“You stupid bitch.”
I feel the wind of her movements like a hurricane warping around me. She’s an angry bull and I’m the red cape. I always am. She charges toward me, her right palm raised, and her eyebrows in a furious knot. She’s a foot shorter than me but her height doesn’t correlate with her sizzling intimidation. Her emotional instability is as bottomless as the Diet Coke at the country-style restaurant my grandparents take me to every other weekend.
I’m standing in our modest living room. In my peripheral I can see a snowy Robert Bateman painting hanging crookedly above the brick fireplace and a collection of handmade South American trinkets trembling on the mantle. The plush velvet of our sage-green love seat tickles my calves; it’s the only thing keeping me upright. I’d topple over if I didn’t have something to hold me up. I can hear the static charge of her feet sprinting along the shaggy carpet with each thunderous step. Whether the zap will bring me back to life or kill me is up for debate.
She truly despises me in this moment. At least, I feel as if she does. Of course, she would deny it. My feelings are always wrong even if, to me, they feel awfully accurate. Or she’d say that it’s my fault for making her this enraged. As if I have the power to control her behavior. She has always taught me not to say “hate” because it’s a strong word but to me it feels like the right one, right now. She thinks I’m worthless. I’m everything she hates about herself, and my father, combined into one lanky, lippy girl.
My heart wallops the inside of my chest; an eery imitation of what my borderline mother wants to do to my face. Will she hit me? Will she go through with it this time? If she does, there is no going back. I can no longer turn a blind eye. In a way I want her to hurt me. I want her to see the physical proof of the abuse . . .

The Sting of the Slap is part of Thirteen Emotions, a collection of short stories and flash fiction. Buy a copy on Amazon or through my bookstore and read the full story.