Ivan kicks my leg, hard. And then he finally walks out the door, slamming it behind him. I scramble to latch the lock. Push a chair against the door, and then I run to Ethan. He’s holding his face, sobbing so hard. I think maybe it will hurt if I hug him but worry it might be worse if I don’t.

“I’ll call the police,” I say.

“You don’t really think the cops are going to want in on a fight between a couple of queers, do you?” Ethan says, sniffing and wiping his face with the back of his hand. Blood smears across his cheek.

“Hospital?”

“I don’t want anyone to see me like this. I don’t want to go out there. I don’t want—” His face wrinkles. It hurts him to cry and that makes him cry harder. You can see it—how it hurts.

“Okay. It’s okay,” I say over and over because I have no other words. I run to the bathroom and get a washcloth. Soak it under the faucet and bring it to him. He’s crying so hard his whole body trembles.

I clean his face. Wash the blood from his hair the best I can. And then we sit on the floor in the middle of all the smashed groceries and I hold him and tell him everything will be okay, because that’s what I always wished someone would tell me whenever I got hurt.

“I shouldn’t have tried,” Ethan says. “I knew better. But he was here when I got home. He still had the key, and I missed him. I didn’t realize he was drunk. I let myself hope.”

When he’s stopped crying, I slide the refrigerator against the back door in the kitchen. My hip aches when I push. I pile more furniture in front of the front door and check every window latch. We sleep in Ethan’s room, with my arms around him, the TV on like a night light, my buck knife hidden under the mattress, just in case.

The next morning, I get up before Ethan does to clean the tomato sauce and blood and broken glass off the carpet the best I can. I call Robert and ask him to help me change the locks.

Ethan cries when he wakes up. We hear him all the way downstairs. I bring him a wet washcloth. His nose is swollen and bruised. The cut on his cheekbone is thick and crusted over. It’s hard to tell where one bruise stops and the next one starts. He holds his stomach. Tries to stop crying. He can’t. I kiss his forehead and clean his face. When I change the bloodied pillowcase, Robert sits on the bed and lets Ethan rest his head in his lap.