Somebody That I Used To Know

Safe With Me

There is kind of a really dark paragraph in this chapter, it's dialogue.

Tom walks upstairs and slumps onto the bed. His head throbbed, but no worse than his heart.

His phone starts to ring. He looks at the screen Matt.

"Hello?"

"Tom, baby, good morning. Listen, I need you to come over tonight. Don't worry about Friday if you don't want to, but come over tonight."

"No, M-Matt, I... I can't."

"Well of course you can. Come on."

"I... I don't want to do this anymore."

"What?"

"M... Molly left with Lillian."

"Are you serious? Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay though because you have me and I'll never leave you. You want a kid? We'll adopt."

"No, I don't want a child with you, I don't want to be around you." Tom spits.

"What are you talking about, you love me."

"No, I don't." he screams. "I love Molly, my wife. I don't know if you've realized this, Matthew, but I don't like you, I never have and I never will. You... you bruised my ribs, fractured my wrist, and stabbed me in the fucking spine, you're lucky that I'm not paralyzed. That's not even talking about the severe malnutrition they had to treat and the horrible pain I went through for weeks following what you did because I needed to heal. You caused my eating disorder, addiction, and you allowed people to pay you for an "evening" with me. You are a despicable human being and no one will ever love you. You also seem to forget, which you know very well, that I have no interest in men. No self respecting man will ever love you or let you lay even a small pinkie on them and if they do, they deserve to get their dick cut off right along with yours because I don't understand how someone can love a human being who is that disgusting. And guess what, I'll happily do it myself. Still want me to come over? I'll bring the chainsaw. You stay away from me and you stay away from my family. I'm done being your fucking puppet."

Tom's mouth gapes, what did he just do? With a quiver in his voice, he quickly says, "W-w-wait, I... I... I didn't mean-"

"You have one more chance to make it up to me. I know you're going through a lot and I can forgive this whole rant if you come over and never give me a problem again. If not, you thought before was bad? Lily will be sent to London to live with your mum after her parents mysteriously disappear. I know that I told you that this was to protect Lily, but let's face it, I could never hurt a child. Her only flaw was being birthed to you, which wasn't her choice. Molly on the other hand, well that poor woman is just collateral damage. She'll go fast, painlessly, I wouldn't want her to suffer too much, she's done nothing wrong except staying married to you. I suppose if you get a divorce, well, she's off the hook. But then there's you. I love you, Tommy, and I don't ever want to hurt you but I'll do what I have to."

"Don't say that, you can't say that. If you didn't want to hurt me when why did you?"

"I didn't hurt you, we had fun together. This time, well it's much different. Now you've pissed me off and I will make you feel pain that you've never even imagined. Don't you dare think for a second that just because I love you, I'd never do what's right."

"What's right? You think that forcing me to be with you and then punishing me for not wanting to do so is right?"

"You broke your promise. A deal's a deal and I'm very sorry that you were the one who broke it. Now, get ready, and I'll see you tonight."

Tom holds the phone next to his ear. He hands shakes as he hangs up the call... there was no way he'd see Matt.

That Evening

Denise closes up the yoga studio. She cleans off all the mats and starts to lock up. 

Tom opens the door and stumbles into the studio. Denise can smell the alcohol off of him.

"Tom?" Denise says. "Are you alright? Maybe you should go home, what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you," he slurs and walks up to Denise. Tom gently places a hand her face and goes to lean in, but Denise quickly pushes him off.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she yells.

"I don't know." Tom whispers and breaks down in a sob.

"Oh, Tom. What happened?"

"I.... I... I can't talk about it."

"Why not? What's going on?"

"I can't say, Denise."

"Did someone hurt you?"

Tom hesitates but slowly nods.

"Okay. Did it just happen?"

"No," he whispers. "It's... it's been happening for weeks."

"Alright. We're going to get you help, do you understand? Can I ask you what they did?"

"I..."

"Okay, was someone physically hurting you?"

"Well... tech... technically."

Denise sighs into her hands. "Okay," she whispers. "Okay, let's get you up. Where's Molly? Wait, was it her?"

"No, no, I... she left."

"She left? Where's Lillian?"

"With her. I started drinking again because of what happened and... and..."

"I'm going to drive you to my place. Tim is out of town but I'm going to let him know that you're coming, alright?"

"O... okay."

"Yeah, you can't be alone. In the morning I'll call the police and you can talk to them about what happened."

"No... no, police, please."

"Why not? Did you... have to defend yourself against this person? If you did, they'll know, you won't go to jail."

"No, I didn't but... they're dangerous, Denise. He'll hurt Molly."

"You have to go to the police. I know you're scared but they're going to help you. Let's get you to bed, alright?"

Denise helps Tom off the floor and she walks him to her car, locking the doors of the studio. "I'll bring you back tomorrow for your car."

"I have the keys here," He says, jingling them. Denise smiles and takes the keys, putting them in her purse. "I'm going to hold onto these for now. Don't worry, you're safe now with me."