January Eleventh

by Kelsey Coletta

The music is drowning out our words and I want to scream louder. He’s seething, demanding to know why I left his side. I roll my eyes, sip my drink, bite my tongue and swallow the ache.

I wonder if he can tell that the world around me is starting to spin. I can’t hold my liquor, my body hasn’t learned how. There’s anger written on his face, furrowed eyebrows and shallow breaths. I don’t know if I can make this better.

I love you except it’s not a whisper or a promise or a sonnet, it’s a scream.

Why can’t you see what you’ve taken from me?

He walks away, hands gripping the keys in his pocket and the lights in the club start to turn on. I finish my drink, liquor sour on my tongue, and follow him into the night. He shouldn’t be driving.

I want to go home.

*

The screaming won’t stop and it takes me a moment to realize it’s me. My screams shatter the silence, shake the cool night air, attract the attention of strangers in a city by the sea. Foreign hands grip my shoulders and shake me hard, begging me to stop. I need to calm down. The police have arrived.

Glass shattered across the concrete creates a path to him and he does anything other than let his eyes meet mine. I fight back tears, bite my lip until my teeth give way with the bitter taste of blood. I’m so far from home, I don’t understand, I can’t speak the language that surrounds me.

I don’t know the word for speed-bump.

My screams have been replaced with tears creeping down my cheeks, settling on my chin, dripping onto my chest.

Please look at me, I beg. If he looks, then we’re okay. If he looks, then he forgives me and maybe this isn’t my fault.

This is all my fault.

His eyes don’t move from the spot where they’ve settled. I turn my head and look away. I don’t see him placing his hands behind his back.

*

There’s a woman down the hall screaming and the nurses won’t tell me why. My breath smells like alcohol when the police take my statement. I can’t explain the heaviness of his anger in the car, how his silence nearly suffocated me. How we twisted and turned around corners and barely missed the tree.

There’s a storm brewing in my stomach and I don’t know how to sail.

I barely speak enough Spanish for the police report but I sign my name anyway and hope they understood.  

He’s not waiting for me outside when I’m discharged. It’s almost dawn and all I can think of is the whispers in the dark, the words that he once said. I can barely remember how we got here, how we fell together. The sun creeps into the sky and I know.

This is how we fall apart.

Kelsey Coletta is a licensed clinical therapist with a habit of collecting partially filled notebooks. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband, their sassy husky, a rambunctious puppy, and two mischievous cats.