I scream and try to get out of the way of the cold stream hitting me from all angles, but Marcus’s grip on me is so hard that I’m stuck in place. I freeze in place, shivers already starting to wrack my body. “What do you fucking want from me?”
“I want you to listen, for fuck’s sake,” he says.
“I’m never going to comply. Don’t you get that? I hate you. You disgust me. Why am I still here?” At some point, I’d started yelling at him. I’m stunned but not surprised when his hand slaps my cheek hard. He’s made it clear none of that matters to him, but will he ever get tired of fighting me?
Marcus reaches up and grabs my face in one hand. He pulls me towards him and says in a low, menacing voice, “Take off your top and turn around.”
“What? I’m not doing that,” I say as I look at him. I knew he was crazy, but has he lost his damn mind?
“Turn around and take off your top, or I will do it for you. Do you really want me to do it?” he growls. “Since I disgust you so?”
I reach down and yank off my top and throw it at his face. He catches it before it hits him and reacts by pushing me against the shower wall. Once I’m officially pinned and unable to move, he whispers in my ear. “You can make this easy or hard. It doesn’t have to be hard, you know. But this kinda shit is only going to hurt you, not me.”
“What the fuck is this? Why am I standing half dressed in a shower, Marcus?”
He pulls back and smirks. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He gets out of the shower with wet clothes and reaches into the cabinet next to the shower. He pulls out a plastic grocery bag and hands it out to me.
I grab the bag but don’t look in it right away. I have no idea what’s inside, or what it will mean.
“Come on now, look.” Marcus nods toward the bag.
I roll my eyes and open the bag. When I look down, I find two boxes of hair dye—but it’s not just any hair dye. When Marcus and I were together we had a particular date night that, to be honest, was one of the only nights we spent together I can genuinely say was good. He took me to a movie and dinner, and afterwards we aimlessly wondered around the local boardwalk talking. Somehow, we got into a conversation about dying my hair. I hated my natural color—it was so plain and mousy—and had always wanted to dye my hair. So, Marcus took me to the nearest drug store, and we picked out this dark plum color. We went back to his place, and Marcus dyed my hair. We ended up not having enough dye to cover it all, and it turned out to be a total disaster. But it was a sweet disaster—we laughed most of the night about it. I had to have it color corrected the next day. My mother was livid with me, and it took an entire day in the salon to fix it. After that, I swore I would never dye my hair again.
Now I’m looking down at that same color and wondering what on earth he’s thinking. “What is this?”
“What does it look like?” Marcus replies.
“It looks like hair dye that isn’t touching my head,” I say. My whole body has become stiff, rigid. Between the cold water and Marcus’ insane ideas, I’ve become frozen in place.
“I thought you would like it. I remembered,” he says as he motions to the bag.
Does he think this changes anything? The thought makes my blood boil. The heat rushing through me unfreezes my muscles, and I snap. “What the fuck is there to like about it? Because you remembered the color dye from one night several years ago?” I’m yelling now, and my voice gets even louder as I scream at him, “Did you really think a box of fucking hair dye would fill the hole you left in me when you killed our daughter?” The anger in me is so strong I’m seeing red. Before I realize what I’m doing, one of the boxes of hair dye is flying at Marcus’ head.
Marcus just barely dodges the box, and he shoves me so hard that I slam back against the shower wall. It knocks the wind out of me, and by the time I get my breath back, he’s already grabbed the contents off the floor and begun to assemble the pieces of the kit. He does it with a tick in his eye, a vein protruding in his neck, and tensed shoulders. When he finally has the dye ready, he looks up to me, eyeing me like I’m prey. I have the sudden realization that to him, that is exactly what I am. I’ve challenged him, but he sees me as weaker. And he’s ready to prove how much weaker I am.
The panic starts when he takes the first step towards me with the dye in one hand and the other hand clenched in a fist. I have nowhere to go. I’m in a shower stall. There are no exits. Fighting him hasn’t proved successful yet.
“Marcus, I’m sorry. Please, let’s talk about it. I didn’t mean it,” I beg. I can’t breathe, not while he’s walking toward me with that maniacal gleam in his eye.
“Marcus, stop. Please,” I beg again as he moves within an arm’s distance from me. He moves so quickly I can’t react. He wraps his hand around the back of my neck and shoves me to the shower floor. The water is still on and running cold. The grimy shower doesn’t drain properly, and there’s about an inch of water pooled at the bottom. Marcus has my face submerged. I squirm and
