I heard something hit the ground and then felt something cold touch my ring finger and I began thrashing. “Steven!” I screamed, jerking on my arm with everything I was. “Stop,please!Please,” I sobbed.
He slammed his elbow into my chest, the air leaving my lungs all in one burst.
I coughed, my head spinning, pain screaming over my left ring finger. I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
Something far too tight was shoved over my knuckles, straight down to the base of my finger. I could feel warmth sliding across my hand, down my wrist, the pain blinding.
Steven turned back to me and grabbed the hair at the back of my skull, forcing my head to remain in place as he lifted my left hand up, showing me my bright red finger, already swollen around the thin silver band with a shitty ass diamond embedded into the metal, streams of blood flowing freely from where the ring had ripped some of my skin down.
It hurt.
My chest caved in.
My stomach tightened.
My eyes widened.
The walls started closing in around me.
No.
No!
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this.
“There,” he said, panting, sweat dotting his forehead. “Now the world knows who you belong to.”
He dropped my other hand, a prideful smile on his face. “Such a pretty little thing, aren’t you? We need to make your outsides match your insides though,” he explained, his smile dropping. “The pathetic, wasteful whore you are. I need to beat the trash out of you, don’t I? I can’t walk down the aisle with someone so fucking slutty. We have to brighten you up. Make you worthy of a white dress.”
He released my hair only to grab the left side of my face and slam my head into the wall right next to the knife.
The world spun, warmth sliding down the right side of my face. I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. Nothing made sense.
He jerked me off the wall and threw me to the ground where I collapsed into a pile.
I grunted, unable to breathe as I tried to right myself and crawl away, a ringing sounding in my ears, excruciating pain shooting up my left hand every time I put any pressure on it.
I hated my mom.
I hated myself.
This was karma for what I had done. My penance for cheating. For letting that man use me to pay off Steven’s debt.
I deserved all of this.
Every ounce of it, I deserved it.
His hand wrapped around my ankle, jerking me back. “You peed yourself?” he asked, flipping me onto my back. “That’s fucking disgusting.”
He jumped on top of me and instinct kicked in. I startedthrashing, kicking, screaming. I felt something slash through my right hand, pain shooting up my arm, but I kept going, trying to claw deep enough to force him off of me.
Why did I let this happen?
Three years of my life wasted with this piece of shit, and I juststayed. Now I was going to die. I was going to die in his shitty apartment and nobody would know.
Nobody would even realize I was gone.
