Chapter Sixty-Seven
SUNNY
As I step outside into the cold, I see the car Tyler had sent to pick me up idling in the front.
He sent a car.
Instead of approaching it, I turn the other way and hit the street to walk. The driver may assume I got held up at work, which isn’t unusual as a nurse. So I hope it grants me time before I can text Tyler that I’m safely home before suspicions are raised.
Leftover snow crunches under my shoes as I walk up the stairs to his townhome entrance. Before I can open the door, my phone buzzes in my pocket. My brows crease at the unfamiliar number, and I understand why whoever had this one before doesn’t anymore. Because the amount of spam calls is absurd.
I slide the screen to answer. “Fuck off and stop calling this number.”
“Sunny?” he breathes.
Sheer panic inches over me as I hear the familiar voice. The voice I’ll never forget. The one that made a promise that loomed like a rainy storm over my head.
Ryan’s voice.
I stop breathing. I can’t breathe. I try to suck air in, but nothing will fill my lungs. I’m frozen with fear, the phone still against my ear as he speaks again and all my nightmares start coming true all at once with the baritone of his voice.
“Sunny, please. Please let me talk to you. Tell me where you are so I can apologize to you in person. Sunny please, I’m so sorry. We can work through this.”
Fucking think Sunny. Think.
I can’t. I’m frozen still, as if the cold winter air finally got the best of me, frosting my bones over, making me immovable.
Hearing my heartbeat in my ears, I feel the blood rushing through my body. My vision starts to go black. Then the flood comes rushing over me, snapping me out of the frozen trance and back into this reality.
How could I have been so careless? So reckless? How did he get my number? Does he know where I am? What if he traces this call?
Feeling the air finally fill into my lungs, I start hyperventilating, sucking in the oxygen my body forgot to give me. I have flashbacks to the night I left, reminding me of all the reasons why I started running in the first place.
I tried Ryan. I tried to help you. To fix you. But you broke me instead.
Rather than hanging up the damn phone, my mind takes me back to the darkness that was that night.
I walked into the door of our apartment to him sitting on the couch, his hands together and knee bouncing. He wouldn’t look at me. Not even a hi as I walked inside. When before it used to be forehead kisses, bear hugs and dinner cooking so it’d be fresh for me.
He’s upset.
“Hey, honey. You got my text right? The night shift nurse didn’t show up, so I stayed a little later until they got a cover for the patients.” I kicked my shoes off and placed my backpack down on the ground.
I remember every little detail.
I sent him a text, but he never responded, despite the fact it was read. The emergency department was swamped, and they needed help. I was waiting for the nine pm shift to come in for coverage over my patients.
I was just doing my job, Ryan.
He sat on the couch, his fingers drumming, which was always a telltale sign of his anger, and the muscle in his jaw ticking as he ground his teeth together. His brown hair falling in his brown eyes that flicked to me and I saw nothing but anger in them. A look I’d become all too familiar with.
I knew it was going to be a bad night, I just didn’t realize it’d be that kind of a bad night.
I didn’t want to deal with this, not after the fifteen hour day I’d just had. Not tonight, Ryan.
“Where were you really?” he ground out.
“What do you mean? I was at work.”
After a few years, Ryan had started to become possessive. I’d noticed during nursing school, when he’d question my hours away from home or why I needed to go to the library to study and couldn’t do it at home. When I became a nurse, it became worse.
It became easy for Ryan to obsess over a small comment I’d make that I didn’t think twice about. My whereabouts always at the forefront of his mind.
“Did you eat? Maybe we can order a pizza?” I tried to change the subject, noting there was no food prepared for dinner as I walked over to him.
I didn’t take my stethoscope off.
I didn’t take it off.
“No, I didn’t eat because you didn’t respond to me. Now don’t fucking lie to me.” He stood up.
I winced at his aggression and he scoffed at my reaction. As if, he’d never been close to hitting me before. It was always so close but never actually me. It’s how I justified staying with him.
The wall behind my head.
The car dashboard in front of me.
The grip on me leaving bruises, without actually hitting me.
But never actually hit me.
Until that night.
“Ryan, I’m not lying to you. I was at work. Where else would I be?” I pleaded. “You have my location.”
Something switched in his brown eyes. Something I’d never seen before, and could never unsee again.
