He’s looking towards the car now and shouting and out of my face. This isn’t Jason, this isn’t even Jason when we’ve been fighting, this is Jason as high as a kite and off his nut on ice, meth, shard. Whatever it’s called, that’s what I found in that bag, and I have no idea how to deal with this Jason, other than to try and remain calm and not antagonise him. “Then we’ll just get rid of it. The car can go, what shall we buy instead, what car would you like Jay?”
He drops my arm and pushes both hands through his hair. “I don’t know Lauren, I don’t know anything anymore. I used to think I had all the answers, that I had everything under control. But you left me, you left me and you found him and it’s not right Lauren.”
He takes a step towards the car. I look past him to see if I can make it around him and out onto the street before he can catch me. My phone is still in my hand, if I can just get a call out for some help. He turns back towards me and instinctively I step back away from him, closer to the open front door. “Shall we burn it?”
“What?”
“The car. Shall we burn it?”
“NO!” I don’t mean to shout, but I’m panicking. Trying to remember everything I’ve ever read or heard about Crystal Meth and its side effect. I can’t, other than the pictures of people’s faces, at how much it aged and changed their appearance, at the moment Jay just looks thinner and has crazy eyes. How long has he been using this shit I wonder? Is this the reason his moods swings have increased over the past couple of years. Surely there is no way he could have maintained a relationship with me, held down a job, run a business. All while taking that shit, I would have known. Surely I would have known?
“We can just sell the car. No need to burn it, it’s worth a lot of money, its top of the range. Take a look inside”
He takes another step towards me, looking confused. I rummage in my bag and find the keys. My phone starts to vibrate in my hand and it’s all I can do not to look at it. I don’t want Jason to know I have my phone and he’s looking right at me. I hold the keys out to him.
“Take a look.”
He takes the keys from me and as soon as he turns towards the car, I run back inside the house, slam the door and lock it. Then I go into a complete blind panic. I can’t remember my pin to unlock my phone, then I forget how to bring the key pad up. I never dial a number, everything is stored, I stare at the screen for a few split seconds as Jason starts banging on the door, I get the right screen up and dial triple zero and tell the operator where I am and what’s going on. Just as I hang up Gabe calls. Gabe, oh fuck!
“Where are you, I came home early and you’re not here? Have you left me?”
I stop to sob. I think I can already hear sirens. “Lauren… Lauren… Shit, baby, what’s wrong?”
“Gabe. Come to Jason’s now. Please come to Jason’s now.”
The glass panel comes crashing into the hallway and I scream and step back. It’s too small a space for Jason to fit through but it doesn’t stop him trying, the jagged pieces of glass left in the frame, tear into his skin. It’s like a scene from a horror movie.
“Open the fucking doors Lauren. Open them now!” He roars at me.
“NO, Jay, no. Please.” I don’t know if I’m crying or screaming, or even saying the words out loud. Jason’s roaring at me and smashing into the front doors, Gabe’s shouting down the phone, I can’t think straight. I have no idea what Gabe’s saying, I think I can hear him calling my name but then I drop the phone as the double front doors come crashing in and swing open, hanging from their hinges in the frame. I make it up two steps before I’m grabbed by my hair and spun around, everything happens so fast I don’t even see the blow coming as his hand strikes the side of my face. I’m lifted off the floor by the force, but it’s the second one that really makes me see stars and I think I may actually blank out for a few seconds, because the next thing I remember is Jason being pulled off me and I start to fall to the floor, but I’m caught, there’s a police man and woman and they have hold of me, Jason is on the floor in the hallway there are policemen everywhere. I count six on him and his hands are cuffed behind his back, the noises he’s making sound like an animal. The front doors are hanging off their hinges and there is glass and blood everywhere and the sound of sirens, all I can hear are the sirens and Jason’s animalistic roars and cries, there’s chaos and confusion all around me. Glass, blood, noise, sirens. It’s all too much, my head is still spinning from the blows and my cheek is bleeding, ironically enough, it was Jason’s wedding ring catching my cheekbone that has caused the blood, I will probably have a scar, a reminder.
Then above it all I hear him. “LAUREN. Fuck. Let me through, she’s my wife, let me fucking through.”
Gabe appears, fighting off a policeman, and I start to laugh, then I cry, then I scream at the officer trying to hold him back. “Leave him, leave him the fuck alone”