Chapter Text
“This is where you live?”
I gasp and turn around. I did not hear him following me. Not until he mumbled this utterance of surprise.
“What are you doing here, Tom?,” I hiss and look at him, annoyed and somewhat frightened that somebody might see him with me and me with him. Quickly, I pull him into a tiny alleyway just off the main road which provides enough protection for the moment at least. Why did he have to be so stupid?
“I want to help you. Because clearly, something is quite wrong at your...well, where you live,” he defends himself, his steel blue eyes looking at me pleadingly.
I sigh and let my hand run through my wet hair for a moment. The rain has stopped by now but the air is still humid and the car’s fumes hang heavily above the asphalt.
“Tom you should not be here. This is no place for you to wander around in those...those fancy clothes,” I mumble and look at him once more. He looks dashing and so obviously not from around here that I am surprised he hasn’t been robbed yet.
“And it’s not a place for you either,” he whispers, carefully taking my hand into his. “Let me help you. Let me get you a room. Away from this,” he motions at the rundown houses around us, rats scudding around the overspilling dustbins behind us. “And most importantly away from this,” he adds almost inaudibly and gently strokes along the fading bruise around my eye.
“It’s not that easy, Tom. I cannot simply take my stuff and walk out of this house. I cannot simply walk away.” I feel tears welling up in my eyes and take a step away from him. His fingertips drop from my eye, my hand slips out of his.
I can see the “Why not?” hovering in his eyes but he doesn’t ask. He merely looks at me, hoping that his bondi blue eyes, with which he seems to see right into my soul, might make me change my mind.
It’s not that easy.
It never has been.
All of a sudden, I am ashamed of where I live, of what happens to me every day, of everything I never did purely because I am afraid.
But what do I have to lose?
My dignity? Long gone.
My pride? Long gone as well.
My life? I am not sure I have a life...but I am alive. That is worth something.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble and kiss him quickly on the cheek before I walk past him, around the corner and soon after out of his sight. I look around every now and then, making sure he doesn’t follow me again. I don’t want him to see the place I live. Most importantly, I don’t want him to see Tom.
Carefully and quietly, I open the front door and listen. Nothing. Except for the drip drip drip from the raindrops falling through the broken rooftop the house is quiet. I slip inside and close the door behind me before I walk upstairs to my room. Despite me being alone, I still avoid those creaky stairs merely out of habit while going up. The oh-so-familiar puddle greets me at the top of the staircase and I step over it. There’s no point in making everything dirtier and wetter and grubbier as it already is.
Once in my room, I let out the breath I didn’t even know I had been holding, and sit down on the mattress of my bed. Slowly, my eyes wander around my room. The chair in front of my desk is gone. I suppose he has taken it downstairs or maybe he has just thrown it out to annoy me, to take away another of those things I can call mine.
There isn’t much left now. The few clothes I have, fit in two drawers of my dresser. The other two were once filled with my personal belongings. With photos and letters, souvenirs and bits and bobs that one doesn’t need but keeps anyway just for the sake of it. Now these drawers are empty.
A pile of books lies on top of my desk. He doesn’t touch them because he simply doesn’t know what to do with them. I’m not even sure he can read. Besides that, there is nothing else. I don’t have a phone, I don’t have a laptop. God, I don’t even have a typewriter or pen and paper. I have nothing. And he makes sure it stays that way every single day of my life.
I hear the door open downstairs, crashing into the wall as it swings open before he bangs it shut again.
It’s too late to close the door to my room now. Instead, I stay where I am, quiet, observing, frightened.
His heavy footsteps sound on the creaky steps and I can hear him talking to himself which means he is incredibly drunk. I hold my breath, wishing I could be a child again and holding my hands in front of my eyes could make me invisible to others. But that doesn’t work anymore. Because he will find me. Wherever I am, he always finds me. There is nowhere I can go, nowhere I can hide. In the end, the scent of my fear will always draw him to me.
“Why did you go earlier?,” he bellows at me from the top of the stairs. “I needed you there, you stupid bitch.” He looks at me, his eyes wide with anger, hands balled to fists on either side of his body.
I don’t respond. There’s no need to waste my breath as I might need it later.
Quickly, he covers the few metres between us and grabs me by the throat, pulling me up from the bed. I gasp for air while his thumb and index finger slowly press against my skin, choking me bit by bit.
My vision starts to become blurry and and little white stars start dancing in front of my eyes. Just as I am about to lose consciousness, he lets go and I fall back onto the bed, panting and clutching my throat.
