It is not the onerous slap that quietens the restaurant's weekend crowd. But the shattering of a couple of glasses and the clattering of cutlery in the wake of my fall. It is not my split lips nor the blooming bruises on my cheeks that attract eyeballs. It is my drunk husband’s hurt ego at my insistence on driving us home. The unknown glares and stares and tsking don’t faze me. Not as much as the appearance of an all too familiar hand in front of me. I hadn’t expected to see him again. Not after how we’d parted. Not after I chose to move on. To the life that has now thrown me amidst broken cutlery, further shattering my self-respect. Such moving on I’d done. The sympathy in those familiar pair of hazel irises unsettle me. He helps me stand back up, his ease in handling my weight still unchanged. Wiping the blood off my chin and bandaging my bleeding hand with his handkerchief, the one bearing my first ever attempt at embroidery; he says, “You used to be mad at me because nothing could stand between me and myself. Today, I request you, beg you, choose yourself.” There is no sarcasm, no taunt. Something that has become commonplace in my marriage. Now my lost love makes a genuine request. For my sake. Something stirs within. I finally manage to stand without his support and step towards my husband. This time, the slap echoes through the eatery, and it is not me who staggers. The baggage of insults and humiliation weighing me down, finally shed. Back to its place of origin.
“Take me home?” I ask.
“Y-yours?”
“I just gave mine up. At your behest.”
He nods. His answer is the usual. Fingers entwine around mine and walk me out of the worst decision of my life. Where is this leading me? I do not know. I no longer want to know
.