Chapter II
Cassandra
Present day
Glass shatters, the sound of violence reverberating through the air as pain slashes against my arms.
If anyone were listening, I wouldn’t ask for the abuse to stop. I would ask for death. It’s the only way I’ll find peace, because I am not built for the world into which I’ve been condemned. Others have made me suffer more pain than I can bear––there is no other way out.
My heart pounds in my chest as I stare blankly at my husband, my hands hidden below the surface of the wooden dining table, secretly tearing at my nails so that I’m able to remain stoic. What has happened already isn’t the worst of his outbursts, which I know means it’s far from over.
“You’re a useless, worthless bitch, Cassie,” Clayton screams, spit spraying from his mouth.
He throws another plate, our dinner flying off to splatter around the room. The plate shatters against the wall behind me, and I clench my body, every muscle wound tight in an effort not to flinch. Clayton likes it when I’m scared. The fear feeds him, fueling his descent into rabid fervor.
I glance down, tracing the knife gouges in the wood. Every mark holds a memory, like the time Clayton severed the tip of my finger while playing a drunken knife game. It wasn’t a game that I wanted to play, but I had no choice. I never have a choice where my husband is concerned.
Though my heart races, urging me to flee or fight, all I can feel is a debilitating numbness weighing me down in my chair.
After the tenth time I’d been hit, the harsh lessons were carved into my soul, and it was easier to keep myself like this.
Empty and lifeless on the inside. A walking, living corpse.
It also meant that I could wake up each morning to the sun taunting me with its warmth and radiance, and do everything Clayton wanted, while still hating my life and myself.
Clayton and Cassie—we were meant to be perfect together.
I believed I would have a happily ever after on the arm of the most charming man to ever visit our village.
The first time I met him was the day he took off his wide-brimmed hat while standing on my father’s run-down, rotting porch and asked to marry me.
Clayton held that hat in his hands earnestly, looking at me with warm, honey-brown eyes that sold stories of love in starlight.
After a life of being ignored, I was instantly enamored.
It didn’t matter that his family would pay for me, or that I was much younger and being promised to a much older man. Clayton wanted me.
Like all those stories of fearless heroes saving the damsel in distress, he rescued me from my terrible life, whisking me away to this small town with the kinds of extravagant promises that make young girls disregard warning bells.
When he smiled at me under the arches of holy matrimony and told me that he would love me and keep me safe—until death do us part —I believed him.
My na?ve younger self thought perhaps I had suffered enough through childhood with a distant mother and a violent father, and that I was finally getting the happy ending I had earned.
That we would get to know peace and love.
Blistering pain burns through my scalp, brutally ripping me from the thoughts that I had become lost in. My eyes widen in horror as Clayton forces me off my chair, my hair coiled tightly around his fist. Shards of glass split through my skin and embed in my shins like shining jewels.
A cry escapes me before I can push it back inside, not wanting to give Clayton the satisfaction of hurting me but being unable to totally suppress it. He is sadistic in how much he craves my tears, to see me broken. Keeping my true feelings bottled up is the only power I have over him.
Yet even now, I lose my hold, and tears quietly slip down my face.
“One day, I’m gonna kill you,” Clayton snarls, anger radiating from him.
His sweat-slicked hands dig into my skin as he forces me further against the floor in an attempt to raze my spirit and pulverize my flesh.
My body contorts at unnatural angles, my limbs precariously bending, threatening to snap like twigs when my cheek grazes the glass.
Kill me now, kill me now, kill me, please. I just want to be free.
It's ironic. Days like this always start with an amber, golden glow rising. With birdsong greeting me as I wake, and with warmth in the air as I take in the scent of blooming flowers in pretty shades of dandelion, coral and lilac.
A perfect day for an externally perfect life.
But I know there is no escaping Clayton.
Not when he would drag me back by my hair, humiliating me in front of the entire town in the process.
And behind closed doors, he would be worse.
Clayton would force me to do things that I didn’t want and serve out every kind of punishment that he could think of when I attempted to resist.
No, I know the outcome––know it isn’t worth it––because I had tried to escape, and failed. There was a time when I hoped for something better, a dream I was willing to fight for. Not anymore, though. Dreams aren’t something that I can afford to believe.
“I hope you do,” I say softly, my words resigned and muffled by the wooden floor.
‘‘What was that, huh?” He yanks my head back so that I can see his face reddening with rage, harsh frown lines dig into his aging skin, grey stubble peppering his chin. I give him only apathetic silence before Clayton slams my face once more against the ground.
The scream that leaves me is bloodcurdling. My hands fling out frantically, not wanting to fight Clayton but to defend myself from any further attacks. I squeeze my eyes shut, whimpering as his hot breath blows against my face.
“Think you can talk back to me, whore? Keep your fucken’ mouth shut. You don’t speak unless I ask you a goddamn question.”
Don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound. The words repeat themselves over and over as I bite hard on my bottom lip, drawing blood. All I want is for Clayton to leave me alone.
He lets my hair go and I crumple to the floor, but I don’t dare to move. I know the rules. I know how to play this game.
Things are hauntingly silent. I know he’s trying to make me think it’s over, to catch me off guard so that he has an excuse to punish me some more.
My ears focus on the ticking of the clock as I wait, finding that familiar dark place inside of me where I go for peace.
Clayton’s boot drives into my stomach, and the air rushes out of me as I curl in on myself, writhing from the pain. I don’t bother to get up from the floor, and instead I wrap my arms around myself as he circles me.
“Boys will hear ’bout this, a fucken’ wife who can’t cook,” Clayton scoffs. “Need to get a new wife who can cook and fuck better.”
The front door slams shut as Clayton leaves, off to drown himself at the bar as he does every night. Solace should find me now that I’m alone. It doesn’t.
It only takes a moment before everything inside of me shatters.
“Someone, please,” I choke through my sobs. I’m on the verge of screaming, tears dripping onto the floor as I allow myself to break down.
I would offer myself to anyone, even the monster the townspeople say haunts us, if it meant that I could leave this prison. “Please, take me away from here. Please. I can’t do this anymore.”