Ways to Cope (Short Stories)

Steel Pipe

Iris let the heavy steel pipe fall from her trembling fingers and it rang loudly as it clattered on the pavement. The tall buildings around her seemed to cave in over her head, which was throbbing painfully. A tear leaked from her eye, and the cut underneath it stung with the salt, but she could barely feel it.

As she stared at the man lying on the pavement in front of her, she tried her best to draw shaky breaths, but she was still drowning. The blood pooled around his head reflected her mangled face, and she let out a yelping scream, then covered her mouth. His face was down against the ground, but she could still see one eye, open wide in shock and pain. Iris turned her head away from him, trying not to vomit, and a middle-aged blonde woman caught her eye. She cowered behind a pay phone, speaking quickly. "We're on Main Street, by the bakery. She has dark hair. Gray shirt."

No no no. Not the police. It was self defense. They wouldn't believe her, not after last time. She had to go. She skirted around the body, giving it a wide berth, and sprinting out of the alleyway. The woman calling the police shrieked a blood-curdling scream and dropped the phone as Iris ran past, sprinting down Main Street.

People skipped out of the way, or gasped as she ran by. She knew people, she knew they were trying to rationalize, they were trying their hardest to come up with some context about her and her bloody face, her disheveled hair. Somehow, among the panic and pain, she managed to wonder if any of them had it right. She continued to run all the way to the apartment despite the burning of her lungs. The faster she went, the less she could think, and she liked it that way. She took the stairs to the 3rd floor two at a time, and she almost collapsed with exhaustion when she made it.

It was all she could do to walk to their door. She pulled out her keys, but her hands couldn't stay still enough to hold them, and they fell to the floor with a musical clink. The clanging of the steel bar echoed in her head, and she sobbed, but only once. She bent down and grabbed them again, getting a firm grip on the key to her room. Although she'd managed to hold the keys, she couldn't get them in the lock. So she resorted to slapping at the knob with clammy hands.

She didn't have to try that for long though, because the door swung open, and the brass peephole was replaced by the concerned face of her roommate, Alex. "Having some trouble the-" he stopped dead when he saw her face. There was a rough abrasion below her eye, and a gash on her temple, leaking sticky blood into her hair. Her lip was cut and bleeding, and her nose had two short tracks of blood leaking out of it too.

"Oh my god, Iris, what happened?" She'd never looked this bad before.

She opened her mouth to speak, but found that she couldn't. The words died in her chest, and she started to cry again. Alex took her shoulder and pulled her into the apartment without another word. He guided her to a chair at the table and sat her down, getting a warm wet rag ready and reteiving the well-used first-aid kit. Apprehension curled in his chest like jaguar prowling a riverbank.

Iris had come home, beat to hell, a million times, and he'd patched her up every one of them. The unsettling part was her tears. It was eerie and dangerous. She'd only cried once in his memory, after her first fight. Every time after that was sharp, raw anger. Except now.

Alex kneeled in front of her, taking the warm rag and reaching up to her temple. She blocked his hand with an open palm, and tried to grab the rag. He held onto it firmly, and she yanked it away. Adrenaline gave her strength that Alex had no chance of matching.

"Come on, let me help you."

She shook her head. He should be afraid of her. She was a killer. She could, and would, handle this herself. She took the first aid-kit from him too. She stood up and walked on shaky legs to the bathroom. Alex got up and tried to come with her, but she closed the door in his face, and locked it.