Chapter 19
nineteen
Liana
Time doesn’t move properly anymore.
It doesn’t come in hours or days the way it used to, where I could feel it passing, could measure it in small, familiar things like light shifting through a window or the rhythm of meals or the sound of my own thoughts lining up in some kind of order.
It comes in pieces now, broken up into fragments that don’t quite connect, moments that feel separate from each other even though I know they’re not.
I wake up.
Then I’m asleep again.
Then I wake up somewhere slightly different, or with him closer, or with something new in my hands that I don’t remember picking up.
And then it’s gone again.
The edges between those moments don’t exist anymore.
They just… stop.
And start again somewhere else.
I sit at the table at some point.
I know that because I can feel the hard surface under my arms, the faint pressure of it against my skin as I lean forward slightly, my head heavy in a way that makes it difficult to keep it upright for long.
There’s a plate in front of me, something on it that I know is food, but it doesn’t look like anything I recognize properly.
Or maybe I just don’t care enough to place it.
“Liana.”
His voice comes from somewhere behind me, warm in a way that feels wrong now, soft in a way that doesn’t match the way my body reacts to it anymore.
I don’t turn straight away.
It takes a second to remember that I should.
When I do, he’s already moving toward me, something in his hands, his expression calm, pleased, like this is exactly where I’m meant to be.
“You need to eat,” he says.
I look at the plate again.
I know I should care.
I know I should think about whether there’s something in it, something he’s put there, something that will make it worse, but that thought doesn’t land properly anymore. It drifts in and out without catching on anything solid.
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
My voice sounds wrong.
Too quiet.
Too slow.
He doesn’t react to it the way he used to when I resisted him, when I pushed back, when I fought him in the beginning.
He just smiles.
“That’s alright,” he says, like I’ve agreed with him instead of refused him. “You don’t have to be. You just need to eat a little.”
He sits down beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him before he even touches me, his hand coming up to my jaw, turning my face toward him gently, like he’s guiding me into something I’ve already chosen.
“Open your mouth.”
I don’t.
Not at first.
Not because I think it will change anything, but because there’s still something in me that remembers that I don’t want this, that this isn’t right, that I shouldn’t be sitting here letting him do this to me like it’s normal.
His thumb presses lightly against my lower lip.
“Liana.”
There’s something underneath his voice now.
Not anger.
Just...expectation.
My body reacts before my thoughts catch up.
My mouth opens.
He feeds me slowly, carefully, like this is something intimate, something soft, something that belongs to us instead of something being taken from me piece by piece.
I chew because I have to.
Because my body does it even when I don’t want it to.
Because it’s easier than fighting him over something that doesn’t feel like it matters anymore.
“See,” he says quietly. “That’s better.”
I swallow.
It feels like effort.
Everything feels like effort.
He keeps going, feeding me another bite, then another, his hand staying on my face the entire time, his thumb brushing lightly against my skin like he’s soothing me instead of holding me in place.
I don’t know how long it lasts.
It feels like it could be minutes.
Or hours.
Or something in between.
At some point the plate is empty.
At some point he’s still talking.
I don’t know when that started either.
“…we’ll get it right this time,” he’s saying, his voice drifting in and out of focus as I sit there, my head too heavy, my thoughts too slow to hold onto everything he’s saying.
“It was always supposed to be like this, you just didn’t see it before.
You were distracted. You let them get in your head. ”
Them.
The word lands faintly.
I know what it means.
I know who he’s talking about.
But when I try to picture them, to hold onto their faces, their voices, something in my chest tightens in a way that feels wrong, like I’m reaching for something just out of reach.
They’re there.
I know they are.
I just can’t...
“You won’t fight me forever,” he continues, his tone still soft, still patient. “It’s just a matter of time. Once it’s just us, once you stop holding onto everything that was never meant to be yours, you’ll see that.”
I blink slowly.
The room shifts slightly when I do, the edges of it not quite staying where they should.
I don’t answer him.
I don’t think he expects me to.
He never really waits for my answers anymore.
At some point I’m not at the table anymore.
I don’t remember getting up.
I don’t remember walking.
I’m just...on the bed.
The chain at my ankle shifts when I move slightly, the soft sound of it dragging across the floor registering somewhere in the back of my mind before it fades again.
He’s beside me.
I know that without looking.
I can feel him.
His hand comes to my hair, brushing it back from my face slowly, carefully, like he’s fixing something instead of holding me here.
“You need to sleep,” he murmurs.
I want to tell him I don’t.
I want to tell him I don’t want anything he’s giving me, that I don’t want to close my eyes again because every time I do, I lose something else when I wake up.
But the thought doesn’t come together properly.
It slips.
Fades.
“Just rest,” he says.
There’s something in his hand.
I see it for a second before it disappears from my focus again.
Then everything softens.
The edges blur.
My body sinks into the mattress in a way that doesn’t feel natural, like I’m being pulled under instead of choosing to lie down.
I don’t know how long I’m asleep.
I don’t know how many times this has happened.
I don’t know how many days have passed.
I just know it isn’t the first.
Or the second.
Or the third.
It’s more than that.
Enough that the idea of time itself feels distant.
Unimportant.
When I wake again, it’s darker.
Or maybe it’s just my eyes.
My head feels heavier than before, my thoughts slower, like they have to push through something just to exist.
He’s still there.
Or maybe he’s back.
I don’t know.
It doesn’t matter.
Nothing feels like it matters the way it used to.
There’s a moment where something rises in my chest, something sharp and desperate that feels like it might turn into panic, like it might push me up, make me move, make me fight, and then it’s gone.
Not because it resolved.
Because it slipped.
Because I couldn’t hold onto it long enough for it to become anything real.
I lie there instead, staring at nothing.
Letting the feeling pass through me without catching.
Somewhere, distantly, I know this isn’t me.
That I should be fighting harder.
That I should be doing something.
Anything.
But that thought feels far away too.
Like it belongs to someone else.
Days have passed.
I know that.
I don’t know how many. I don’t know what’s happened in between them. I don’t know what he’s done while I’ve been asleep.
I don’t want to know. The worst part isn’t the fear anymore. It isn’t even him.
It’s the way something inside me has started to go quiet.
The way the edges of everything I was holding onto are starting to blur.
The way hope doesn’t feel solid anymore. Like it’s something I remember having instead of something I still do.
I close my eyes again.
Not because I want to.
Because it’s easier than staying awake.
And for the first time since this started, there’s a small, distant part of me that wonders if this is just what it is now.