There Is No Peace Tonight
Author's Note
This was a rather personal story for reasons I would rather not talk about.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, it’s important to speak up and get help. Let’s end the silence on domestic violence.
Resources for those in need.
To all of you survivors out there: There is hope for you, and you are the most badass people I know. There is more to life than surviving. You deserve to live. And if you’re out there and struggling, I am here for you all.
There Is No Peace Tonight
Please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby...
The words are my litany, my silent prayer. I pray them to whatever god will listen to me as Tartarus breaks loose in my home.
Glass is shattering. The yelling is reverberating off of the walls, and it seems as though the whole house is shaking with his fury.
Oh stop this, please stop this.
I am frozen. I cannot move. My limbs are stiff and feel as though they weigh a million pounds. And I am scared. I am so scared. The only movements I make are to flinch away from him, even on the other side of the room, because his anger is palpable enough to strike me from that distance. A vase shatters.
Please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby...
He is furious.
“How could you do this to me?!” He rages.
I don’t say anything unless he asks me to. If I open my mouth I make things worse, and then I get hit.
“Say something!” He demands, skulking over to me, getting dangerously close.
Please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby...
“I-I didn’t mean to-“
“Lies!” He screams, and strikes me with a hoof.
I am terrified, and I am trapped. He’s blocking me from getting off the couch and to the door. That way I can’t call the police. Maybe the neighbors will be my saviors and do it. They’re my only hope. But if he cast his soundproofing spell again, there is no help for me.
I will never escape.
“We can’t afford this! What do you not understand about that?! Are you stupid?! Are you reckless?!”
“No!”
“Shut up!” I flinch as though he’s going to hit me, cowering behind my arms. He doesn’t. The fact that I flinched alone is enough to convince him that he silenced me. “We can’t afford another baby! You know that!”
I nod woodenly. It’s all I can mange. Sweet Celestia, please let Shining still be asleep so he doesn’t see or hear this... I can’t bear to see him cry right now.
“Are you gonna say something?!”
“What do you want me to say?” I’m surprised I can still use words and not just screams.
“Tell me it’s mine!”
I straighten at that insult. “Of course it’s yours! I would never be unfaithful to you!”
“I don’t believe you!” He knocks a votive candle off of the table, and it breaks.
Please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby...
“I didn’t cheat! I swear! The doctor said the birth control failed.”
“And whose fault is that?!”
Yours for buying those cheap condoms. “It’s mine.”
“There now, was it so hard to admit that?” His voice is sugary sweet as syrup and a chill goes down my spine. He’s terrifying in a different way when calm.
“N-No.”
“No, what?”
My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. “No, dear.”
He isn’t pleased. “Watch your tone.” He hisses.
Please stop, please stop, please stop, please stop...
I can’t look at him. I don’t dare to, because if I do, he’ll find more reasons to yell. And I’ve probably already damaged my son if he’s heard this happening. He’s just a baby... barely a toddler... I want to take him and leave but I can’t. Night Light handles all the money in the family, mine included. I can’t access any of it without him finding out. And if I touched it and he knew... I would be dead. My son probably would be too. I don’t see my friends anymore. Any ties to the outside world have been slowly cut off over the years. Nopony knows what’s happening to me, or what my son goes to bed hearing. I want it to stop, but I can’t find the way out. Not without putting my baby- babies- in danger. And so I sit here, waiting for it to be over. All I can do is ride out the storm until it passes, and then clean up the mess.
I hear a snick! Noise. He’s gotten out the hard cider. Or maybe it’s the whiskey. Either way, it gives me ten seconds to catch my breath- ten more than I’ve had in hours.
He turns to me, amber colored drink in hoof- I think it’s the whiskey from the smell- and downs it in one go. He sets down the glass on the coffee table, deliberately making a show of it, before he turns to me, Eyes colder than Equestria before the three tribes United.
He stares at me, searching my expression for something. I don’t know what- but I wish I did so I could give him what he wants and this could be over.
Please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby...
He looks at my face, then down at my still-flat-for-now stomach. My hoof moves over to hold it unthinkingly. I must protect the baby. I cannot lose it. He steps forward, and I am very careful not to lean back in kind. I can’t let him trap me anymore than he already has.
