He gets a few steps and then stops. My heart stops too. I stop crying and hold still, afraid he maybe hasn’t finished with me yet, and recoil against the wooden stand when he walks back towards me, cowering under the shadow he casts and lifting my hands defensively level to my face. I’m shielding myself for an inevitable beating, against all sense telling me Alexi doesn’t hit women. A pose of old, a posture of my childhood. No matter how hard you try to kill instinctual reactions, they ...