Page 19

"Shut up!" He drags me toward the bedroom, grip bruising on my wrist. "You'll clean that up after. Right now, you're going to remind me why I keep you around even with your constant failures."

"Dylan, please?—"

"I said shut up!"

He throws me onto the bed hard enough that I bounce, the breath knocked from my lungs.

I try to scramble away, but he's already on me, hands rough and possessive.

"You're mine," he snarls, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand while the other tears at the expensive dress. "Mine to do with as I please. About time you remembered that."

What happens next splinters into fragments.

I've learned to disconnect, to float somewhere above my body while it endures what my mind can't process.

It's how I survive.

How I've been surviving for months now.

But this time is different.

Meaner, more violent, like he's punishing me for every moment of perceived defiance, every second I've spent away from him.

His hands leave new bruises over old ones.

His teeth leave marks that will take weeks to fade.

And through it all, one thought circles my mind:

What if I'm pregnant? What if there's a baby?

When it's finally over, he rolls away, dismissive and satisfied. "Clean yourself up," he says without looking at me. "You look disgusting."

I stumble to the bathroom on legs that barely hold me.

Everything hurts. Everything aches.

In the harsh vanity lighting, I look over the new damage—bruises already forming on my hips, wrists, throat.

Bite marks on my shoulders.

The dress is destroyed, seams ripped, silk torn.

Just like me.

Torn apart and hastily stitched back together so many times, I don't remember what being whole feels like.

I run the water cold, splashing my face, trying to shock myself back into my body.

That's when I see them—my birth control pills in his medicine cabinet.

Why would they be here?

I pick up the pack with trembling fingers, examining it closely.

The pills look… lighter in color.

Wait a second… are these duds, or are these actually my pills, and the fake ones are at my place?