When it is finally over, silence fills the room, and Adrian lies beside me, completely calm, as if nothing happened, as if he hadn’t just forced himself on me. I stare at nothing, the light dancing on the ceiling above me.
“You didn’t cum.”
My body jolts at his voice, and my throat tightens. “It’s okay, Adrian,” I whisper. “I’m just tired.” I turn away from him, as I can’t have this conversation.
He leans over me and kisses me lightly on the cheek. Rolling over, his back to me, I listen to his breathing. Waiting for it to steady and for him to sleep.
I count the minutes until I know he won’t wake, and then I carefully make my way to the bathroom, locking myself in. Starting the shower, I look at myself in the mirror. I need to stop pretending. The damage is there to see, the proof in the blood and the finger marks on my throat.
I can’t deny this anymore.
I shower quickly and return to bed, but sleep never comes, and I spend the night awake. My body aches, and my mind refuses to quiet. The pain in my body isn’t what breaks me.
It’s the truth.
Adrian will not stop, no matter how much I want to believe that he will.
I keep telling everyone I am fine. I keep telling myself that I am fine, but I know I am not, and the realization of that settles slowly and heavily in my soul, making it impossible to ignore. Adrian doesn’t love me the way he should. He doesn’t see me as a partner.
He sees me as something he can keep. Something he can control. So when I roll over and look out the window, Ree’s question comes back to me. It sits in me, quiet and simple, but relentless.
Are you safe?
The question lies beside me in the dark, as real as the man sleeping next to me. It waits, patient and relentless, waiting for me to answer it. The truth hurts more than any bruise Adrian has ever left behind, because once I admit it, I can never deny it.
The answer is simple.
No.
For the first time, I don’t lie or make excuses, and I don’t soften the truth.
I face it. Tears quietly slip onto my pillow as the last sliver of hope inside me finally breaks. It isn’t my spirit; It’s the illusion, the hope that he would change. The belief that I can survive this forever.
For the first time, I know exactly what I have to do.
Run.
6
Eli
I wake before Adrian.
For a while, I just lie there and listen. The house shifts and settles as morning stretches over it, timber creaking softly as the sun climbs. Beyond the open window, waves roll in steady and indifferent, breaking against the shore like nothing in the world could ever change them. Light spills through the curtains in thin gold sheets, painting the floor in quiet patterns.
It’s a beautiful morning.
And beside me, Adrian sleeps as if the world has never touched him. The sight sits wrong in my chest. A tight ache forms beneath my ribs, sharp enough to make my breath catch. My body reacts before my mind does, curling inward as if trying to protect something already broken.
This man is the storm in my life.
The source of every bruise, every flinch, every night I’ve spent staring at a ceiling and learning how to breathe throughfear. My throat tightens. A faint tremor moves through my hands, the kind that comes from remembering too much too quickly. The truth sits heavy in my chest, impossible to swallow.
And yet here he is, peaceful. Untouched. While I lie awake beside him, drowning in something that tastes like guilt and anger and the slow erosion of myself. My pulse drags, slow and uneven. The room feels too quiet, too still, like it’s waiting for me to break again. I force myself to move before the weight pins me in place.
I get up carefully.
Shower.
