Allie ran her fingers over the hem of her skirt, rough edges of her nails where she had bitten them catching on the cloth. Her hands were shaking when she opened the door.
"Where the hell have you been?"
She flinched at the shout coming from the other side of the room. Paul was standing near their tattered couch, looking as if he had just leaped up upon her entering the apartment.
"I- I was just-"
"Nevermind, It doesn't matter. I have been waiting for you for hours! You always do this to me, Allie!" He was advancing slowly towards her, eyes narrowed in a frustrated glare.
"Please stop yelling, the landlord will hear." Allie averted her eyes to the scuffed hardwood floor. She wondered for a moment if the creaky surface would just give and swallow her up.
Paul stopped walking suddenly. His face knitted together in frustration before he flung his hands into the air.
"This is exactly what I'm talking about- you're so passive aggressive! I can't stand it anymore."
Paul is pacing the small living room now, carefully avoiding the banged up coffee table in the center of the room.
Allie wonders absently how many times they've had this fight now. Always the same, yet so different. Centering around everything and nothing all at once. She's really not even clear on what she did wrong this time. They had gotten into an argument the night before and she had left to stay at a friend's place. She was just getting home now, after leaving work. He should have known she would be here around this time, and yet here they were. She was in the wrong again.
"I just wish you would-"
"You're so unresponsive!" Paul shouted over her and Allie clamped her mouth shut out of pure irony.
His brown eyes were wide and clear as he stared at her. Allie focused on a spot above his head, over the couch. A section of the wall where the wallpaper had peeled away and revealed the concrete underneath.
When they had moved here it had been a new beginning. They had taken so much care in decorating the place and making it feel like their home. It seemed that as their relationship deteriorated, those happy days dissolving into angry nights, so did their home. The couch was torn, the dishwasher broken. They just didn't care enough anymore.
Allie crossed the room, passing Paul and sinking onto the couch. Her eyes gazed blankly at the black screen of the television, blinking slowly. Paul was starting to talk again when she interrupted him.
"Why don't you pack your things and leave, then? If I'm so dreadful then just go." Her voice was strong as her eyes finally met his.
He looked shocked. His silence stretched on for one, two, three minutes.
"You're right. I should."
So he did. And after he left, slamming the squeaky front door behind him, she shuffled her shoe off and chucked it at that exposed piece of cement behind the couch. Watched quietly as dust filtered through the air on impact and silently screamed when she heard her landlord pounding on the floor beneath her with a broom.
Free write:
ReplyDeleteIn a run down apartment the wallpaper is peeling and you can see the concrete walls underneath they are arguing in the living room full of equally run down furniture he is yelling at her and she is trying to stay calm as his voice is getting louder and louder, more and more accusing it is unclear exactly what they are fighting about but the fight slowly escalates the girl suddenly becomes completely calm, finally talking firmly over him and telling him what is wrong and that she wants him to leave for good this time he retaliates by telling her everything she said is wrong and proceeds to throw her shoe at the wall.