His hands rip the zipper of my trousers apart, pulling them down and throwing them to the other end of the room before my panties follow suit. Roughly, he thrusts his knee between my legs, forcing them apart, while he removes his own trousers and boxers.
I close my eyes and try to think of something nice, something that might help me to ignore the imminent pain and humiliation.
I hear myself scream as he thrusts into me, mercilessly and roughly. He doesn’t seem to take note of that. He never does. Soon the room is filled with his grunts and moans and the squeaking of the mattress underneath me.
He hits me right across the jaw, his rings leaving bloody marks on my skin. He waits a moment before he hits again and then again, becoming more and more aroused with every strike, with every thrust, with every whimper leaving my lips.
When he’s finally finished, he shoves me further onto the bed and I curl myself up into a ball, my lower body still naked, still hurting.
“Don’t think I’m finished yet,” he hisses at me before he leaves the room, probably to get more to drink. I listen to him walking downstairs before I hear the clattering of bottles from the kitchen.
Silent tears run down my face while I pull my knees up closer to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. I would never get used to that. But then, I should never get used to that.
Maybe Tom was right. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve him.
Slowly and carefully, I get up from the bed, my lower abdomen aching with every move I make. I find my underwear and put it on before doing the same with my trousers. I can hear a bottle break downstairs before the fridge door is being opened again.
On tiptoes I walk towards my door, ears and eyes alert to every sound, every move. I know there is no point trying to get out of the front door.
Meaning, there’s only one other way. I look down the stairs, seeing nothing but darkness and a tiny strip of moonlight coming through the broken glass window over the front door.
As quietly as possible, I walk away from it, further into the darkness waiting for me at the other end. His room is at the end of the hallway and despite normally avoiding it at all costs, this is where I am headed now.
Desperately trying to avoid the creaky floorboards, I move forward in the dark hallway, hands stretched out in front of me so as not to accidentally crash into the door.
Just as I am about to open the door to his room, I can hear him walk upstairs. Quickly, I fling it open and almost stumble over the mass of clothes, bottles, and porn magazines scattered all over the floor. He swears behind me, probably just realising that my room is empty. A bottle suddenly lands on the floor right next to my foot, shattering into a thousand pieces, its amber liquid content seeping through my shoe. I look behind me and see him standing at the end of the hallway, fuming with anger.
Without thinking twice, I dash forward to the window, tripping and stumbling, his heavy footsteps right behind me. I yank the window open when he reaches me, grabbing my hair and pulling me back forcefully. I fall against him, bouncing off his chubby frame and he struggles to hold onto me. His other hand still holds on to another bottle of liquor and his drunken state does nothing to help him holding me in place.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see something pale shimmer in the silver moonlight streaming in through the open window and, seizing my chance, I pick it up and aim it straight at his head. Surprised, he lets go of my hair and stumbles backwards, tripping over a pile of clothes and landing on his back, helpless like a beetle. Filled with adrenaline and pure hatred, I strike again and again, the baseball bat breaking his bones easily, its pale wooden surface splattered with blood within seconds.
When I stop, he’s unrecognisable. And dead. His face is bashed in, blood running down on every side and his hands stick out at an abnormal angle, wrists broken for sure. Panting, I drop the baseball bat and quickly climb out the window, leaving him behind, leaving me behind.
I start to run and I don’t stop, ignoring people, cars, and traffic lights on the way without even thinking of where I’ll end up.
In the distance, I can see him sitting on the bench, his black umbrella leaning onto the seat next to him, his blue jacket forming a bright contrast to the night around him. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
He looks up as I come closer; he stands up when he sees the state I am in.
It must be quite a shock for him, seeing me like that. My clothes, my hands, my face, all splattered with blood, his blood.
“Tom,” I whisper before I drop to my knees, exhaustion taking over my body when I finally realise that I escaped him. That I killed him.
Without asking questions, Tom picks me up, carefully, not sure whether any of the blood is actually mine.
He carries me all the way home, past the new, shiny cars and white fences into one of the small but comfortable Victorian houses. He carries me up the stairs into a bathroom as big as I have never seen it before.
Slowly, he puts me down on the toilet seat before he kneels in front of me.
“Are you hurt?,” he whispers, his eyes roaming over my face as I shake my head.
I am but it doesn’t matter now. None of this matters anymore. All the pain is now a part of my past, his past.
And now it’s about time to start my future.