I'm going to start this with the same blunt and honest truth - my wife beat the fucking shit out of me.
Ironically this all went down exactly 365 days from the day we got married. Happy anniversary!! She knew everything that had happened. Even though I had tried to leave more times than I could count. Even though I looked her in the eyes at one point and told her I wasn't in love with her anymore and wanted her to move out...that didn't matter. In fact, she looked me square back in the eyes and told me "no." She wasn't leaving and I wasn't allowed to leave either. I was stuck, I was scared and I didn't know what to do.
On the day of our 1 year anniversary, she asked me if we could "simply" have a good day. She told me that she just wanted to celebrate the love that we had had and then she didn't care what happened after that. January 10th 2024, she'd let me go if I could just give her that one day. And so, I agreed. In my head, somehow that felt fair. Although we had torn each other to shreds, there was beauty in our love at one point. A sense of true magic. If we were going to go out, why not go out honoring those parts of ourselves, of our love and of our relationship.
Although she had been sober for two years prior to returning from Kuwait...she started drinking again when she got home. She blamed me for this, of course, as if I had the power to control her sobriety. Sadly, I think she thought I did. That morning she started drinking heavily, which I noticed and commented on quickly. I asked her if she wanted to have a good day like she asked for or if she wanted to black out before we even made it to the hotel...Oh yes, the hotel. We had booked a king corner suite for our anniversary at the Ambassador. It was something she had always wanted to do. And fuck, the room was absolutely breathtaking. Talk about magical. We went to Dave and Busters before and honestly, as odd as it may sound, we had a lot of fun. Or at least I did. Genuine fun. Once we finished up there, we went to the hotel and settled into our ginormous enchanting room. We turned on some Taylor Swift music, got ready and then went to the speakeasy bar in the basement of the hotel for drinks and food. There was a live band that evening. They played "Lover" for us and we danced. We danced and we laughed and I truly thought this was the goodbye she was asking for. The darkness that would ensue after these moments of closure, I could have never seen coming.
Danielle claims she doesn't remember anything after the bar - an easy cop out for someone that doesn't want to have to own up to their own actions. I, on the other hand, remember every chilling, terrifying second...After we ate and the band was winding down, we went back to the hotel room. It wasn't too late, a bit before midnight. Danielle had continued to drink and by this point was intoxicated - so I told her I was going to get in bed. I plugged my phone in and set it on the nightstand, I poured a glass of wine and set it down next to my phone, looking forward to relaxing with a glass of my favorite red. As I was walking toward the bed...Danielle tackled me from behind. When I say I didn't see what was coming - I truly and quite literally did not see her coming after me.
She had me face down on the floor, her body straddling mine. She grabbed the back of my head, her hand full of my hair and pounded my head into the floor as hard as she could, over and over and over. I felt the pull of my hair, as some of it was ripped from my scalp. I felt the floor on my forehead. The sting of the rugburn, the instant ache of my brain. Yet still, it took numerous times of my head being pounded into the ground to even start to comprehend what was happening. We were just dancing, now my head was pounding. I could feel the welt rising as it formed on the top of my forehead. I am not sure how many times my head was slammed into the ground, at least a dozen.
Laying face down, I knew she was stronger than me. There was no way I was getting off that floor by trying to over power her. So, in attempt to soften the blows I pulled my arms up and wrapped them around my head. I was terrified. As my head was slammed toward the floor, it still hurt, but at least my arm was there to absorb part of the impact. For a brief second she stopped. I was hoping it was over, that maybe she came to her senses. But no, she started to punch me as hard as she could in the back of my head. I felt defenseless, well no - I was defenseless. I was face down, doing my best to cover my head with my arms, sobbing and begging her to stop. The tears blinding my eyes, the fear paralyzing my body.
I didn't fight, I wasn't trying to hurt her back. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted it to stop before the beating rendered me unconscious, or worse - god please don't let it get worse.
