Page 12

Willow

Present Day

I pressed up against the window, face chilled by the outside air hitting the fogging glass.

Memories from the past seven years spun through my mind.

I couldn’t figure out when my relationship became nothing more than ruins, held together by rotting flesh and bones surrounding one very wounded heart.

I had been sure for a long time that Cain had no heart at all, or at least not a compassionate one. He was self-serving and manipulative, while I was his personal emotional and physical punching bag.

He joined me in the car, provided our address and settled into the journey. The driver glanced at me to check on me, but I was too exhausted already by the looming fight. He remained on the other side of the car, spreading his legs wide, and clutching my bag tightly in his hand.

Street lights passed as quickly as time did. I resented that. I needed everything to slow so I could relish what little time I had before Cain unravelled.

All too soon, we pulled up to the curb of the house.

Cain threw notes over the front seats before whipping the door open.

He rounded the back of the car and opened my door.

Scowling, he silently gesticulated for me to exit the vehicle.

For a second, I questioned staying, but it would only worsen the inevitable.

I stood in the driveway, staring at the front of the house with blurred vision.

He grabbed my wrist on his way to the door, and when he unlocked it, I was pushed, causing me to stumble into the bannister of the stairs.

Stabilising myself, I glanced at my surroundings.

The cold, perfect furnishings which had never reflected our – my – creative choices.

The need to show off materialistically was a trait he’d picked up from his parents.

The framed photographs leading up the stairs showing memories of our relationship.

To anyone else, they’d look happy but proved as further evidence that this relationship had been toxic from the start.

Our first ever holiday to Crete. Him wearing a T-shirt and me in a long sleeve dress, despite the temperatures, because he’d jumped in the pool and forgotten to reapply sun lotion.

When I’d laughed at the unfortunate patterns of his sunburn, he bashed my head against the wall and held my hands behind my back, burning my skin and roaring about how embarrassing I was in my ear until I cried, before shoving me under a cold shower to get rid of the swelling and red eyes from an hour’s worth of tears.

He asked a passerby to take our photo as he pinched the skin on my back, growled, and told me to smile.

A snap brought me back to the present. I turned to find Cain, his coat removed, taking my phone out of my clutch. He sniggered as he scrolled through the messages on my phone. He turned the phone to show me messages and calls from Mike and Jack.

“Looks like you’ve got a few people worried about you.” He took a step forward towards me, phone still facing me. “They should be.” The fruitless attempt to grab my phone was met with a harsh crack – he'd snapped my phone across my cheekbone. I whimpered, searing pain as blood rushed to the skin.

He grabbed my jaw until my eyes were the same height as his mouth.

“I’m going to ask you one. More. Time , ” he growled into my ear, hot air puffing against me and with every word he shook my jaw. “Will. You. Marry. Me?” He pulled back enough to have a full view of my face, to see my eyes wide with fear. I shook my head despite his grip on my jaw.

His eyes darkened as they narrowed, a curl rolled through his lips.

Suddenly, my head was shoved into the newel of the bannister. I felt the crack of my skull against the hardwood. My phone chose that moment to ping with a notification, riling him further.

A breeze flew past my ear, followed by a clatter. I followed the source of the noise to find a dent in the wall just behind me.

“You’re going to regret that decision, Willow.” He said my name slowly, tilting his head with wide eyes.

Sensing my opportunity to run. I pushed off the bannister for the kitchen. If I could reach the garden, I could climb the fence into the neighbour’s garden – they would help me.

My train of thought halted when my head jerked back, my scalp stinging.

Cain yanked at my up do, dragging me back to him.

I grappled for the spindles of the staircase, but the pain along my scalp was too much, I fell back into his chest. He laughed, loosening his grip until I snapped my head backwards, connecting the crown of my head to his nose when he roared with the pain, letting go of my hair, and stumbling backwards.

I stormed up the stairs, falling on steps. My lungs burned given this was my second escape attempt of the night, but I had no time to rest as Cain’s footsteps followed close behind.

