Love thy Enemies

Shots

Instantaneous dicomfort.

As his hands skim over my body, a horrid feeling begins in my head. Thick mist builds in my eyes and I'm failing to breathe.

"No." I whisper, so I thought.

"Stop. Please." my voice is barely audible in his advances.

Its starting again.

His coarse hands skim my bare arms.

The nightmare has begun.

His lips latch onto my neck.

It wants to manifest.

His body above mine asserts dominance.

It wants control.

I'm his submissive.

It has power.

I'm at his mercy.

Its divided me against myself.

Where is my voice?

Its turned my self control against me.

I've already lost.

Checkmate.

"stop. Stop. STOP! GET OFF! GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME!" I yelled in mass hysteria. My eyes were misty with tears. As though a thick veil prevents me from healing. My skin feels ablaze as I try to regain calm. I'm a broken heart in a closet filled with knives of self pity, unsolicited guilt and unjust ridicule. I know it wasn't my fault. He made it clear that he acknowledges his treason but my own psyche had managed to convince me that it was my fault. That somehow I'd forced him to attack me. And it happened; the realisation that nothing could ever erase the fact that it happened. When he apologized so suddenly, no longer had he been holding the gun at my head. Now I'm the one behind the gun aiming it at myself.

The one in front of the gun lives forever.

But I denied myself to live, so I died a thousand deaths. Nothing could change the idea that danger lurked around every corner in my mind. Nothing could convince me otherwise. In my mind I'm on the ground. The cool sheets of the bed are concrete slabs against my back. The man before me is nothing more than the physical manifestation of what I'm petrified of.

MAN.

His hands touch my face as I lay limp, as though I were lifeless. He hoists me up on his lap and rubs my back like I'm a little girl. When I came to I stayed silent in his arms.

"You don't owe me an explanation about what just happened." he says and I nod my head. I retire to the bed with my clothes still on. He'd only removed the strap from my shoulder and I was instantly triggered into a catatonic state of fear. He layed me down on the bed,removing my heels and covered me with the sheets. I would have easily drifted off to sleep if it hadn't been my own paranoia racing at blistering speeds through my veins. He grabbed a packet of cigarettes from his bedside table and went out the glass doors by his bedroom to the balcony. There he stood, shirtless, bare foot and human in the eerie lit night of the blue moon. I watched as the bright flicker of the flame projected by the lighter stood proud as it cast an orange illumination onto his features. The cigar ignited as the tip glowed in an amber blaze when he inhaled the toxins. He released a silk, smooth and precise line of smoke into the air. He's done this numerous times as I observed his precision and by his third cigar that he left halfway he returned to the room. Perfectly smoked as though he were steak. The bed dipped beside me. He saw my eyes and brushed my arm. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked to the heavens.

"Did Jack hurt you?" he asked into the dark room which is softly lit by the lamp on the bedside table mimicking the glow of a candle. When a tear comes from my eyes he shoots up from the bed and walks out of the room. Slamming the door behind him. I hadn't heard a word from him. I got out of the bed just a few seconds after he'd slammed the door and made way to follow him. I paced in the hallways after him. His long and masterful strides so powerful and so much harder to keep up with. He walked inside a room that resembled a fully equipped gym. He hadn't even bothered to look at the gloves hung above the ground from a rack. Instead he went raw on the punching bag, so much so that the seams in the began to tear and come undone as his precise, calculated and powerful punches. He mercilessly beat the bag to an indescribable pulp. This proves it. He's guilty. He did hurt Jack. But I want to hear it from him. His mouth needs to say it. However dangerous it is. The words unsaid hurt more than those heard.

"Did you do it?" he stops amidst a punch just a single centimeter away from the battered bag.

"Go back to the room and wait for me." he growls deeply. I quiver beside him and reach out to touch my monster. My nightmare.

"Did you shoot him?" I raise my voice to an octave.

"I won't repeat myself." his voice is pitch black in its tone. He's stricken fear in my heart. I take a shaky step back from him.

"Val-" he didn't have to say a word, because the way he turned around with an intense blaze in his eyes that scorched me into a crisp on the spot, said enough. I backed away and quickly scurried out of the room. I felt as though I was choking on dry air.

"Kyna, wait. Come back!" he said easily catching up to me. I fought him off as much as I could before he held me in a bear lock. My head burried in his bare chest as I kept trying to push myself away and out of his embrace. It felt like an eternity before I gave in and stood still.

"You hurt him didn't you?" I say through a sob and coarse throat as I bang my fist weakly at his chest.

"I didn't do it." he breathes me in. His voice deep but soft and barely even a whisper.

"What?" I ask through a sniffle.

"I didn't shoot him." he whispers as though it were his last time he'd get the chance to confess. He gently tilts my chin and I look up at him.

"But knowing what he did, what he'd done to you, I wouldn't think twice before pulling the trigger." he says as darkness fills his crystal blue eyes. They were stormy earlier, as cold as ice and his face could easily play poker.

"Please. Don't."

"Baby, why?"

"Val, please."

"Fine I won't."

"Promise ?"

"I Promise."