The Year of Maybe

Chapter One

"You bitch! I watched you get in his truck, don't even try to justify yourself!" Eli screams at me and grabs a fistful of my thick brown hair as he drags me into his minuscule living room. He throws me against a wall with great force and the impact to my head makes me dizzy. I throw my hands in front of my face in in an attempt to protect myself. Eli is massive... He's got about a foot and a half on me and he is pure muscle. If he really wanted to, he'd kill me with ease.

Eli growls and charges at me, pounding his fists into the wall on either side of my head and I start trembling violently out of fear. "Eli... Baby please..." My voice lowers to a hushed whisper as tears stream down my cheeks. "I didn't do anything, I swear. Baby, you were drunk so Ryan drove me home. That's it, that's all it was. You are my one and only, and it will stay that way forever... I'm sorry baby, I love yo-" Eli slaps his hand hard across my left cheek and I can feel the bottom of his class ring dig into my skin. Blood drips off of my cheek and onto his tan carpet.

Shit.

"Don't." He turns around and folds his arms as his breathing becomes heavy. I open my mouth but I decide that it might be smarter to take a silent approach, so I close it and I walk towards him. I stand behind him and wrap my arms around his waist. Eli's tears drip onto my arms rhythmically. He takes in a sharp breath and grabs my wrists and pins them above my head as he turns around to face me. "Quinn! Enough! If it's not clear, we are done! You are a liar and a cheater and what happened between us that one night, it means nothing to me!" A soft heat rises in my cheeks and my heart begins to race.

"Eli..." He lets go of my right wrist and I touch my face then stare at my hand. Red stains my fingertips, kind of like a poem I read once about singing sin and waltzing with someone. Or something like that. My cheek stings and I feel like I'm about to vomit.

He releases my left wrist and tugs on the other one as he places his other hand on my back and pushes me onto the floor, nearly knocking the breath out of me. I gasp for air and roll onto my back just as I see Eli raising a foot. I make a cross with my arms in front of my face but instead of kicking me in the face he plunges his foot hard into my stomach. Little black and green dots start to dance across my vision as my arms drop to the floor at my sides. Nausea starts to engulf me while he stares over me with a face of pure rage and he kneels by my my side. His breath is hot. "I hope you learned your lesson." I feel his foot collide with my temple before I see it and then the dots grow bigger, and bigger... And then the only sight I see becomes a vast, empty blackness.