I burst into the main bedroom. Here there was no clear escape, but I didn’t have the luxury of a thought process as adrenaline coursed through my veins .

I slammed the door behind me, resting against the wood, but a second later, I felt his force through the door. It was the second push that splintered it from its frame, pushing me further into the room and him within breathing distance.

There he was, the cause of all my nightmares, huffing and puffing in front of me, the stench of whisky and cigarettes offending my senses.

If I wasn’t fearing for my life, I’d laugh. He looked like a stroppy teenager who hadn’t got what he wanted. Except he wasn’t a teenager, and I wasn’t sure what it was he wanted. I’d entered this relationship for love and was about to leave it by the hands of his narcissism.

I pushed my shoulders back and raised my head, faking confidence.

“I could never marry you. Do you know why?” He paced towards me, narrowed his eyes and the sides of his mouth turned down as he let me speak.

“I already gave you everything I could. I gave you my love, my body, I gave you my. Entire. Life ,” I bit out.

“But you rejected it all. You tossed aside my love in search of something else, control or to fuel your ego.”

A groan ripped from his throat, before he charged at me, landing us in a pile on the bed, wood crunching beneath us as the slats snapped. I squirmed pointlessly as he pushed up to straddle my body.

Once seated, my cheek received a backhand, the same place he’d hit me with my phone. Always so capable of finding the old wound .

I desperately jerked my body to buck him off me. Finally, I managed to swivel onto my front and drag myself up the bed.

I froze when he grasped the neckline of the back of the dress and pulled, tearing it all the way to the small of my back.

He grabbed me by my throat, flipping me over. Lifting his jaw, he clutched mine in place with both hands on my cheeks, pushing his thumbs into my cheekbones and fingers into my skull, holding my stare.

“You couldn’t just be fucking grateful, could you?

” he sneered. “You couldn’t see how fucking good you have it, you thankless bitch.

” He pushed my head further into the mattress, his fingers pressing into my skin more, before pulling back and moving one hand to my throat.

“You had everything, you had my house—” He pulled his arm back and put all of his weight into swinging his fist towards my face, pummelling my nose, lip, and left eye with every punch.

“You had me. I should be the beginning and end for you, but you had to need more, want more, didn’t you?

” he roared as he punched me again and again until I was choking on my own blood.

Finally, there was a reprieve from the beating as he panted and puffed from the effort of holding me down and throwing his fists into my face. “All you had to do was what was asked of you, and you couldn’t even manage that. ”

His hands snaked around my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. His weight was suffocating as I gasped for air any way I could. Leaning down, he covered my ear with his mouth and spewed hate.

“You are mine. You belong to me . It’s a cliche for a reason, little Willow. If I can’t have you, nobody else can.”

My efforts to discard him failed. With every buck of my hips and flick of my legs, I was met with his dead weight. It was no use, my body was nowhere near as strong as his.

My lungs burned. Black spots appeared in the corner of my eyes. A humourless laugh vibrated through my ears and over my skin until finally my neck was released.

I blinked hard and fast until his blurry shadow became clearer, a sinister grin playing on his lips, and a pink flush across his cheeks from the exertion.

Satisfied I was incapacitated, he reached into his trouser pocket, pulling out a familiar grey box. I desperately tried to knock it from his grip, but my arms were useless.

Tossing the box on the bed, he yanked my arms down, so they were flush to my body, placing his knees down on them each, sending shooting pains up my forearms, blood pumping to the source of the pressure.

Returning to the box, his hands now free, he muttered to himself as he opened the box and stared at its contents.

“You think you can say no to me? You’ll regret that decision.”

“I’m the best you’ll ever get.”

“You should be grateful.”

“Always taking.”

“Always wanting more, expecting more.”

He removed the small ring and discarded the box on my stomach. He turned the ring in his fingers, viewing it from all angles with a sinister smile.

His eyes slowly panned to mine and held my fearful gaze, his sparkling with glee – he was enjoying this. Enjoying hurting me. The usually pink veins mapped across the whites of his eyes now bulged.