I hesitate. Just for a second. Just long enough for his expression to darken.
"I said come here."
He grabs my wrist, yanks me down onto his lap.
His arms wrap around me, holding me in place.
"You know I love you, right?" he murmurs against my hair. "Everything I do is because I love you."
"I know," I say.
"You make me crazy sometimes. The way you look at other men—it makes me crazy. You're mine. You're fuckin’ mine."
His hand slides up my thigh. I force myself to relax. To lean into him. To play the part.
"I'm yours," I say. The words taste like poison.
Later—after he's had his fill of me, after he's rolled over and fallen asleep with his arm across my stomach like an anchor—I lie awake and stare at the ceiling.
The bruises on my hip throb gently, new additions to the collection I hide beneath my clothes.
Tomorrow they'll bloom purple and green. I'll cover them up like I always do.
No one will know.
I think about getting up.
Packing a bag.
Walking out the door and never looking back.
I could go to my mother's house.
I could call my father, ask for money, disappear somewhere Cain could never find me.
But then I hear his voice in my head:You'd be nothing without me.
And I believe him.
That's the worst part.
After three years, I believe him.
I look in the mirror and see what he sees—a woman who's too fat, too stupid, too worthless to make it on her own.
A woman whose own father couldn't be bothered to stick around.
He's broken something in me.
Something I don't know how to fix.
Slowly, carefully, I slide out from under his arm.
I pad barefoot to the bathroom, close the door softly, and turn on the light.
My reflection stares back at me.
I don't recognize her.
