Smeared across my palms, caked under my fingernails, drying brown in the creases of my knuckles and the lines of my fingers. It’s on my wrists. On the cuffs of my jacket.
He went down after the second blow, but I didn’t stop at two. I didn’t stop at five, either. I kept going, burning up inside as I hit and hit and hit. When he tried to cover his face, I moved to his body. When he curled up to protect his body, I went back to the face. I beat him until my hands were soaked through with him, and then I beat him a little more, because the first hit felt too good and every one after it felt better.
It’s not the violence itself that worries me. Violence is a tool. My father taught me that young, and he was right about that, if nothing else. Sometimes, you need a hammer, or a scalpel, or a bl
