Daily Prompt – Storm

A storm was brewing on the horizon. She could feel it in her bones. She always knew when there was something coming. A dark cloud hung over her. She got a strange chill in her spine, that feeling you get when you think someone is following you in the shadows. It was going to be a bad night. She braced herself for the worst.

He burst into the room like a Category 4 hurricane, winds howling, rain pelting against the glass windows, battering the house with its full force. Except it wasn’t an outside force. This rage came from within.

She stood ready to withstand the gale. She had done this before. It wasn’t her first battle with him and his demons. But she loved him and she was willing to fight for him, with him. First there would be the accusation. She would counter with facts. The truth about where she was, who she was with, proof of her innocence. Then there would be the doubt. Perhaps someone was covering for her. A friend providing an alibi. An elaborate cover-up. He had a great imagination when it came to her testimony.

They would have a free-for-all fight. Throw words at each other, accusations, ugly reminders of past discretions. He would go for the liquor cabinet. That was a certainty. He liked his bourbon on nights like these. She would have liked to stop him but it only urged him on. So she watched him pour two fingers and drink, hoping it would stop at one glass.

He would glare at her in contempt and she would cringe, knowing the one time mistake would forever haunt her. For this she paid the price time and again. The storm raged on. Eventually he would calm, either pass out or let the rage pass and sleep in the guest bedroom down the hall. She was left on her own, to relive her own failures, her own regrets. She was a fallen woman and no amount of penance would change that.

The storm had come and passed. Once again she had weathered it. But at what cost?