Worth the fight

just wish I could tell the story without reliving the picture in my head.    The few times I’ve told the story out loud, it’s always the same.  I’m back there and I’m narrating what I see in my head, giving the play-by-play, as if the little girl isn’t even me.
    “ On the twenty-third day, she got out of bed.   The bruises were starting to heal and her face was mostly grey and yellow.  The swelling had gone down too.  She stood in the kitchen and made me a can of soup.  It was Campbell’s.  Chicken and Rice.  She put it in the brown and white striped croc bowl that I loved to eat out of.  I remember thinking it was the best thing I ever ate.”
    I quiet for a minute as I watch my mother and I sit at the table and eat soup together.  It plays out in my head as if it was really right in front of me.  She smiled at me and I smiled back.  It didn’t make things all better, but I remember thinking we were going to be okay.  I had a strange feeling of relief as we sat there and ate in silence.  For three weeks I must have been walking around with my shoulders feeling tense, but I didn’t realize it until I felt them ease as we finished our soup. 
    My shoulders relax a little.  Then I take a deep breath, knowing what would come next.  “Then he came home.  We were still sitting at the table, our soup b owls still in front of us when he stumbled in.  Drunk.  He was always drunk.  And angry.”
    I close my eyes and fight back my tears.  I know what comes next, I’ve seen it in my head a thousand times, but each time it’s as hard to watch as the first.  It never gets any easier.  I’m not sure how long I sit there in silence, willing my tears away.  I don’t even realize I’ve stopped speaking and gone somewhere else until I hear Nico’s voice.
    “You don’t have to , Elle.  Just let me hold you and forget the past.”  His voice is gentle and kind and caring and it takes every ounce of strength in my body not to give in and just let him hold me.  Take care of me and make it all go away.  But I can’t.  I need to rip the Band-Aid off.
    My mind back in the present, I find the freckle and reclaim it as my focus, continuing with what I have to say.  What I need to say.  “He almost killed her that night.  He lifted her by her throat and crushed her windpipe.  She couldn’t breathe.  But that wasn’t good enough.  He wouldn’t stop.”  The tears start to flow from my eyes, but I won’t let them keep me from what I need to do.  “He wouldn’t stop.   He just hit her over and over again.  And she made this noise.  This horrible noise because she couldn’t breathe.  She was gasping for air, fighting with what little she had left.”  The tears turn into sobs and I feel my body trembling.
    “Come here, B aby.”  Nico tries to pull me to him, but I won’t allow it.  I need to get it all out.
    For the first time since I started speaking, I look up at Nico.  His eyes are pained and filled with unshed tears of his own as he watches me cry and listens to my story.  I take one more deep breath and look into his eyes when I speak, my words coming out quiet, but their meaning unmistakably clear.  “I killed him.  I knew where his gun was hidden and I shot him.”  Nico’s eyes widen, he wasn’t expecting what I told him.  “That’s why I know.”  My voice is barely a whisper.  “I know what you feel like.”
    ***
    I cry until there are no more tears left.  I don’t know how much time passes, but Nico holds me tight until my body is wrenched of every last sob and tear.  And I let him.  For the first time in my life, I let someone else hold it, even if it’s just for a little while.  He holds the pain and the guilt and the burden, all of it.  And with the weight lifted from me, I fall asleep.  Sound asleep.  

Chapter 41
    Nico
    Elle shifts in her sleep and I tighten my grip.  She hasn’t budged in hours, not since she fell asleep in my arms.  I eased my back down onto the couch and laid her out on top of me while I held her.  My arms are numb from holding her so tight, but there is no way I’m letting go.  Not ever. 
    I thought I understood what it meant to feel pain, but I had no god damn clue until I saw her face.  Seeing her pain made anything I’ve went through pale in comparison.  Worse than a blow to the chest, the pain is physical and emotional.  The urge to hit something is almost unbearable.  How could any human