I jolt awake.
It’s dark and my head pounds, and for a disorienting moment, I’m not sure what woke me.
“You gonna sleep all day?”
Dread swallows me up like gooey, slow-moving quicksand.
I smell alcohol, and I cleaned the bedding so it’s not from me. He’s hovering over my shoulder, head bobbing. I can feel his breath on my right bicep, and it makes me want to cut my arm off.
“It’s dark,” I mutter, gravelly. Why would you wake a person up like that during the actual night? Maybe he is the devil.
“You’ve been sleepin’ all damn day,” he says, slurring his words enough to make me tense up.
I haven’t slept all day, I cleaned this morning, but I don’t argue.
“Just leave me alone,” I say, wrapping my blanket tighter.
He grabs it before I can tuck it beneath me, fisting it in his hands. He’s figured out my blankets are my safety, so he loves to rip them off me. I always end up letting go, simply because I know we can’t afford to replace them if they tear.
I hate letting him win, but sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war.
Thing is, I’m tired and I don’t feel like fighting. I let him yank the blanket off me. I even roll over since he can’t pull the part that’s wedged under my body.
“These fucking blankets,” he mutters.
I say nothing. I close my eyes and try to mentally fend off what I know is coming. I get so tired of fighting. He leaves me alone, except when he drinks. Lately he drinks a lot more than he used to, and he’s draining me. I don’t know how much more I can take. I don’t know how much more he can take. We’re engaged in a deadly game of chicken, and one of us is going to lose big soon, I can feel it.
Probably me.
Termites like him always find a way to make it on to the next beautiful house, so they can eat away at its insides until it fucking crumbles.
I do fight though. I always fight, even if I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the energy to smile or laugh or try to make him feel like shit. I wish I did, but I don’t.
His hands are on me in a flash, knowing he’s in for a fight. He can’t move slow, like a lover, because he isn’t my lover, and I don’t want him. He knows, I know, so it can’t be like that, it has to be a fight.
I don’t think I have the energy to win tonight. I usually win, but this time I anticipate a loss.
He’s especially pissed tonight. I’ve been grating on his pathetic pride all week, and the incident with the wine was really bad. I said the thing that makes him angriest; I never pull that one out, regardless of how bitchy I am to him, because I don’t want to piss him off to the point he might be out for my actual blood. But I did, so I should’ve known this was coming. This is how he knows he can inflict pain, even if I feign otherwise.
I try fighting but my arms are pinned down painfully. Not sexy. I buck and twist, try to get my knee up, but he mounted me in just the right position and none of it’s working.
He’s fumbling with his pajama pants. I turn my face away in disgust. At least he can’t make me watch.
I manage to jerk my hands free again while he fumbles but he lunges, recapturing them before I can even push him off. To punish my attempt, he crushes his thin, gross body against me and tries to kiss me. Not with tongue, since he knows I will legitimately fucking bite it off.
My skin crawls. His fingernails bite into my wrists. I close my eyes and jerk my head away from his disgusting breath and his smarmy little lips. I can feel the hand he freed up working to push himself between my clenched legs. He pinches me, shoves me. I know there will be bruises on my thighs tomorrow.
And then suddenly, his weight is gone. He isn’t crushing me—my arms are free.
I hear a crash, a grunt, a yelp.
Did he fall off the bed?
I’m confused—and a little scared—but I open my eyes to see what’s going on.
I jump, scurrying up the bed, trying to cover myself with my nightie.
Paul is sprawled in the floor, mouth bloody, and a muddy black boot rests across his neck. I can’t believe my eyes as I follow the t