"Every Rose has its Thorn" by Luke F.

            Rose sat, awaiting his arrival. The clothes were washed and hung to dry, his dinner had been placed in the oven to keep warm. The entirety of their apartment had been tended to in an effort to erase as many traces as possible of the turmoil from the previous night. The table that previously held Rose’s favorite vase was now empty and bleak, while the shattered remains of the vase littered the bottom of the trash can. The aroma of the flowers outside sept in, masking the stench that emitted from the ashtray that sat on the nightstand next to his chair. Rose looked around, ensuring that she had plucked all imperfections from their places. She didn’t want to give him any reason to come home and condemn her, to expose her imperfections, her insecurities, her thorns. A wreath of ash accumulating around his ashtray caught Rose’s eye, sending her into an anxious rush to clean. If there was a mess near his favorite spot in the entire apartment, no matter how small, he would not be pleased. As Rose lifted the ashtray off the nightstand, she froze. The clinking of keys entering the deadlock sent Rose into a state of stagnant panic as memories from countless nights weeded their way into her mind. They became a valley of dryness from which no good could come, a concrete prison in which she could not escape, a nightmare. Rose snapped out of her haze, and he was standing in the doorway, staring at her. His mouth was slightly open, eyebrows converging on one another, he was angry. Rose glanced down to her feet, where she found his ashtray, his crystal ashtray given to him by his deceased father, shattered on the floor. She knew, as she did most nights, what was coming, and like most nights, she was not ready.

            The rampage began at that doorway and trailed throughout the entire apartment. There was stomping, pounding on the walls, but worst of all, there was the shouting. He barked the same insults as he did most nights, but it was all the same to Rose, it all was painful. No matter how often it happened, Rose never could drown out the agony bestowed on her by his judgement of her flaws, his scolding of her thorns.

            “You did that on purpose didn’t you? Because I knocked over your little vase, huh? This ashtray was worth more to me than anything, do you just not have common sense? Sometimes, I swear, you’re just the most brainless person I have ever met!”

           

            Thorn.

            “I can’t believe you! Always trying to get back at me, never doing anything productive. I work all day, six days a week, and what do I come home to? A laid-off failure who doesn’t even care to try learning to cook anything new for the only person who bothers giving her any time of day! I don’t even know why I even try with you anymore.”

            Thorn.

            “All I want in life is to be happy, and all you ever want to do is keep me from that! So selfish, so useless, just a sack of dead weight that I have to carry around because of an old ring.”

            Thorn.

            He had made his way into the bedroom, and after the door slammed shut, the lights turned off and the noise stopped. Rose looked around, seeing the path of destruction that followed his path. Broken glass littered the carpet, his chicken was splattered all over the floor of the kitchen, and the picture of her mother was knocked off of the wall next to the bedroom door. Rose looked down, and a foliage of ash and shattered ashtray infested her feet. She hadn’t moved an inch. A tear emerged from her eye, ran down her poppy-red nose, and dropped like dew into the patch of soot on the floor. Soon after, many more came. Rose didn’t know why she was crying, she should have been used to the insults by now. This was normal, it was always like that in her relationship. She wilted to the floor, burying her head in her knees, a steady rain pouring from her eyes. She was too scared. Too scared to leave, too scared to find something new, too scared to admit to herself that she deserved better.

            Thorn.

            Rose awoke the next morning still on the floor, ash still on her feet. She checked her surroundings, knowing he was already off at work, but too timid to get up without certainty. She began to clean, sweep up the glass, scrub the kitchen tile, fix her mother’s picture. She cleaned until the rampage was at least visually nonexistent. She didn’t want anything below his standards. She took the now dry clothes off of their hangars and placed them in the closet, found a new recipe for the chicken she was to make for him that night, and fixed anything else she could. By the time she was done, she sat down at the kitchen table, looking at the clock, knowing it was time. He would be getting home soon. Rose sat still, preparing herself for the arrival of her one, true,

            Thorn.