It was in those moments that I began to disassociate, because surely my wife was not beating the fuck out of me right now. I curled my arms tighter around my head, but that only made her fists hit harder. When she eventually let up for a moment, I curled into as small of a ball as I could, trying to disappear. I asked if she was really going to hurt me - it was in that moment, the weight of realization engulfing every part of me...I started to comprehend the fact that I very well might not make it out of this hotel room in one piece. When I braved myself enough to look up I saw her eyes, they had gone black. The Danielle I knew, was gone. She looked back at me, with a dead panned stare, and said "you will have to kill me if you ever want me to stop."
By some miracle of god, I managed to get to my feet. At this point, I'm in full survival mode - I've already figured out that I am not a fighter, so flight was my next defense...I tried to run. I didn't get two steps past her before she grabbed me and threw me back on the floor, towering over me. Eyes still black. Deadly. Soulless. Piercing and silently screaming the horrifying things my wife was capable of doing. The sensation her eyes sent through me was crippling, the fear immobilizing.
At some point she let me to my feet again. My head is swirling, throbbing - from reality and from the concussion forming in my brain. I know I can't fight, I know I can't run...so I went for my phone. I got it off the nightstand - I HAVE MY PHONE, I thought. I'M GOING TO BE OKAY! I dialed 911 as quickly as my fingers would let me. The call went through for about four seconds before she was back. She slammed me into the wall, taking my phone. She instantly hung up the call - the very small sense of hope I had, vanished. Within the blink of an eye, before I could even take a breath of realization...with my phone in her hand, she hit me so hard on the side of the head that my ears started to ring. This is it, I thought.
But oh no, it didn't stop there. She threw my body against the nightstand. Her strength all encompassing, there was no way I was getting away from her. Not alive anyway. The wine glass, with the red I was so looking forward to sip just not that long ago, went flying into the wall. It shattered, and in that same exact instant - so did I. She pulled up my trembling body and pressed me against the wall. She had a tight grip on my arms, forcing them over my head as she screamed into my face "this is your fault. You made me do this!"
From the corner of my eye, I could see the glimmering shards of glass. Every part of me pleading that she wouldn't throw me into them. I can't fight, I can't run, I can't call for help - but in this moment I have to get the fuck away from the glass!! I angled my body in the opposite direction. I knew she was going to over power me again. I knew she needed that sensation of control. With my body angled in a different direction, she forcefully pushed me onto the bed. As sad as it sounds, I was relieved - it was at least softer than the floor that my head had so repeatedly been pounded into just minutes ago.
With me pinned down, she crawled on top of me. Forcing my body down with more strength every time I tried to move. I pleaded to her more times than I can count. Begging through the catch in my throat and the tears in my eyes for her to please just let me go. It was a desperate and futile request, I knew she would not. So my brain went back into survival mode. I thought to myself, okay Kristi - you can't fight, you can't run, she's taken your phone - what now? What's our next line of defense, how do you stay alive? The only thing I could think of was to scream. So I SCREAMED, I screamed as loud as I could - my throat instantly growing rasp from the few times I got out the word "HELP!" But it was no use, Danielle was covering my mouth with her hands as quickly as it had opened - restricting me from making any sound. No one had heard me, no one was coming. I was going to die in this hotel room.
You can't fight, you can't run, you can't call for help, you can't scream - what's left? The literal only thing I could think to do next was play dead. I truly went limp. My body was lifeless. My breathing slowed, I closed my eyes and all I could think was don't fucking move. Do not give any sign to her that you are still conscious. She continued to yell in my face. She shook my head from side to side, screaming at me to wake up. She lifted my arms and dropped them back toward the bed, they thudded down on the comforter like a pound of lifeless bricks. There was no way I was giving her any sign of life in my body. I can't fight, I can't run, I can't call for help, I can't scream - but I sure as fuck can play dead.
I sit here, even now, uncertainty within me like a shadow haunting my thoughts. Did Danielle believe she had knocked me unconscious? Did she think I was dead? I will never know. What I do know, is that what she did next not only sends shivers down my spine, it slices through my very core. It was as if reality itself had fractured - this can't be real, right? In the realization that I was not going to come to, Danielle did not get worried. She did not try to get help. She did not panic or try to revive me. Instead she curled her body over mine. The intent clear; I would not move without her knowing. And then, unbelievably, atop her seemingly lifeless wife - she fucking fell asleep.
End of Part 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment