You Can Beat Eggs, But You Can’t Batter Women

She rushes at me with the aluminium pan, and all of a sudden it’s not looking much like a gift anymore.

The pan arcs through the air in a downward swing aimed straight at me, and I duck to the side. I barely get out of the way, the pan thudding against my bed, but then Lizzie brings the pan back up and it whistles through the air laterally this time. There’s time to put up an arm, metal strikes flesh and my world flashes white. Pain lances through my right forearm as I belatedly register the fact that the pan is still hot from the stove.

I scream. Flesh burns, and I can’t tell if it’s from the heat or the blow. All I feel is the throbbing of a thousand needles jolting through my arm, and it is all I can do to resist jumping onto her and grabbing the pan back and beating her senseless. I need to be better, I need to…

There’s no time to complete the thought. The pan comes hurtling towards me again. I leap back onto the bed; the pan’s head slides through the air, she stumbles from the miss, and the pan hits the wall. There’s another thud. She looks jarred. The pan drops from her hand. I’m blinking back tears from my arm.

“Stop this,” I plead. “You don’t have to do this.”

I see a look of madness that tells me she isn’t hearing what I’m saying. Thankfully, she doesn’t go for the pan on the ground. She simply leaps on top of me and throws fist after wild fist at my chest, the reckless blows imprecise and fuelled by a rage that I know all too well.

I’ve grabbed a pillow, put it in front of me, and the punches through it are dampened. The blows are softened enough that I manage to gather my wits. I can’t hit back, that would jeopardise everything, but I need to get her to stop. This has been enough.

“Lizzie, just give me a second,” I say, “just…” I grunt as a fist goes through the pillow and connects with my stomach. “Just… we can work this out…”

“YOU FUCKED EVERYTHING UP,” she screams, and I see there are tears in her eyes, why are there tears in her eyes, and she tears the pillow away from my hands, and I flinch as a fist connects with the side of my face.

I fend her off best as I can, blocking her punches as they come, but Lizzie is unrepentant. Left with only one good arm to defend myself, the other one still screaming with a pain I can’t ignore, her fists eventually connect with their intended targets. Scattered punches to the gut, to the chest, but the bulk of them are aimed at my face, and the world flickers and jolts each time another one does, my reactions feeling a little duller, the room seeming a little darker.

“Please, stop this, I’ve got nothing, what do you want, I’m sorry, please, please,” the words are rolling out of my mouth as a continuous stream now, but all I hear the small grunts of satisfaction whenever she strikes me.

The fist starts high above her head and follows a loose semicircle downwards. I see it a moment too late, my own arm tries to come up and push it out of the way, and then it cracks down on top of my head. I hear a sharp noise, like a gunshot, or an egg cracking, or a piano crashing against the ground…

…it all goes black.

...