Don’t trust him, they said. He’ll hurt you. You’re too good for him. He’s a wild one, that one. You don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for. He’s dangerous.
The first time he hit me, I told myself it was one off. I’d goaded him into it, so it was my own fault, really. It stung like hell. He stared at his hand as though it had acted independently of him. And he apologised straight away, so I know he didn’t mean to. He just lost control.
The second time he hit me, I split my lip open. He apologised and apologised, and he held a cold towel to my face and he kissed my brow and he promised it wouldn’t happen again. And I believed him.
The third time he hit me, I’d burnt the dinner. And I mean, he’d worked a long shift, he was expecting a decent dinner, and I cocked it up. So that time it was definitely my fault. He didn’t say sorry, though. He just stormed out the flat, almost ripping the door from its hinges.
The fourth time he hit me, my head snapped back into the door frame, and I was knocked out cold. When I came to, the flat was trashed. The dinner table had been overturned. The stuffing ripped out of the sofa. Books torn from the shelves. Bryony from next door was hovering over me, so I told her I didn’t know what had happened. That maybe we’d been burgled.
The fifth time he hit me, he beat me to a pulp and I was in hospital for a week. He played the part of worried husband, didn’t stray from my side once. He told the police he’d found me like it at home, that we’d been burgled quite recently, maybe the two incidents were connected? I did as I was told and kept to the story, but I realised I was afraid of him now. And I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.
So the sixth time he hit me, I hit him back. I swiped at his face with my nails, I bit his arms as he held me down, I spat in his eye as his sweaty face loomed over me. And when it was over, when I’d straightened my dress and cleaned myself up, I drove a kitchen knife into his chest. And I don’t regret it one bit.
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