Turning A New Leaf

Thirty

Brad stared at his wife in disbelief. She'd emptied the entire bedroom of his belongings over the word of a slut that she didn't even know.

"You're just going to take her word over mine?" he asked flatly.

"She has no reason to lie to me," Brooke told him, "You have been lying to me our entire marriage."

It may have been the lack of sleep or a direct result of the drugs, but something inside Brad snapped at that moment. He hit Brooke, not once but four times. She fell back on the bed, Brad on top of her, his hands around her slender throat.
Brooke clawed at his hands, flailing her legs beneath him as she struggled to break free.

Brooke got a lucky blow in, kneeing him in the balls. Brad grunted loudly, enraged but startled enough to let go of her neck. She fought him off before snatching her phone up and running to the en-suite bathroom.

"I need the police," she sobbed into the phone, "My husband, he's on drugs, and he has just assaulted me."

Brad could hear her on the phone with the emergency dispatch, pounding on the door with all his might, "Let me in, open the fucking door!" he shouted at her, slamming his shoulder against the door.

The door cracked and began to split down the middle as he continued to slam against the wood. Brooke uttered a shrill scream as Brad burst through the door, reaching for her phone and throwing it against the bathroom mirror. Both the mirror and phone shattered into pieces.

"Please, please don't!" Brooke wept as Brad dragged her by her hair back into the bedroom. He was back on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

****

The next thing Brad was aware of was being pinned face down on the cement of his driveway by several police officers, guns drawn on him.

"Stop resisting, or you are going to get the taser," one of the police commanded.

Brad looked up. He could see several neighbors on their porches, a few of them holding their phones as though they were recording.

There was an ambulance at the end of the driveway. A pair of EMTs were loading Brooke into the back. She was laid out on a stretcher.

****

Krist's phone rang at 3:30 in the morning. He had been sleeping so well. Grumbling, he looked at his phone. Mom.

"Aye," he answered, voice gravelly still.

"Your brother is in jail," his mom told him, sounding as though she was crying.

Krist bolted upright, "What?!" he asked, uncertain he had heard her correctly.

"I'm so sorry to wake you, but Brooke called me from the hospital a few minutes ago. She said that Brad took off for a few days and came back high.  On meth. I guess he...he messed her up pretty bad." Linda sighed, "She had called me earlier in the evening asking if he can stay here since he's been...doing all sorts of...things."

Krist stepped out of bed, quietly leaving to the room so Atira could rest. "Mom, if he's fuckin' tweaking like that, don't move him into your place."

"Believe me, I don't want him here. He just has nowhere else to go."

"Okay? He's a grown-ass adult. He seen the consequences of that shit years ago and still wanted to go and fuck around. Let his ass live out on the street like the cluck he wants to be."