Disclaim: I don't own; I borrow with the odd exception.
Author's Note: Flames are welcome. Again, don't read this if mature subject matter bothers you. Read with an open mind. If you see a semblance of a plot, it's unintentional.
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Two| Breathe

Stiff air, cold hands, nose smashed into the hardwood.

He came home, you ignored him, waiting for him to sink into the couch with a cold one and ignore you right back. But you fumbled, dropped the glass and drew attention to yourself. The last thing you needed was attention, especially from him. That's what you got—a knee to the gut, a swift kick to the ribs, and the heel of his boot crushing your windpipe. Attention in the worst way.

And he got yours when he started talking about Annie. Said he might pick up where she left off. Might start selling you again. And you didn't think about that while he flipped you over, tore the denim off your hips and filled you with all sorts of filth. How could you? Even though his hands were nowhere near your throat, you couldn't breathe. When you tried, he lifted your head up and slammed it into the floor. So you sucked back a mess of your own bile and blood, choking on it because your throat kept closing up.

That's when you shut off. Buried your face into the floor and didn't move, even long after he was finished. Left you there with scratches down you back, teeth imprinted on your neck and shoulder blades. Bleeding. Somehow, you managed to pull yourself together, glossing over what happened. Pretending like he wasn't ever inside you—inside your body and your head—because pretending has always been so much easier than reality.

So much easier than this. Now, with a pair of drawstring sweats around your waist, covering the worst of your wear, things aren't so glossy. You can still feel him moving, grabbing at you, growling your name in your ear. Still shudder under his hot breath, even though it's nowhere near you now. It's with him, in his truck, wherever he's decided to go. You're just glad he's gone, left you here to yourself. But that could be dangerous. Could be fatal.

Especially since it's dead fucking dark out. The windows are black, the glass cold. The glass. The goddamn glass. Sweating, droplets leaving their trails in the pane. A small crack leafing out from the corner is enough to make your hands shake, itching for a way out. That tiny crack could let the darkness in, and then where would you be? Swinging from your ceiling with a rope around your neck. Rhetorical question, but you've answered it anyways.

Tacking the last corner of the bed sheet over your window to the wall, you know you need to leave. You have a cousin in Windrixville, but that's not quite far enough. Maybe you can go to Texas, rodeo there for a bit. Make some money, and then take off to California because that's on the other side of the country. And you reckon that's about as far away from here as you can get.

So now you have your sights set on California. On the warm weather and the beaches. No idea what you'll do over there, but you can't live here anymore. Your insides are beyond rotten, covered in a special sort of decay that comes with living in a place like this with a person like that. The psychological damage is gradually making itself more apparent. Insanity is your best friend.

Sometimes, you want to claw your eyes out. When you shut them, you see a swell of suppressed images flickering on the backs of your eyelids. The disgust makes you sick. You hate yourself. But because you don't know what to do or how to do it, you're stuck. And that gets to you because you're just letting this happen. Day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. You put up with it simply because you don't have a choice.

The choices you do make never seem to be the right ones. You chose to keep your mouth shut about Annie; you chose to stay with Mack; you chose everything. Everything except what he does to you. That you can't control. The way he suffocates you and makes you do all these things you don't want to. Kill you from the inside out. And it burns. You'd kill yourself if you weren't already dead.

Dead and dying. Now there's a paradox if you've ever heard one. And people think you're dumb.

On some level, you are. But that's another story for another time. Right now, you're focused on the leak in your bedroom ceiling. Sliding a bucket under the constant drip, you listen to it hit against the plastic, a hollow sound resounding between your ears. You let your eyes slip shut and lose yourself and a swell of panic and nausea, clawing at your arms and twisting the fabric of your pants around. You can feel it—all of it.

But you never scream. You're too busy trying to breathe.