her body from outside of it, as though she were only a ghost.

"How many people I had to hurt to get you here?"

She was no longer sitting in the room with him. Her empty body laid in the queen size bed as she drifted. She fled from him to a place she knew that nobody else could follow. She sat in the wide meadows with crickets chirping around her and the buzz of cicadas in hot summer sun.

"I'm so fucking sick of coming in here and seeing you stare at that wall!"

"A damned wall, Yanire, seriously?"

"Why won't you fucking look at me?"

The man's voice was growing hoarse and hollow from all the shouting. He wasn't so sure Yanire could even hear him anymore and it only made him feel more desperate. He moved over to the bed in such a way that her covered back was to him. The slight rise and fall let him know she was alive, at the least.

"Please.. I know things have been difficult for us lately… But I need you to help me. We can fix this, I promise you."

When she continued to lay vacant and still, the man sucked in a deep breath of air and pressed his hands into his eyes until he saw shapes. The current arrangement hadn't been as successful as he imagined. He had expected that after the first two weeks, Yanire would at least be able to look at him again. It was a sore and bitter realization that he had been so far off base and he was having trouble swallowing it. Something had to budge, there was no way either of them would find peace this way.

Martien pushed his rugged body up from the bed and moved around to the front, stepping over the debris of broken furniture and shattered picture frames. He hadn't had the foresight to put shoes on before slinking down to see her this time around. When he was standing in front of her, he crouched down so they were eye to eye. 

"Yanire, darling?"

Her eyes were lifeless, the gleam from them had gone as she blinked back at him. 

"I understand things aren't the way we hoped. You're having trouble adjusting to the way things are now, but no worries, I think I know how we can help you."

If she hadn't been a million miles away, maybe those words would have brought her some discomfort.

Everything fades to black.

_____________________________________________________________________________