My split lip, barely healed, has split open again.
I looked away because the mirror felt like it was judging me for staying. For accepting that this was my fault.
I pulled off my clothes and nausea rolled through me, slow and heavy. Memories follow. Not all at once. Just fragments.
His hand around my throat and the pressure of it. The moment his voice stopped sounding like anger and started sounding like something colder.
I drag in a breath as deep as my already damaged ribs will allow and slide a hand over my stomach. My breath catches instantly. An old bruise wraps across my side, wide and dark, one of Adrian’s warnings and another reminder it was my fault. My ribs flare beneath my fingers, sharp enough to make my vision blur for a second, and my body feels the exhausting ache that has settled deep into my bones.
The thought doesn’t feel like a conclusion; It just feels like gravity. And that scares me more than the bruises.
My mind flickers back to the other night, the moment his boot had come down one final time. It was the instant something in him stopped listening. That was when it changed, not when it started, but when it became final.
A part of me still waits, hoping every day that he will stop, that he won’t raise a hand or his boot. And that I’ll wake up still loving him, and somehow be safe inside that love too. But I know it won’t. I know he won’t stop.
I pray sometimes that it will all be different, and that he will just love me, for me.
Because he does love me.
Right?
* * *
I walked into the kitchen and found Adrian cooking breakfast. Eggs in a pan. Butter in the air. Like nothing had happened.
He looks up as I shuffle in…
“Morning,” I croaked. My lip opened again, and I felt the warmth of the blood bloom on my lip, causing Adrian’s gaze to drop immediately to it. I wiped at it fast.
“Sorry.”
The apology is already out before I’ve even thought it. He turned off the heat and walked toward me. My body went still, already bracing for impact. He sees my reaction to his movement. He always sees it.
He lifted his hands and cupped my face, causing me to flinch. His expression changed at once, barely, but enough. A small crease between his brows.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said softly. He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. I looked at him properly then.
He looked tired, caught somewhere between anger and danger, softened just enough to seem calm. Like last night never happened, and I wasn’t standing in front of him bruised, and shaking.
His hands stayed on my face while his eyes searched mine. I wanted him to see me. Not the mistake, or the thing that needed correcting.
Me.
My heartbeat is loud enough; I swear he must hear it.
Part of me wanted to run, but I knew what that would mean. He would follow. And I wouldn’t survive it.
Part of me, smaller, practiced, wants to fix the silence, to make it right. To apologize for last night, for the delay, for whatever I did wrong without realizing. So I did what always kept things stable.
“I’m sorry, Aidy,” I whispered. “I should have called. Please forgive me. I’ll remember next time.”
He watched me for thirteen heartbeats. Then his eyes dropped to the bruise under mine. Something shifted in his eyes; It wasn’t guilt, but something quieter. He looked distant.
Then, for the first time since I had known him, he looked away. He dropped his hands and walked out of the kitchen.
The silence he left behind hit harder than anything before it.
* * *
