Chapter 50 ALEX #2
That is too much blood.
Danny picks me up and throws me on a bed, and I moan in agony as I land hard on my wrists, feeling something in my other shoulder tear. I’m in so much pain that it’s all blending together, and the shock is blurring out and dulling everything into one constant thrum of pain through my body.
Danny rips my underwear down my legs and grabs my knees, shoving my legs open.
I try to pull them together, but he’s already kneeling between them and undoing his pants.
He babbles as he jerks himself off, using that harsh, rapid tone of voice he uses when he’s about to do something I know I’ll hate.
“You’re such a stupid fucking cunt. You’re so fucking pathetic, you’re not fit to be my fucking wife anymore.
You humiliated me, you stole my fucking money, and you whored yourself out to that piece of shit.
You wanna be a goddamn dirty fucking whore, Alice?
I’ll treat you like one, don’t you fucking worry.
I saw how he treated you. You like it rough?
You have no idea how rough I can be. I’m finally gonna give you what you fucking deserve.
” Danny’s hand grips my throat, and I start to choke as he pushes down on my windpipe, and then he’s on top of me.
No.
I fucking refuse to have this be the last thing I experience before I die.
My mind finally pulls away from my body as he forces his way inside of me, and I go somewhere else.
It’s not the numb, grey state I remember living in after my parents died.
It’s not the cold, staticky zoning out I felt anytime Danny got angry and started yelling.
It’s not the buzzy, confused way I feel when I’m too upset to handle something.
It’s not the hazy, pleasurable floating outside of my body feeling that Theo gives me.
This is different.
This is terrifying.
It’s a painful shrinking, an excruciating feeling of smallness, and it feels like I’m falling down, down, down into a deeper part of myself than I knew existed.
I’m lucid, but nothing makes sense. I can see something above me, and I know it’s Danny’s face, but it’s just a vague jumble of colors and shapes.
I can hear something, and I know it’s Danny yelling at me, but I can’t distinguish what he’s saying.
My body can feel pain, but I’m not connected to my body, which is getting number by the second anyway.
I know what’s happening to me, but I can’t process it.
The only thing I can process right now is that I’m going to die, and I’m pushed farther inside of myself as a wave of hopelessness hits me.
I don’t want to die.
Maybe Danny was always going to kill me, but I really thought I’d gotten away from him.
I really thought everything was going to be okay.
I ran to the other end of the country and rebuilt myself, built a life out of nothing. I built something imperfect, maybe, but it’s mine and I love it.
I loved it, I guess.
I loved this small, beautiful town. I loved my tiny, shitty, freezing apartment that I covered in my art.
I loved my friends, who I was finally feeling closer to.
I loved the women I worked with and how they sort of became my family.
I loved my job, my routine, my structure, and my color-coded planner covered in red ink.
I loved my sweet, damaged, slightly delusional ex-stalker of a boyfriend who almost ruined my life.
Fucking Theo.
I hope he knows he was the best choice I made, besides leaving Boston.
I’m going to miss making choices.
Before, I’d always let other people tell me how to be, what to do, and how to live. Here, everything was a choice I got to make. There were confines to the choices, maybe, but I got to make them all the same.
I didn’t realize that’s what life was supposed to be – a series of choices you made for yourself until you built something that fit you.
I wish I would have known that earlier.
I don’t know what it would have changed, but it might have changed something. Maybe I never would have let Danny in. Maybe I would have accepted help earlier. Maybe I would have run sooner. Maybe nothing would have changed, but I still would have known I could have lived differently.
God, I wish I’d known I could have been as happy as I was this weekend. That’s what my life was going to be moving forward, and if that little bit is all I got, it was fucking worth it.
I just wanted so much more.
I don’t know what happens next, or even what I think happens next, but I hope I get to see my parents again.
I hope they’re not disappointed that I never made anything of myself the way they wanted.
Maybe they’ll be able to appreciate that I made something for myself instead.
Something small, nothing impressive, but something all mine nonetheless.
I hope they’ll appreciate that I was happy and in love before I died.
Somewhere far above me, I can feel my body getting weaker, and I know I’m going to be gone soon. I let that knowledge push me to drift farther down inside of myself, allowing myself to shrink smaller and smaller as I go.
I let go of the fear, the anger, the helplessness, the pain, the resentment, all of it. I don’t have space for anything but the love, and I hold on to that as long as I can.
That’s the only thing I want to take with me.
That’s the only thing that’s still mine.