Chapter 3 #2
A commercial flashes white across the screen.
A woman laughs like nothing in the world can touch her.
I blink hard until she blurs and becomes a smear of light.
I keep count of breaths. I catalog the stitches in the couch seam and the hum of the refrigerator.
I memorize the way the window blinds cut the evening into thin, prison-bar shadows.
“Perfect,” he says, the word stretched thin and satisfied. He sighs like a man admiring his handiwork. “See? You’re perfect when you don’t fight it.”
When he’s satisfied with how pliant I am, he sighs, pleased. I stare at the TV and try not to exist.
“Back,” he says eventually, with the same tone you’d use for fetch.
He leads me back down the hallway like nothing has happened.
The lights are dimmer now, or maybe my eyes have just learned not to look too closely.
The door stands open, waiting, and the air in the room feels heavier, like it remembers.
The bedroom is the same, but it feels smaller now, as if the walls leaned closer while we were gone.
He moves with the bored efficiency of someone repeating a task, like this has never been a question for him, not once in his life.
The door stays open, an extra humiliation, and I can see the edge of the living room, the silent TV, my bag like a lighthouse I can’t reach.
As the mattress creaks, I brace for what’s coming.
The heavy weight pins me down, wrists aching under his hold.
He arranges me with clinical precision. How my legs should fold, where my hands should go, what words I should not say.
Each refusal becomes a harder rule. Each tremor under his grip is something he wants to erase.
My chest burns with each shallow breath I take, strained and labored.
His venomous words land like blows against my psyche, words etched into my memory that I’ll never forget.
He rewards obedience, not with gentleness, but with a slackening of menace, the way a storm loosens its jaw without moving off.
I find the tiniest places where I can still choose something.
I angle my face toward the window, keep my socks on, and turn my cheek so the pillow catches tears before he does.
I count scratches in the paint near the headboard.
I fixate on the whir of the fan. I bargain with time.
One more minute, and then another, and then another, until time stops being minutes at all and becomes a single-stretched thread I’m sure will snap.
I close my eyes tightly, wishing I could turn invisible, wishing I could be just a wisp of smoke in the air. I imagine the door unlocking by itself. I imagine standing up and walking out and none of this being real. I imagine another version of me who says ‘stop’ in a voice that can’t be ignored.
He shifts against me, impatient. The world jolts back into hard focus.
The overhead light is too bright. Words he said earlier start to replay, dull and sticky, as if my brain is trying to solve a riddle where the answer is always the same.
‘You wanted this.’ It perches there, that lie, and tries to take root.
At some point, after what feels like an eternity, it stops.
Or rather, he decides it stops. He peels himself away, leaving the bed tilted and the room full of a noise I eventually realize is my breath.
He stands, satisfied, like he’s finished a workout.
I tuck myself into the corner of the mattress and pull air into my ribs as quietly as I can.
I watch as Damian walks out of the room and sprawls across the couch, and as I sit on the mattress with the sheet over me, I debate staying here when I hear him calling from the couch for me to join him. After what happened, I know it’s not a question but a demand.
I walk to the couch, sitting as far from him as possible, but he slides over, grabbing my waist with his arm to pull me close. His arm remains, heavy and suffocating, even in his newfound stillness.
“Stay and cuddle,” he mutters lazily, but I can barely breathe. “Relax. You’re so tense.”
My body listens to him more than it listens to me—a horrible, automatic obedience.
There is a moment when I think about getting up, but standing means moving and moving means drawing attention.
I understand that attention is currency here, and I don’t have any.
So, I stare at the TV. The images blur into bands of color.
My eyes sting. I count the tiny holes in the lampshade and reach sixty-three.
Don’t cry.
I keep eyeing the counter, looking at my bag—I just need my bag.
“I need water,” I whisper, praying he won’t catch the tremor in my voice. His eyes narrow, suspicion flickering across his face. A long pause follows, stretching like the space between us. Then he resigns with a curt nod.
“Don’t get dressed.”
Each step to the kitchen feels choreographed and rehearsed in my mind.
Water. Bag. Phone. Calm. Calm. Calm. I brush my fingers against the counter, grabbing the cup of water.
I raise the glass to my mouth so my hands have a reason to shake.
Then, giving a quick look to the couch, I slip my hand into my bag, finding the familiar shape of my phone.
With frantic energy, I type the fastest message of my life.
Thalia
Call me. Emergency. Don’t text back.
Seconds later, my phone buzzes violently in my hand.
Isla’s voice fills the space, describing a dilemma about her dog and the vet, her need for me to come home now.
I weave quick lies, spinning them frantically.
I’m the only one who can drive, and I absolutely must go.
Damian huffs in annoyance, rolling his eyes.
“Fine. Thank your friend for ruining our date.”
The very word ‘date’ makes my stomach twist, a vile reminder of what this evening was supposed to be.
The drive back feels suffocating, my heart racing. I sit rigidly in the passenger seat, hands folded in my lap, every muscle coiled in discomfort. Streetlights smear past the window like old bruises. “That wasn’t what I planned tonight. But you wanted this. I know you did.”
My brain sprints through the entire day, itemizing every text, every nod, every moment I didn’t protest fast enough, loud enough.
The guilt is instant and undeserved and sticky.
I try to peel it off in small, rational thoughts.
I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t agree to this.
I didn’t. But the lie keeps circling back, insistent and arrogant.
He stops at the curb outside my building.
I fumble for the handle too quickly, and his hand clamps around my arm.
“Don’t slam the door,” he orders. When he finally lets go, the skin under his fingers pulses with heat.
Just as I shut that car door, he makes me open and close it again until it meets his invisible standard.
Once. Twice. Three times. My face burns, and I feel like a child being corrected in a store aisle until I finally walk away.