it tore my heart out...

I'm getting ready to end my shift at the Ramada when a woman comes in. She's trembling and her face is red. She has a bent car key in her hand. It was obviously bent on purpose and not by accident. She asked me to call a locksmith. I began looking up numbers. My manager was standing nearby since he was working the shift after mine. Then a man comes in. He's obviously drunk. He tells the woman to come with him. She says no and that she's trying to call a locksmith. He says he'll unbend it with his pliers if she comes with him. She says for him to bring the pliers down. He says for her to come up. They go back and forth like this for a while, then he leaves. He then pounds on the window and signals for her to come out. She resists. He does it again.

... She then looks at me. Her face crumples up and turns red. She starts crying and trembling uncontrollably. And she says lightly, "I have to go out now." And she leaves.

Now, I have seen my father die and I have faced many painful experiences, but nothing has hit me like this. It was so painful... the look in her face. It conveyed more than I have ever seen a face convey. I wanted to do something, but I knew there was nothing I could do. I looked over at my manager and he flatly said, "I feel sorry for her." This was not a flip comment. He did feel sorry and this was all he could do to express it. He's seen a lot, I'm sure, in his time there, but for me this was new. I mean, yeah, I've seen women get in arguments and little tiffs with their boyfriends/husbands but something about this woman and her transparent agony and desperation... It just tore at me.

I wish I could have done something. I wish there was something that could have been done. I wish people got what they deserved. And I wish people knew how they should be treated and the type of relationship they really deserve.