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There’s an expression about seeing red.

They say when you’re consumed with rage, you see red. Your sense of awareness is skewed. Your thoughts aren’t logical. Your decisions aren’t sane.

You’re seeing red.

I’ve been angry before; I’ve let it get the best of me rather than accepting the pain that was always there.

But I never knew the true meaning of seeing red until I heard Allie scream.

I could hear her behind the door.

I thought I heard from the sidewalk. A scream that made the hairs on my arm stand on end. A scream the neighbor heard, and I caught her looking toward Allie’s door with concern.

My heartbeat picked up and it was already pounding in my chest.

Every step before I heard her, I thought about the text I sent her. I was fixating on it.

I almost didn’t send it. I almost acted like a coward and let her leave me.

If Daniel hadn’t convinced me to get my sorry ass out of the bar, I might not be here now.

You need to stop pushing me away, I texted her. I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you’ve got to stop this shit. I’m coming over.

She didn’t reply. And I didn’t expect her to, but I was still coming to get her.

I was thinking about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. It felt like it was my last chance. The Hail Mary of getting her back, but also keeping her. And then I heard her.

My boots slapped on her porch as I picked up my pace.

My fists slammed on the door as I called out her name.

But I could barely hear them over the sound of the chaotic pounding in my chest, the sound of my blood rushing in my ears.

The sound of her screaming out again. With fear.

My shoulder crashed into the door without thinking twice. The pain rippled up my neck and down my back.

“Allie!” I screamed her name as the wood cracked and I shoved myself into the room. She was right there, but so far away.

The sight will be burned into my memory forever.

The scratch on Kevin’s arm, deep and bright in color, the redness in Allie’s skin and clear fear written on her face, cheeks tearstained and her voice raw and hoarse as she screamed again. How he was hovering over her, shoving her down even as he looked up at me.

Red.

It’s all red.

I don’t know how my body moved, but it did. I don’t think I breathed until I picked up the lamp.

I remember him picking his body up, and I could see him thinking about how to play it off. I could see the look in his eyes. Like he wasn’t actually hurting her. Like I’d just caught him playing around.

The lamp was so light in my grasp. Like it was nothing as I whacked it over his head. My body was tight and screaming. But it took no energy at all. No thought. His head was the part of him closest to me as he raised up. The easiest to strike.

The sound is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget either. The crack of the lamp, the crunch of his bones.

The blow was solid. Even though his wrist blocked the first, the next bash of the lamp struck him right where I aimed. The cord swung around, whipping him in the face and then back to my arm. I aimed again as he yelled at me to stop.

And I know I aimed. I can remember that.

Again and again, my arm lifted and slammed the lamp down. My throat burned with a scream I couldn’t hear. I pushed my muscles harder and harder, feeling like I was on fire.

I just wanted her to stop screaming. I wanted all this to go away. To be a nightmare and nothing more.

For a moment, I questioned myself. As if the sudden lapse of sanity was over. As if I wasn’t angry, and I was wondering what I was doing.

But the moment was quickly forgotten when I heard Allie scream again.

And that’s when the hammering of the base of the lamp turned to a slash from the broken ceramic.

It’s all a haze of red.

Like I wasn’t seeing things clearly. Like it wasn’t real.

It stayed that way as the blood spilled from his neck where a shard of the glass pierced his skin. It covered his shoulder and poured onto my leg and onto the sofa. I’ve never seen anything like it. And maybe that surprise is what stopped me. I can’t be sure.

His eyes stare through me. Every breath I wait for him to blink, but he doesn’t. I can imagine him reaching up to stop the steady flow of blood, but his body is still.

I can hardly hear Allie, but I know her screams have stopped and she’s saying something else now. Something laced with dread and guilt, but I can’t hear her over the ringing in my ears. I can hardly focus my vision on her. My body’s shaking and I can’t move. I’m frozen. It feels that way too as I drop what’s left of the lamp to the floor. It thuds, that’s clear to me. But Allie’s words are mixed with the memory of her scream.

I can barely feel her tugging on me as I stare at her ripped pajamas, hanging off her chest.

It all stays red until the scream from behind me forces me to realize there’s someone here. Someone other than Allie, someone who came in behind me. Allie’s weeping on the ground, her hands covered in blood as she crouches on the ground and then looks up at me with fear and sorrow swirling in her eyes and it takes another scream before I turn around to face the front door and see who’s screaming.

Someone who would bear witness to what I’d done.

Someone who heard the screaming and came in through the front door.

Someone who saw Kevin’s dead body at my feet.

Allie’s neighbor from earlier screaming in the doorway behind me.