Page 76 of Caged

But this time, I need to let him go. Oh God, why didn’t I feel like this at the Greyhound center, when we were in public and surrounded by other people?

Kieren lowers to his knees, pressing my thighs apart to slot himself between my legs.

“Why are you crying, Monroe?”

At first, I shake my head, knowing once I say the words aloud, I’ll never be able to take them back.

His thumb gently grazes my cheek to wipe away the fallen tears.

“This is over for you, isn’t it?” he asks. His question is laced with sadness, enough so that I force myself to look at him.

Years of longing for this man, of hoping, of wishing. Years of thinking how perfect he could be,we could be, if only a few things were different. If only he would accept me for who I am, and my lack of stature, maybe then, he would love me. If only he could figure out a way to control his demons and his drug use, maybe then, he would love me.

Butmaybe thenhas come and gone.

He’ll never accept me, and he’ll never change.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He nods, and an unbearable tightness clamps around my throat, one that is as freeing as it is devastating.

A long silence hovers between us, and I can’t bear to look at him.

“See, the thing is Monroe, this isn’t over for me.”

I don’t think I heard correctly.

“What?” I mumble, confusion halting my tears.

He stands, looking down at me with terrifying vitriol.

“You think,” he begins, his nostrils flaring, “you can just end this? With me? You think you can just fucking walk away? From me? From this?!”

He spits out each rhetorical question like I am an ungrateful harlot who should be burned at the stake.

“No,” he says with a deranged laugh. I gawk at him, blinking, convinced I’m dreaming. He’s an apparition. This isn’t real. This is not his true reaction; it can’t be.

This is… This is…

He slides open the small top drawer of his desk.

“Get in the fucking cage,” he commands.

My mouth twitches with unsaid words, but I can’t find my voice. The barrel of the Glock is feet from my face.

“Get in the fucking cage!” he screams, shaking the gun at me.

I scramble off the bed, jumping up to the wall. “Kieren stop!” I cry. “Don’t do this, please!”

He stalks over to the cage and kicks it with a force so violent that it causes the door to fly open.

“In!” he screams at me.

But I don’t move. I recoil against the wall, frozen with terror.

“No, please!” I plead, holding my hands in front of my face as I brace myself.

Cold steel presses against my temple. “I said get the fuck in,” he says in slow, deliberate snarls.