Fractured

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The second I began watching, I couldn't stop.  Staring at the computer screen, the recognizable picture of my living room from the tape reached my eyes.  It was spanning down from the window and took up the majority of the screen as the video started to play.  Of course, I was instantly hooked - not because I was eager to witness my own pain again.  No, I wasn't a weirdo - in that sense, anyway.  It was because this would be some of the best evidence we would get thus far.  And sure enough, it turned out to be. 

It was a blur in a sense as I watched it.  It all came together before me in a terrible repressentating of my fighting abilities.  Every time I went at her, she had the advantage I noticed.  As I noticed my mistakes, my strengths, and my movements, I found it to be very insightful to the fact that I was ashamed of myself.  I should have been able to beat her; I lived on the streets for Christ sake!  I knew I could - hell, I have beat her in the past and before I ran away even.  So why was I such a loser here?  Good fucking question and it made me even more upset at myself when the part came where Clare had me pinned down.  She was in the same position Luke showed me I could get out of.  But I froze up and couldn't do it.  I understood I was only human.  It would have been much cooler in that moment though if I had super powers. 

Throughout watching this, I cringed too many times to count; not at the reminder of what happened but the embarrassment of seeing my mistakes.  However, I smiled at the parts that showed me actually doing something that could reflect even a little of my knowledge of how to kick someone's ass.  I personally found the best highlight of the video to be when I punched her square in the face towards the beginning.  All in all, I had mixed reactions from seeing the footage in some places, just hearing audio in others.

Watching with complete curiosity and excitement nonetheless, I saw this was pure success for us.  The picture of her sending me through the window, her tackling me on the floor.  I was relieved at seeing there was a clear shot of her abuse even when the camera fell to the floor since the lens was aimed sideways up at us.  It captured the cringing point of view of the camera lashing across my face, over and over, when she whipped me with it.  Then... the audio was what did it. 

"You... psychotic piece of shit!" she had growled at me after sending us through the window. The other things that she said were caught too.  Like her screaming, "Fucking tell me now otherwise you wish you had."  And the best part was her saying this directly after: "Tell me.  Now.  Otherwise, this is going through your hand!"

At that point, after she screamed that at me, I was quite shocked to see the screen go black and at first, I figured the computer had mysteriously shut down.  It was as if everything just stopped for a minute all at once and I realized it was only because my hopes were still jumping to new heights.  I narrowed my eyes in on the computer and found that that was where the video cut off.

The camera must have busted after those first few hits across my face and once she screamed those things at me.  However, I knew with just how lucky I am, I needed to take what I could get and we got most of the footage anyway.  It was enough for me to say that it was definitely the best piece of evidence we got so far.  And I was sure that the camera upstairs would only back that up if the same audio captured on it.  We got her yelling at me, punching me, and the most important thing in my opinion was her initiating it from the start.  When she grabbed me and pulled me across the coffee table. Though I knew Luke would have been crushed to see that, I was smiling and proud that we did it.  We got an incredibly solid and dominant form of evidence that would be hard for her to fight.  Whether the price of it was painful, even if I was ashamed of myself for not being able to fight like I should have, in this case, it helped.  It was worth it.