Boiling

I walked into the apartment Pattie & I shared; with Earl. I had finally gotten a lease for the two of us and after a long day at work, I wanted to wind down drinking tea and playing on our grand piano in the center of the living room. I dialed Mother on the phone to talk about our days. 

I have always tried to be the best child I could be. It was the least I could do, really. I was conceived in the worst way possible, in a crummy bathroom at a senior party Mom was pressured into. It wasn’t the only thing that she was pushed to do that night. Mother was betrayed by one of her closest guy friends. She was woozy but that only made his excuses worse, there was no consent. As for her girl friends to save her, she had none. At nineteen, just barely out of high school, she gave up college to harvest my future. She was more heroic than I could ever be.

I stood at the sink running water into my teapot opening green tea bags. I stared out the window at the orange glowing sun. It was Pattie’s favorite color and it was a shame she couldn’t bring herself out of her room to admire the sunlight with me.

I hung up the phone to play my favorite song ‘Heart & Soul’ waiting for it to boil. I passed by Pattie’s open room.

I heard her snap, “I’m not in the mood, not now”.

I cringed as I thought, She’s waiting for me. A few seconds later I heard her discrete moans. I felt helpless watching her suffer all these years. It bottled inside me to the point that helplessness turned into fury. My blood pressure had risen higher than our rent. It was partially my fault that I had let it go on so far. I have been ready for months, all we needed was that lease so we could finally leave to find a new home. I was that fine line between patience & procrastination–perhaps I was too much of both. I was never one to put things off to the last second but I had procrastinated making us both happy–I often feared things that were bigger than me. 

Sitting in the living room, of course, Pattie interrupted my peace & quiet. 

“You drive me crazy!”, she hollered. 

There was a smack that came with it. Then there was another more violent. The anger in my veins boiled, scorching hot as the water. I rushed to my room to pack our suitcases to the brim with button-up shirts and flannels we shared. Let’s run away. As I packed our bags, I had to hear the most excruciating noises from her. I have never felt a part of my life so wrong, her groans so hesitant. Hearing him do it all wrong, her screaming, her frustration, that afternoon finally snapped me. The teapot started screaming so I went to grab the pot.

I stormed into their room still with the water, catching Pattie’s naked body on his. It still haunted me to see his massive grabby hands pulling her somehow thick golden hair. It happened too often that I noticed she was balding. The dark circles under her eyes and bruises on those thighs was him marking his territory. I stood stiff as Earl’s penis, his penis staring at me as hard as I stared at him. He sat back up in their bed, not moving a muscle. I couldn’t tell if it was from shock or that I never came off as a threat. I grabbed his face, digging my long black painted nails into his greasy cheeks.

“IT’S YOUR TURN TO BE CHOKED”, I yelled, shoving the scalding hot water down his throat. As Pattie watched, goosebumps appeared and I saw her pupils astoundingly dilate. I was in disbelief and so was Pattie’s open jaw-but I could tell she didn’t mind a thing. I saw him cough up blood struggling to scream.

“AH!”, he wept.

It was the fact he pleasured her in only that way, that drew the last straw for me to pull the stunt and I had no regrets. Being forced to listen to the entirety almost every night for the last three years boiled inside me. I was a bubbling cauldron just waiting to boil over. The world felt so isolated, so small for years until, for the first time, I heard Earl in pain and not Pattie. I began to smile and cunningly slid the gold ring off of his rough finger. I then drizzled the water into his eyes, blinding him permanently.

Earl & I were truly unalike. I was a petit, frail woman with no mean bone in my body. And he was a hefty, waste of handsomeness. The only good thing he ever did for anyone was reach the tea mugs on the top shelves in the apartment. Even with his IQ score equivalent to his shoe size, there was a part of me that was jealous because it was his body on hers and not mine. But at the end of the day, he used her like a battery operated toy, using her to finish then waiting to finish in her again once she was fully charged. He was everything I wasn’t; and that was a good thing.

The reason Pattie & I were stuck in that hell hole was because of their arranged marriage set up by her mother. Pattie’s excuse for not marrying him initially was arguing that marriage was just a label in addition to a bond, but I knew what she really wanted. When I heard they got engaged not a while ago, I begged her to let me live with them. There wasn’t much begging, Pattie wasn’t an imbecile. I wanted to make certain my crush since middle school wouldn’t fall out of love and let my precious memories be forgotten in her mind. To convince Earl, I offered to help pay rent and he agreed. To him, I was only the annoying fiance’s best friend. And to me, he was a tunnel.

At last, I grabbed Pattie’s hand and we dashed out of the room. I placed a chair against the outside of the door; this time Earl was the one trapped. I then dressed Pattie as fast as my body could move. We ran in circles like mice in a maze filing our hands with whatever possessions we could carry. We became rats when we carved out our own exit.

“WHAT IN THE DEVIL IS GOING ON?”, he said banging on the door half coughing.

We hopped in my car. My hands staggered, struggling placing the key in the hole out of adrenaline. I wanted to burn rubber but I couldn't wait to request, “Pattie, will you marry me?”, I said, placing Earl’s ring on her finger. Every bone in my body was tingling yet oddly serene. She looked down to gaze into my eyes.

“Oh Hazel, every time I look at you it feels as though we are already married. Yes”. 

I could die right there in front of her and still be content.

I grinned, “Pattie, you're my problem now”.

Our childhoods weren’t the easiest but we stumbled together and even embraced. I had waited for the second we’d run away together since high school and this was even better than I rehearsed in my fantasies. Nevertheless, the only problem back then was her mother, she’d never approve of something so queer. But we were now twenty-three; our lives were messy but at least now it was solely our lives to control.

“Pedal to the metal!”, she cheered.

The rush sent pixies straight to my hands. Our hearts were pounding, her’s so hard I could hear it, in mostly excitement but with a smidge of fear. We were two broke college students with no idea where we were headed but anywhere elsewhere would be considered home. It felt like how I looked at Pattie all those painful years. The light at the end of the tunnel was there, I just couldn’t predict how long until I made it through. I could finally look into her eyes as long as I wanted without cautiously listening for Earl’s footsteps. She wouldn’t have to leave my room each night, we could fall asleep in the same bed and wake up accidentally cuddling. Now I had the sunshine all to myself and it made my lungs feel like they had the same density as the air.

Speeding past our old neighborhood, I tasted my own salty tear then dialed the phone.

“Mother, I just saved a girl from being raped”.