The dent in our vows

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"Oh save me the drama!" She shot back. "Isn't that what you all are? sluts, beggars, gold diggers, parasites looking for where to feed off!"

The nerve!

I inhaled deeply, trying to soothe my rushing blood and not heed the desire to smack this woman like she outrightly deserved. I was the sort that usually walked away from conflicts but really, this was too much. "Honestly I have tried my very best to tolerate you but I'm done with it. I take back my apology!"

"Oh, now her true colors show!" She retorted with utmost sarcasm and anger.

"You know what, for so long, I thought you couldn't accept me because of my standards, I thought you needed to get to know me better to understand and acknowledge me but that's all bullshit! I think it's you who has the problem here, you're scared of me, do I make you ick that much?!" I blazed with all the irritability I could muster.

"You may be married to my son but you are nothing, Dawn. You do not scare me and you will never scare me. Look around you! You have nothing!"

"You're wrong!" I retorted. "I have David, he chose me and loves me and no matter how hard you try, you can't ignore the fact forever." I fumed and I probably should have heeded my warnings on self-preservation but something-definitely something pushed me off the edge."I'm not like you Amanda. You see, we are different! I didn't get married to a widower! I didn't take my dead sister's husband and claim her child as my own! I don't sit home all day pretending to be useful when in reality I'm not! I don't go around clinging to a husband and son that's not even mine! I don't make it a habit to demean people! you do! You talk as though you're all high and mighty but you have nothing! Everything you have is borrowed! it's not yours! Your husband isn't yours, your son isn't yours and they're all going to leave you because you deserve to be lonely! You deserve!-"

The sound of her hand crashing on my face rippled like a cracking of a bullwhip and my words stumbled back, forcing me to choke on my breath as my eyes widened in shock.

"Who the hell do you think you are!" She fumed, raising her hand once more and whipping it across my face so hard that it rotated my head to the side and the vibrations of pain spread across my cheeks like wildfire.

"Amanda..." My voice cracked turned to stare at her in growing horror as hot tears burned my eyes.

"I see sleeping with my son has made you forget your place. The next time you raise your voice at me, I'll make sure to leave a permanent scar." She threatened and walked away, leaving me with an aching face and more than pricked pride.

***

How I'd gotten home after that, I didn't know but I was glad that David wasn't around because I needed quiet and I didn't want to have to explain why my cheeks were burning red.

I dragged myself into the shower, feeling like a miserable mess as I cleaned up.

I turned off the lights after tossing my nightdress on and then I got in bed with hopes that I'd fall asleep before David returned but I couldn't sleep, if anything, I ended up crying more than expected.

It was emotionally scathing; the words she'd said to me, what she'd done to me. I shivered in disdain at the realization that things were always going to be this way. What if we never got past this stage, what if she continued to hate me. How would it affect her relationship with her son or my grandkids? Would she hate them too for having part of me in them?