The Coalition of Sierra J. Rubenstein

AWW I: The Hit

    Early in our relationship, Sierra had shown her anger problems. We have talked about how we deal with our stress. I found that working out and video games were my best outlets. Sex too, but you rather not describe yourself as the guy who uses sex to relieve his stress a lot. It comes off a bit too unnatural. Sierra got on me for playing video games too much when I was stressed. It helped by engaging in a world(s) other than my own to distract me in a way. Sierra wanted me to talk things out with her while she was buried deep into her phone. I never liked to because she did not pay attention half the time. When her phone was down, then there was a better chance of Sierra to listen to me. She would still tune me out, even though she quizzed me all the time to see if I listened to her. I kept proving to her that I always listened because I never failed once, but Sierra failed a whole mess of times. I will digress on what I originally talked about. Sierra did not like going to the gym or playing video games or anything healthy to alleviate stress. Sierra tried to introduce alcohol and other drugs in her system to feel better. What Sierra admitted to liking the most was inflicting harm on to others. I will describe it in the words Sierra used: "...there is nothing like the sensation of hitting warm flesh and inflicting pain on something with emotions. Punching a pillow just does not feel the same". I felt uncomfortable when she told me that. It explained how Sierra treated me before this particular incident. When she was not throwing things, Sierra would hit me in the stronger parts of my body like my chest and back. That is when she would hit me there and not sedative areas. Our wrestling got rough, but Sierra was more deliberate in inflicting pain. It is one thing to smack me if I say something obnoxious in a joking way or saying something stupid. When she would hit me just because she was upset with me over something stupid or at a coworker or relative. This kept happening to me because I would not fight back. For those who may know about a port used in chemotherapy, I have a scar on my chest from where it was placed in. That is the one section of my chest that is very sensitive. Some days I have a sense of numbness there, but most of the time I have a tenderness to feel more than I use to. So the day I am referencing is when Sierra came home from a hard day at work. We were down in my basement at the time. I told Sierra a joke to cheer her up, but it was in bad taste according to Sierra. Instead of just saying that to me, Sierra hops on top of me from the couch. Sierra began to pound on my chest hitting me on my scar. She would scratch my chest running a few of her nails across my scar. I was filled with enough rage from the amount of pain I was in to lash out. I pulled my left arm out from under her leg to grab Sierra's shoulder. I lifted her up just far enough off of me to free my right hand. I took that hand and slapped Sierra across her face thus pushing Sierra back on to her knees with my left arm. I sat up on the couch to get in her face as Sierra held her face in a shocked look on her face. I proceeded to tell Sierra: "That is enough. I get you had a rough week and I get that what I said was inappropriate and I apologize for that. Just know I was trying to cheer you up like I have always done when you have a bad day. Just because I'm the only person you have does not give you a fucking right to treat me like this. The more you lash out and push me away, the more you will push me out of your life. If I ever started wailing on you after a hard day, you wouldn't stick around and take it. So why the fuck should I? If you ever lay your hands on me like that again: I will break the hand the hits or scratches me, throw you out of my house, and I will leave you. Do you understand me?
Sierra sat back on the other end of the couch refusing to look at me or speak. She fought to hold back her tears for about five minutes until she walked out of the house and drove back to her parents. I did not hit her hard enough to leave a bruise, but hard enough to stop her from hitting me. I think she was more shocked than hurt by me. I have never hit her like that and to follow it up by a few minute yelling lecture like I was her dad. Sierra apologized to me over the phone later that night. Sierra said our rough-housing got too carried away. No, that was not rough-housing. She was making up a situation in order to divert blame from primarily her to both of us. I was not buying it. It was not the first time she hit me like that either, but it was the last time she wailed on me. She would later hurt me in other ways, but that came much later in our story.