“Don’t lie to me!” He grabbed my stethoscope with both hands, yanking me towards him.
I reached my hands out, a useless shield between us.
“What? You think I’m going to hurt you?” he laughed.
Don’t mock me, Ryan.
“They just needed me. The ED was swamped.”
You’re scaring me, Ryan.
“Your job isn’t that important, Sunny. You work in a small-town hospital. I needed you here tonight! A wife to her husband!”
Originally, Ryan was supportive of my career, but when his parents died and their business was handed to him, he felt like it was my job as a wife to stay home while he made the money.
He wanted a traditional wife, but he should’ve known after years together, I’m anything but traditional.
If I’m being honest, I don’t think he thought I’d actually follow through with my schooling.
My job is important too, Ryan.
He shoved me off, making me stumble on my feet.
“I hate when you fucking say that Ryan! My job is just as important. Just because I don’t make as much as you do doesn’t mean it’s any less important than yours!” I fought back.
“Why is it so crazy to you for me to just want a partner who will be home? To cook, to clean, to be home when I’m home! You’re my wife, act like it.”
“Okay, you’re just saying this because you’re hungry and upset.” I headed straight for the door, trying to leave so I could cool down and let him get out of this mood before anything else was said that shouldn’t be.
Before I could even know what he’d do next, his hands were around my stethoscope and slamming me against the wall.
He started to choke me with it.
I could feel my body begging for the oxygen he now restricted. My hands uselessly clawed at him, but he didn’t even flinch.
“Ryan!” I wheezed.
This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be fucking happening.
I am now a statistic.
He finally let loose but his anger didn’t relent. I was coughing and trying to get my bearings and fell to the ground, crawling towards the door, but I couldn’t escape.
“Do you see how crazy you make me?” he yelled and grabbed me, throwing me on the floor.
“Ryan please, we just need to talk about this!” I started to get up, but he kicked me, sending shocks of pain through my ribs, and I fell back down, unable to get the air he’d stolen.
With a cough, blood splattered on the floor and all over me, hanging from my mouth with drool as I tried to suck in air.
Through the haze of black dots taking over my vision, he sank onto his knees and grabbed my hips, pulling me under him. With his knees, he pinned my thighs down. Using one hand, he secured both of mine above my head.
I tried. I tried to put up a fight, but it was pathetic. I was disoriented and weak from the lack of oxygen and a fifteen hour day on my feet.
“I’m going to fucking show you who you belong to,” he seethed as he started to undo the belt on his jeans.
The realization dawned on me.
“Ryan, no! Stop, stop, stop, stop!” I pleaded underneath his weight.
Tears cascaded down my face, sobs clawed at my throat as I tried to move anywhere that wasn’t underneath him. But his grip was unforgiving, despite his wife begging him to stop.
He started pulling my scrub pants down, untying the draw string and ripping them down my hips, exposing me to his anger and intrusion.
His hand was bruising my wrists, fighting against my fight. Refusing to listen to my pleas and cries. They meant nothing to him. I meant nothing to him.
I was screaming, but it was like I wasn’t even saying anything at all.
“No! Please, Ryan. Please,” I cried.
The look in his eyes was terrifying. It was vengeance for something I had never even done.
He was so far gone. He could never come back from this. We could never come back from this.
Never in my life had I cried the way I did that night. I was unrecognizable.
I almost gave up. I almost let him take over my body. Violate it in a way no person should experience. Small cries escaped my mouth as he started to lean over me and pulled my underwear down next.
I tried to clench my thighs together so that he couldn’t force himself in me, but he only dug his knees into my thighs harder, making me scream louder.
“You will learn your goddamn lesson about fucking around,” He seethed. “I’m going to fuck you so hard no man will ever want you. You will be ruined by me, Sunny. You’ll be so ruined that no one will ever love you or want you.”
And all in one moment, everything I was desecrated.
A guttural scream clawed up my throat as he simultaneously ripped through my body. How would I ever recover from this? I wouldn’t. This wound would fester until it killed me.
That’s when I summed up any energy I had left, and I knocked my head straight into his. His nose cracked and his head flew back. Blood from his nose splattered my face and he released my hands. I kicked him in the chest, sending him falling back.
I immediately rolled off my back and started pulling my pants back up, crawling away from underneath him.