Something Else Instead

    I'll be honest.  I couldn't come up with an idea for the Write On Edge prompt this week.  I just couldn't come up with something inspired by autumn.  Maybe it has to do with the fact my fall hasn't been the best this year (work has been less than pleasant).  So, I offer up the opening to a story I'm working on.  Not sure if it'll be a short story or a longer piece.  I'll have to see when I get to the end.  In the mean time, please enjoy.  As always, constructive criticism is more than welcome.

                The rain poured down.  She stood watching it out her window as her boyfriend screamed at her in the background.  She noticed the streaks on the glass seemed to mirror the tear tracks down her face.  She jumped when she felt him grab her arm to spin her around.

                “What the hell is wrong with you!” he screamed at her.

                The neighbors in the apartment above them pounded on the floor.  They usually did that when he had too much to drink and began screaming at her.  A few minutes more of this and someone would call the cops, again.

                He shook her roughly, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!  What the fuck were you thinking!”

                She didn’t answer.  She knew what came next anyways.  It didn’t matter what she said or didn’t say.  It was always the same. Last time it was about the dishes in the dishwasher not being done when he wanted them to be done.  This time it was because she didn’t realize he had left some papers in his jeans pocket and she had washed them as he had asked her to, ruining the papers in the process.  She’d never found a way out of this.  She glanced up from the stain on his shirt she had been staring at.  Sure enough, his hand was raised.  Like an anvil in the cartoons she used to watch, it seemed to hand there for an eternity before it came crashing down across her face.  She fell, hitting the floor with a loud thud.

                All she had to do was wait a little longer and the police would be here.  But, it was different this time.  Instead of walking away like he usually did, he pulled back to kick her.  His foot caught her across the ribs on her left side.  Her side exploded with pain.  She struggled to breathe.  He kicked her again in the side.  She felt something give.  The pain was so intense she couldn’t even see.  She looked up to see him reaching down to back hand her again.  As his hand came down, she could hear a knocking at the door and a voice saying that the police were outside.  She screamed just once, despite the pain it caused from her ribs, then she escaped into unconsciousness.  The sound of the chain on the door breaking followed her down into the darkness.