The answer would be the most classic and the simplest.
The one she murmured in a broken voice and hippo in her throat, and the one that few came to believe. But for which everyone felt her pain and shared sorrow for the young woman, her response was very easy. A tradition among these people, and one that proclaimed every innocent, even though perhaps she was not.
Because everything had happened too fast, at one time it was eight in the morning and she had a whole day ahead of her. With the schedules ordered even if it was summer and that hot sun was tempting her to sleep for a while longer, to enjoy the drag of the hours and to rest. She had all the opportunities there, without any hurry, however, her day began at eight.
And some were already debating whether, perhaps, if she had chosen other hours of sleep, if she had enjoyed the summer, her response would be different. But well, their job at the end of the day was not to discuss such possibilities. Thus, she continued, with her stretching, jogging, orange juice in the morning, food for canaries and cat food
(And wasn’t there a warning already?)
She moved without seeing the clock because she already knew everything by heart, it was the day of forty-five minutes in the shower because it was more dedication to the skin and more time to the hair. The moment where she had an hour for breakfast although she used fifteen minutes of it, and they wanted to avoid yawning.
However, she was a twenty-year-old girl with life in rules and steps to follow and a dead summer. And here they decided that no, there were no possibilities to avoid anything, only that the answer sounded more hollow and false.
And she tried, to sell the story better, to believe her tears and that her breathing was scared and nervous and not a performance. However, their eyes didn’t see her and their ears were deaf and her reasons no longer served, even then she persevered and continued to tell.
She had to raise her voice and reach the moment, hands on his wrist, voice raised and spiky hairs, in the emptiness in his stomach and concrete feet. So to make them understand that it was not an irrational fear, it was one with whom one lived and knew. The one that for a long time had forgotten, because everything was calm, better.
They still did not listen.
She licked her lips and concealed her hands that twisted on her legs. They were still the colour of rust and stuck to her skin, they felt frozen and hard. If she saw them for too long, she would remember, in flashes, shouts, the torture of:
"No, please no, stop it, stop it!”
If she saw her hands for too long, everything would come back to her and she would close her eyes until she heard the tap-tap of the pen hitting the table. And the bored eyes of them that were still there until she finished, to record what she denounced was the truth. But that they no longer believed, and she wanted to shout injustice and evil, and why her? Demand a change and help, although she knew it was in vain and only bit her lip and continued.
Lunch was peaceful, fruits, with his appearance a few minutes before, just when she was sitting. From there one would say that the events took place but no, from there the events only woke up, with accusations, and blows to the table. Crooked words and thrown plates, with strong footsteps on the floor and locked doors, there was the beginning and a warning.
And the neighbours? The friends? The family?
You couldn’t say that everyone was blind or deaf, that nobody listened to them at two in the morning, that they did not notice the broken breathing and the grabbing of the ribs. Or the astonishment of the compliments and the stooping of the back.
No one could deny knowing it and yet nobody had said anything, and now they could point the beginning, the fault. Yet they were only people with moral guilt.
Without accusation and she was the result of it, the events of that day were the consequence of their silence and now her friends, neighbours and family had to beg and excuse with false words and mouths full of cobwebs.
It was five hours later, with loud music, the vibrating of the windows and a mixture of spirits, the sleeping of demons and the thinking of security. That's where it all really happened and she had been with them in that room for three hours telling them everything, answering their questions, making it clear, how it developed so quickly. A creak in the wood floor, the glass that fell from the table, the hair pulled from the ends and a scream that the hand drowned.
There she cried, she covered her mouth with bloody hands and now her lips tasted like copper and guilt. Now her tears were a dull pink, and the men looked at her, bored. However, they felt sorry and gave her a handkerchief which she thanked and used.
They took five, to breathe to stretch their legs, and she breathed, stretched her hands on her legs and looked at the grey wall. Not wanting to close my eyes, she waited until they came back with a cup of hot tea and continued.
She could say that there was no planning, it was too rough, too violent and fast, that's the key in everything. It was too much. In a moment there was a creak on the walls, groans and pleading with forgiveness, there was blood on the floors and hands trying to move away. There was a glow of fear in the eyes and a pleasure in that, there was a misfortune in everything, and they were words with malice and madness.
The blue and red lights, the scream of the people, the door thrown down, the cat meowing and the canary flying around the house. The music vibrating at the doors and in the house, and they were on the stairs.
She grabbed the cup harder, her hands perspired, and two steps away. She stopped the speed of the situation, with a gasp, the sound of an injured animal, the silence in everyone's breath and the simple clack of the fall from a knife. It was over. With lights, police in the house and she stood next to the body.
The story was complete, she had told from beginning to end, and they were silent, she watched them, took the last of the tea, waiting, keeping her answer. One of them sighed, knocked on the door, opened it, handed him some pictures and returned.
He throws the photos on the table with some statements and she saw everything, not in flashes, not in her words, not in her memory. But in those photos and papers. In the bruises of his body, in the blood on her clothes and the blue eyes that were empty, she caressed that last photo. Where the eyes looked at the ceiling, where they were lost and even with traces of pain and fear, even with despair.
Her fingers crawled across her face, as she read the statements, jumping from the words of:
violence, possessive, jealousy, malice, abuse, pain, toxic and guilt.
All with guilt, the unclean all asking for forgiveness at the end of their statement, with a typical of:
"Oh, God, what have I done?"
And no one could answer that. She was lost at seeing his face, her dress with blood splatters stabs to the stomach and heart. The cuts on his face and arms, seeing the photos with blood on the wall, the bruises on his wrists, and in the truth that everything went so fast. He wanted to run away, and she couldn't let him. It made no sense, she just got angry and it was fast, a knife in the kitchen, legs moving, and hitting and fighting, and music.
And it is the truth when she tells them again as they leave that it was not her intention. Still stroking the photo of his dead eyes with pain and sadness.
T.A.