The paint blisters and cracks. Curling, it pulls away from the wood and the flaky pieces dance in the gentle breeze blowing through the kitchen.

She watches, waiting for them to be torn away. When ripped from the wood, they’ll float through the air before settling on the tile floor below. The floor, where tiny, rust colored spots stain the grout.

She absently runs her hand over the finger-shaped hues of purples, reds and pinks on her arm. Slender trails of sickly yellow-green trace their edges. The most delicate spots feel as though her skin had been pulled thin, with nerves electrified at the surface. Glancing over one, she pulls her hand away and sucks her teeth as if it would soften the sting.

She blisters and cracks, curling herself into a ball on the floor. She pulls her attention to the tiles as she rocks gently back and forth.

The tiles will be her advocate. When the inevitable happens—when she no longer exists—it’ll be the tiles that seal his fate. Swabbing between them, they will find her. The bruises will become pieces to a puzzle where the final picture reveals the truth. Then they will know what her life had been. All that she had endured.

Blistering and cracking, she longs to be stronger. Curling into herself, she’s pulled deeper into despair knowing that she isn’t. She feels herself dancing closer to her death. Closer to the day he will kill her.

Until then she will continue to mop up the blood from busted lips and split cheeks, leaving just enough.

Just enough.

Just the thought of standing too close to the platform edge scared her. She’d heard the stories, although rare, of some demented psycho pushing a fellow commuter onto the tracks. There’s no way to survive getting hit by a New York City subway train. No way.

Across the platform a woman stands so close to the edge that both feet are on the bumpy yellow strip. The yellow strip you’re supposed to stand behind. Behind. How does she not know this?

The sound of the metal beast nearing causes a tightness in her chest and a shortness of her breath. As much as she didn’t want to die via subway collision, she didn’t want to witness it either.

Regardless, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Away from the calm that never left the woman’s face. Her nonchalance as she teetered on the brink of death. She couldn’t comprehend the woman’s bravery. Couldn’t imagine what it was like not to flinch in the face of danger.

But she wanted to. She wanted to understand. She wanted to know what it was like to live, for one moment, not drowning in fear.

Screeching rocks her back to reality--surrounded by commuters plugging their ears against the grating of wheel to track. She watches as the woman, head aloft, disappears into the crowded car. She’s gone. Lost within the sea of black wool coats and free newspapers.

The intercom crackles above and, through the static, she knows her train will be arriving soon. Heart thumping and mind racing, she makes a decision her mind hasn’t quite registered. The platform vibrates under her feet as the train growls into the station blowing her hair back and away from her face. Startled and confused, she looks down. A sense of hope whirls around her--mixing with the gust from the train--as she finds her right foot firmly planted across the yellow line.

Fiction Friday: [Just Enough]

Fiction Friday: [Toeing the Line]