2. Eli #3
For a second there’s nothing but sound and pressure and the feeling that the room has tilted away from me.
“I’m sorry, Aidy,” I choke out when I can breathe again. “You’re right. I should have called.”
It comes out fractured. Too loud. Too desperate. The kind of apology that isn’t really an apology; It’s survival.
Adrian lifted a hand.
Not fast. Not harsh. Just enough to silence me.
The gesture was small, but it carried weight, the kind that settled into my bones and made my breath catch. His calm was the worst part. It always was.
Anger you can prepare for.
Calm you can’t predict.
“Elijah,” he said softly. “You know I worry when you don’t call.”
My pulse kicked hard. I nodded. “I’m sorry. I should have…”
Another small gesture. Another quiet command. My mouth slams shut. He reaches out, fingers brushing my jaw, tracing the line of my cheek with a touch that should have been gentle.
It wasn’t. Not really. It was too controlled. Too intentional. Too aware of what it meant to me.
His thumb paused at my scar. The same place he’d touched the night we met. But now, it is the same place he always touches when he wants me quiet.
“You’re important to me,” he murmured. “You know that, don’t you?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“And I expect you to follow the rules we agreed on.”
My chest tightened. “I know. I just…”
His fingers tightened again, guiding my face up toward his. Not overly painful. Just firm.
“Sweetheart,” he said, voice low, “I don’t like repeating myself.”
The room felt smaller. The air felt thinner. My thoughts scattered like startled birds.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to…”
He exhaled slowly, the sound almost disappointed.
“That’s the problem, Elijah. You never mean to.”
The words landed harder than any physical blow.
They are sharp and precise, and they are designed to sink deep.
My throat tightened, and my eyes burned with tears.
I blink fast, trying to keep the tears from spilling.
Adrian hates tears. I learnt quickly that crying makes everything worse.
Crying meant I wasn’t in control. Crying meant he’d won.
My fault.
The thought instinctively arrives cleanly.
My fault.
Because the silence I left between us felt like a bruise; if I called, if I had texted, if I had been better, if I had been enough.
My fault.
The chant keeps running through my head when his hand tightens around my throat.
“This is all your fault, Elijah,” his voice is steady now. Controlled. Almost calm again. “You make me do this. You make me feel like this.”
His breath touches my skin, warm, light. Terrifyingly close.
“If you only behaved… if you did what you were told, I wouldn’t have to correct you.”
Correct.
Like I’m something misaligned. Something that has to be fixed.
He towers over me, like a god. Dark and threatening, and I stand there, trembling, trying to breathe around the hand around my neck, and the tightness in my chest.
The room felt tilted, like the floor wasn’t entirely steady beneath the balls of my feet.
Then I’m let go, and I land flat back on my feet again. Adrian steps back, adjusting the cuff of his shirt with meticulous care.
“Go to bed,” he said finally. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
My stomach dropped. Morning was worse. Morning meant consequences delivered with clarity and calm.
But I nodded anyway. Because that’s what I did. That’s what I’d learned to do.
I moved past him, careful not to brush against his arm, careful not to make a sound that might shift the balance of the room. My legs felt unsteady, my breath thin, my heartbeat too loud in my ears.
In the wardrobe, I closed the door quietly and leaned against it, letting the tears fall silently down my face. My hands shook. My chest ached, and my throat felt raw from holding back everything I wasn’t allowed to say.
I didn’t sob. I didn’t break loudly. I just… folded.
Small. Quiet. Invisible.
The kind of collapse that leaves no evidence except the way your body feels afterward, hollow, aching, and too aware of its own fragility.
I wiped my face, forced my breathing to slow, and changed into the softest clothes I could find. Clothes that didn’t feel like expectations. Clothes that didn’t feel like him.
When I finally crawled into bed, Adrian was still standing at the window, staring out at the dark ocean as though it belonged to him.
Maybe it did. Maybe everything did.
I curled onto my side, facing away from him, pulling the blanket up to my chin. My body felt too heavy to move. Too tired to think. Too scared to hope.
But somewhere beneath all that fear, buried deep, almost forgotten, something small flickered.
Not strength. Not defiance. Not yet.
Just the faintest whisper that maybe this wasn’t all my life would ever be.
I didn’t know it then. I couldn’t have known.
But someone was about to walk into my world who would rewrite every rule Adrian had taught me. Someone who would change everything. Someone who would see me, really see me, in a way I’d forgotten was possible.
I just didn’t know his name yet.