Short Stories

Only Love I'll Ever Know

        The tears stream down my face as I walk over to the man I once knew, the one who took my heart and tore it in half. The things we've done, the time we spent together, gone. The endless love we once knew. I pound my fists on his chest as he's pushed against the wall. 

"WHY WERE YOU WITH HER LAST NIGHT," I shreiked at him, my makeup running down my cheeks, my fists resting. 

"What was I doing? What were you doing?" He shoots back at me, pulling my head up by my hair. He slaps me straight across the face. The sting is dull and doesn't bother me anymore. He's done this so many times. The punches and the rope-burned wrists make people look my way, wearing make-up and long-sleeves. The hair left in his palms in the morning. Dying my hair to make it appear fuller. This kind os love is all I know of. The movies aren't true, that's not what love is, love is painful, love is being torn apart, love is your death. He punches me square in the face, my nose starting to ooze down to my mouth. I throw up my arms to block the next punch but it's already too late,  the darkness has already come over me, and the light has faded away. Why do I stay? Because I have nowhere to go. I was declared missing a year ago and dead a month ago. Nowhere to go, to escape from this darkness, from this brutal hell.

             I wake up to my wrists tied up above my head and my naked body below me, hanging.  The tears run down my cheek again,  as he comes up from behind and purrs into my ear.
"Don't you ever yell at me again, " he cracks his whip on my back, making me twitch. His rough hands caress my body; I shut my eyes tight. The whip cracks against me again this time against my leg. The whip stings but the scars on my body represent when it broke skin. He's holding back, why?
"I want you to run, as fast as you can, when I take off these chains, " he starts to release my wrists. I drop to the ground and run. The back door less than 10 feet away. I run as fast as I can manage with my injuries and pain he's caused me. Out through the door and deep in the forest. Into the dark.