Still paying the price

The first blow knocked my glasses off my face and sent me flying. I had just retrieved them from my purse and was heading to my car to drive home after a long night of partying. I was still exhilarated from the high of taking off on him and his lame co-worker. My phone had been ringing incessantly all night long; but as Sue and I jumped from club to club -- I ignored it. We were done.

I hit the pavement and looked back up in time to see him irate and lunging towards me. I had made one fatal flaw: I had not moved my car and so, he was angrily waiting for me in the parking lot the next morning.

It's funny when something bad happens to you. You always picture yourself saying or doing something heroic; and in the end a survival instinct of sorts kicks in. Like an animal pretending to be dead, you lay there; hoping that the monster in front of you will go away.

He was livid. I had usurped him in front of a colleague and now I was going to pay. His hands were bloody and the blows continued. My white shirt slowly started to stain red from the blood.

I'm pretty sure I remained silent through the whole thing; seething him while at the same time allowing him to be a monster so I could reap the benefits of being a true victim. Eventually in the distance I saw a police car -- but they did not approach. Another typical oxymoron of Japanese society: they do not interfere with domestic disturbances. The police were simply there to arrest him should he kill me.

So they watched from their car; and I stared back at them through my swollen eyes -- knowing that they would not interfere.

When he was done lashing out he walked across the parking lot; crumbled to the ground and began weeping. I didn't stop crying for the next three days.

As I slowly pulled myself up from the pavement and re-adjusted my blood stained clothing; I knew that the person who rose in that moment would be forever changed from the person I was just a few hours before. In a moment of weakness amidst brutality -- I would walk away stronger because I survived.

I'm still haunted by that moment -- but not in a way you might think. I never think of him, never justified him, and after I drove away that morning -- never talked to him again. What haunts me is the karmic retribution of my actions that night; and the incessant ignoring of my phone calls any time I'm in conflict with a significant other. It's as if the Universe wants to remind me how horrible I was to him. On many levels -- I still feel as if I am paying the price for a mistake I made when I was 22 or 23.