Page 40 of All I Have Left

Please wake me up from this dream because I can’t take it anymore.

The thing is, it’s not a nightmare.

It’s a reality.

20

EVIE

My body trembles, my face burning, lip soaked in blood. Tears drip from the corners of my eyes and onto his pillow. I don’t look at him. I stare at a spot on the ceiling where there’s a crack in the drywall. If I had to guess, he threw something at it. My hands are resting on my stomach, my breathing slow and steady, an indication that I have no fear anymore. I have given up. If this is my fate, he can have me. If it means he won’t harm the people around me, I surrender.

Three feet away, Shane sits next to his window in a chair, smoking. It curls out from under the sill and toward the ceiling in waves before slowly descending on me. I wish I could fade away like the smoke and dissolve into nothing but air.

I hate the menacing look he wears, the smugness, the stillness in the room. His hair falls into his face and his only movement is the inhale and exhale of his breaths. I stare at the lit cigarette, the ash increasing to the point it tumbles over his fingers, as if it’s giving up too. The air around me is sticky, humid, suffocating.

I breathe in slow and steady, wishing for sleep to forget the nightmare I’m in.

With a sigh, Shane stands, his hands on his buckle.There’s a clank and the wrestling of his jeans being lowered. Shadows dance around the room, the bed dips and I know what comes next.

I think this might be quick, but in the back of my mind, I know what this is. Shane is going to make me pay for every minute of humiliation he experienced at the hands of Grayson. The girl inside me, the one that desperately begs me to put a stop to this, she screams.

Don’t let this happen.

Don’t let him use you.

Don’t make excuses.

Don’t swallow your pain.

I hear that girl, but she’s slipping away from the reality I’m in, her soul bruised so deep it’s turning black.

I beg him to let me go, his grip too hard. “Stop, Shane…,” I plead between sobs, holding my palms to my face and knowing damn well my body is no longer mine. It’s a possession he holds hostage. “Please stop doing this. You’re hurting me.”

“You destroyed me,” he grunts, forcefully slamming himself inside me again. He stares at me, waiting for my eyes to find his. I can’t. His face is out of focus. “You’ve hurt me so much.”

There’s a moment right then when I think about Grayson. I drop my hands and stare at the ceiling again, willing his face in my mind. I think about the confusion in his eyes and the way he looked walking away from me.

I could fight Shane off me, but where will that get me?

More pain probably.

If I let him, this will be over soon. If I don’t fight, he won’t.

If I lie here, he will eventually stop, right? “Did he fuck you first?” Shane asks, his whiskey, smoky breath blowing over my face. It sends a curl of nausea through me.

I don’t answer until he grabs a handful of my hair and yanks it so hard I see stars. A jolt of pain radiates through my neck and into my jaw. Tears roll down his cheeks, his chin shaking. “Did you fuck him?”

He’s suddenly in focus and for the first time in a while, I meet his eyes I’m so terrified of. “Yes.” I offer nothing more. No apology, because it’s not needed. I don’t have to apologize for the past, or the future, because they don’t exist anymore.

My words change his movements. There’s more aggression, more power. I don’t fight back. I remain still, numb, telling myself it will be over soon.

It is over. This will be the last time. I won’t let this happen again.

It’s not worth it. And for the first time in my life, I want to die. Right here. It’d be so much easier. So when his other hand grips my neck and squeezes, I welcome the lack of air. I deserve it for allowing this to happen.

The weak seek the weak, and he found it in me.

Your mind can be a dark place if you let it. A place where fears become a blurred version of what you think will happen. It plays out before you, a way out, an answer.

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