Page 86 of Keep Your Guard Up
“Everything okay?” I asked, pushing the bathroom door open.
JJ smiled and gestured for me to go through the door he was holding open.
“Always, Lynnie.”
Chapter 47
Chance
My hands shook as I opened the filing cabinet of fucking doom. That stupidly sweet smell of Talia’s perfume wafted out like the smell of a rotting corpse in a coffin. The smell that was now also flooding JJ’s house. I sighed, checking the time on my watch.
4.37 am.
I only had another hour or so before Talia realised I was missing—only an hour before I couldn’t justify it as a ‘morning run’. Her reins had tightened since I’d left Mari’s place two days ago. I’d been grateful that my phone was dead when I was camping on her lawn, but that had earned me a sucker punch and a mouthful the second I’d walked through the front doorback at JJ’s. It had been followed by the usuals; ‘Look at what you’ve turned me into’, ‘This is your fault’, ‘Why would anyone believe you when I tell them you’ve hit me?’.
There had been countless nights in the house back in Darlington Harbour where I questioned my own mind—questioned why the woman I thought I loved would do this to me.
Was it really my fault?
Had I really turned her into this?
Would no one believe me when I said I never lay a hand on her?
Those questions used to haunt my thoughts over and over like some kind of fucked up merry-go-round.
But then I’d found Sunny.
Sunny, who’d shown me what it was like to live again, what it was like to grab life with two hands and say, ‘It’s fucking mine’. Sunny, who made the clouds part and sunshine beam through every time I looked into her big brown eyes. Sunny, who’d never tried to change me, but mademewant to changemyself.
I dug through the coffin of my old life until I found it. The old, beat-up, water-damaged notebook. Flicking through the crinkling pages, it was all still there. Every memory I ever got the chance to write. Every slap, punch, and kick. Every evening spent in coercive sex. Every disgusting word, every disgusting act—all in one place. A record of the nightmare that was my life.
Was.
Was. Was. Was.
I shut it, rolling it up tight and tucking it into my inner jacket pocket. I turned, slamming the filing cabinet closed and giving it a nice big ‘fuck you’ kick.
~
JJ:Satan is awake. She’s looking for you. Did you get it?
I stared at my phone, my mind in a whirlwind of doubt and panic and fear.
Fear.
I fucking hated fear.
I learned to fight so I never had to feel fear again; so anyone Ilovedwould never have to feel fear again.
My phone buzzed again.
JJ:You’re doubting yourself, aren’t you?
JJ:She’ll make the right choice, Chance. She always does. I bet my left nut on it.
Me:Not both?
JJ:… on the off chance that I’m wrong, no.
