Here was the thing, it didn’t hurt. The water wasn’t sizzling, but it was hot enough to singe the skin, yet she didn’t feel it. She sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress so soft she sank into it, and stared at him gripping her arm with one hand, and using the other to drip hot water on her wrist.

     But it didn’t hurt.

     Why would it? The pain was negligible compared to the pain of living, the pain of waking everyday with the rock solid knowledge that she wasn’t enough, that she wasn’t obedient enough for her father, wasn’t comely enough for her mother, was so without value as a woman that the man she called her lover could stand over her with a kettle of boiling water, dribbling it on her wrist to make a point.

     “Does it hurt yet?” his voice was a snarl, his teeth pushed through his lips like a rabid dog. “Do you feel it?”

     She wanted to pull her hand back, wanted to push him away and dash out of the room; she was twenty-one, her whole life ahead of her, she shouldn’t be taking this bullshit. But that was the thing, she was twenty-one, two years past the age when her older sister got married, every single guy she’d loved had left her for someone else, and her parents never bragged about her at family reunions. Maybe she was made for this bullshit.

     “Answer me!”, he was shouting now. “Do you feel something?” Saliva from his mouth landed on her cheek.

     They were barely two months together when she wanted to be rid of him, but then again, she didn’t want to be alone. When he told her that he loved her, it seemed like it gave her life value. When he texted her “Good morning,” she wanted to face the morning. When he smiled at her, the sun shone through the clouds.

     But then he pushed her away when she was sad. He wouldn’t see her when she cried. When she showed her flaws, he stayed away. And here he was scalding her wrist because a week ago she’d taken a razor down there to see if it’d hurt, she’d drawn a star to see if she could come alive.

     “Stop it,” her voice was barely more than a whimper. “You’re hurting me.”

     “So you do hurt,” he barked. “Why would you do something that stupid then?”

     People told her he was bad for her. “If you can rise above him, you can rise above your problems,” someone said. And they were right; he couldn’t heal if she didn’t leave him. He never tried to understand her. When she was on the floor, he tried to pull her deeper into the ground.

     “I’m going to pour a whole kettle on you, and then we’ll talk about feeling things, and depression,” he said.

     His words were like a million elephants stomping on her back. It hurt, it hurt a lot. She wanted to get away from it.

     “You act like a child,” he said. “You’re over dramatic…”

     She started a song in her head, just to block it all. It was like holding a palm over a flame, she wanted to get away.

     “Why would you do something like this? Can’t you think?” he continued.

     A thousand ants stinging her bare feet would hurt less. If you can rise above him, you can rise above your problems.

     “Think Biwom, think with your brain for once.”

     “Enough!” she screeched. Eeenough. Her cry was a banshee seeking redress, the lament of a thousand women before her confronting their oppressor. She opened her mouth and a shrill cry came out.

     He let go of the kettle to bounce on the bed and clatter to the floor. She kept screaming. He stepped back, looking over his shoulders, a scared rodent. Finally her mouth shut, and she took deep, heavy breaths.

     His eyes were large in his head, his collar staining with sweat. 

     When she spoke, her composure had returned. “Get away from me.” She’d never felt so calm in her life. “Get away from me and never come back.”

     He walked away backwards, looking pitiful. What a small man. How had she ever thought him a monster, when he was nothing more than a rat? 

     She shut the door after him and threw her eyes to the ceiling. She was alive, she was feeling. Rage, composure, and above all a steely determination to face the world down and bend it to her will. She spread out her arms. It felt like soaring, like being lifted through the clouds, borne away to Elysium.