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Silence: He is sitting there at the kitchen table, listening to it, and trying to find some voice-thought of consolation. Or apathy. That is because she is standing across the table from him, screaming. She says FAGGOT LOSER PATHETIC MOTHERFUCKER COCKSUCKER FAILURETHATSWHATYOUARE. She is drinking, is drunk. Her face is contorted and ugly. Her hair is partly matted down and partly sticking up. Her eyes are bloodshot and she is slurring. It is not the words, he thinks, it's that shrill voice and that vicious face. He rests his forehead against the butts of his hands, elbows on the table, trying not to look or listen. She continues inexorably. She is getting in some good digs, stuff that he really cannot respond to, partly because she was shitfaced. The rest was true, depending on your perspective. Frustrated, he slaps his hand down on the table, harder than he intended. She stops yelling immediately and stares at him, looking scared. He'd almost forgotten about that. He pushes his chair back away from the table and stands up. With as much deliberate patience as he can muster, he walks around the table toward her. She takes a step back. She asks what he is going to do, really asking. He moves in front of her with his hands by his sides. Her hands are down by her sides too, but she does not look at ease that way. He looks at her and can tell what she is thinking by the way her lower lip is trembling, eyebrows furrowed. It is a face he likes even less. He finds he likes her voice even less, too, when she cries out. It makes him hit harder.