Please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby, please don’t hurt the baby...
He comes up to me, gets close to my face. I can smell the liquor on his breath and it makes me want to vomit even more. I’m having a hard time swallowing the bile back down.
“You really screwed up.” His voice is icier than a winter night. I nod my head slightly in acknowledgment to that. He looks at me a few seconds. Something flashes through his eyes that suddenly makes me afraid he’ll try and rape me. But as quick as the savagery I caught a glimpse of appeared, it was gone again. I can’t sigh in my relief yet. He’s still right in my face. “I want a divorce.” He says finally, and I nod. I don’t dare say a word.
He studies me a few moments more, then goes out the kitchen door, taking the bottle of liquor with him.
I let my breath out shakily, cradling my stomach, as a tear runs down my cheek. I’m safe. Or so I think. I never know anymore.
Move. You have to move. I tell myself it over and over again. You have to move now. If he gets a second wind, you’re trapped again. But I can’t move. My fear is paralyzing.
“Mommy?” A sleepy sounding voice pulls me from my thoughts, and I immediately compose myself at the sight of my son at the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes Shiny?”
“I’m scared. There’s a monster under my bed.” It’s a whimper
There’s a monster in the house too. “I’ll be right there, Shiny.” I promise.
He nods, and goes back upstairs.
I have to be quick. I make sure the glass is swept up and thrown out as fast as I can manage. All the while I keep looking over my shoulder, fear and adrenaline heightening my senses to new levels, as terror pummels through me at the thought of him coming back.
But he doesn’t. I clean up the glass shards from the floor, and I run to the bathroom to wash any evidence of tears from my face. My son doesn’t need to see me this way. I plaster a smile on my face as if everything is fine, because for all he should know at this age, it is. I take a few seconds to shake the fear off of myself before I go in.
Shining Armor is sitting on his bed, looking afraid. I sit next to him, and smooth his mane.
“Are those silly monsters trying to sneak in again?” I ask him.
He nods. “They’re gonna hurt me, Mommy.”
“I don’t think they will, Shiny. You know why?”
He shakes his head and looks up at me, and my heart clenches at the sight of those big blue eyes. They are the only reason I don’t give up. “Because you’re a very brave boy, and those monsters haven’t seen how brave you can be.”
He tilts his head to the side. “I’m brave?”
“The bravest little colt there ever was.” I smile at him, and his eyes light up as he crawls into my lap. He touches my stomach.
“I’m gonna protect you and baby, Mommy.”
Sweet Celestia I hope you don’t protect me or you’ll be hurt and I’ll be devastated... “I know you will, baby.”
“Mommy, can I sleep with you? Please?”
I bite my lip. Normally I would say yes, but considering the circumstances... “I don’t know, Shiny.”
“Please, Mommy! The bad guy is gonna get me! He makes all the crashy yelly noises and I don’t like it, Mommy!”
A lump forms in my throat and my heart breaks at the same time. I have to fight to speak around it. “No bad guy will get you tonight, baby boy. You’re sleeping with me.”
He cheers. I try not to fall to pieces. But the cracks in my mask are widening, and soon I won’t be able to wear it anymore.
I lead him to my room and tuck him into my bed, before curling around him protectively. I kiss him.
“Goodnight, baby.”
“Nini, Mommy...”
He falls asleep, but I am wide awake, listening for any noise that will tell me he’s coming back. I listen in the darkness and in the quiet. No creaking on the stairs, no steps in the hall, nothing. I finally fall into a fitful sleep.
My eyes open when I hear the door open. I hold my breath. Steps inch closer, and then the bed creaks.
Please don’t hurt the babies, please don’t hurt the babies, please don’t hurt the babies...
He lays down next to me, and touches me softly. “I’m sorry.” He whispers, running a hoof through my mane.
“I know.” I whisper, careful not to wake my son.
He kisses me, those poison lips trying to kill me as he presses them to my head. I don’t move. Soon, he’s asleep.
I don’t touch him. I wrap myself around my son. and I fall asleep.
There is no escape. There is no peace tonight.
