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Clean Floors

She scrubbed the sticky residue that was left behind on the cheap linoleum floor. The sting of the hot water and pine-scented cleaner turned her hands red. She promised herself that next time, she’d stand up to him. That next time, he’d know this wasn’t okay. That next time she’d call the cops, if he got violent.

She sat back on her heels and sighed. In an abrupt and unwelcome moment of honesty, she acknowledged to herself that no, next time wouldn’t be different.  She wouldn’t stand up to him, for fear of making it worse. And she wouldn’t bother to call the cops, assuming she could get to the phone. She knew deep down that they would believe him over her. That the good ol’ boy image he had cultivated would blind their eyes, and she’d wind up worse off than if she had never said anything at all.

There was a reason he had a clean record, despite his heavy handed ways.  His public image was squeaky clean. It wasn’t until you got behind closed doors that things got messy.

 

This was written for week 19 of the Trifecta Writing Challenge. The word this week was clean.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 at 4:09 PM and is filed under Fictional, Relational. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • Booguloo

    It’s to bad he thinks you’re the “deserving” kind of woman.  I can imagine what would happen if he didn’t “love you”.  Nice write, sorry state of affairs.

    • http://thepsychobabble.net thepsychobabble

      That’s one of the disturbing things, isn’t it? That *this* is love to some.

  • http://karenismuttering.blogspot.com/ karen

    “behind closed doors that things got messy.” Um, ya. I know what this means. Amazing how some can keep the two so separate.

    • http://thepsychobabble.net thepsychobabble

      Agreed:)

  • http://www.jannatwrites.wordpress.com/ JannaTWrites

    It’s not fair that he can get away with what he does.

    • http://thepsychobabble.net thepsychobabble

      @janatwrites, I know! I’m kind of interested, myself, to see if it comes crashing down on him:) I *hope* so. I’d kind of like a vengeful/happy ending to this at some point!

  • barbara

    I work with men such as this – it is very sad. You have caught much of the angst.

  • http://thinquehappythoughts.blogspot.com/ The Mommy Patient

    Your writing definitely leaves me with concrete images. They’re not pretty ones, but that makes sense given the subject matter. Good job.

  • Sightsnbytes

    Nice work here. That guy was an idiot. Guys like him give us good guys a bad name. Nice blog too! Glad I found it!

  • http://fuchsiavision.blogspot.com/ Ruby Manchanda

    Powerful writing. I can visualize the entire scene.

  • http://jesterqueen.com/ Jessie Powell

    The character’s stark honesty in self reflection is nonetheless abnegating. Nobody but her has to believe it for her to get out. But she has to convince herself to do it first instead of talking herself out of it. And we both know how likely that is to happen.

  • http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/ Trifectawritingchallenge

    Thanks for linking up to Trifecta this week.  I love your play on cleaning the floor and the clean record.  I like her moment of clarity–I think all of us have those about one issue or another at times.  The tricky part is to stay in that moment and choose a different path.  Hope she gets there.  Hope to see you around again soon.