Ring of Fire

Chapter One

⚠️trigger warning: abuse⚠️

I never thought she'd actually do it. I never thought she'd actually do this to me. Tears mixed with the blood staining my face as I lay on the floor of our bedroom fading in and out of consciousness. I could feel the bruise beneath my eye and I had no doubt my cheekbone would be concealed in a mosaic of purple-blue the next time I looked in a mirror. My breaths were shallow as my ribs refused to move further than necessary - certainly bruised if not broken. I never thought she'd take it this far.

When I thought about physical abusers, my mind drifted to men. I mean, it's what they show in the media, right? Don't let the media deceive you, women can be just as forceful, and manipulative, and dangerous when they want to be. Sure, I'd noticed the emotional blackmail and gaslighting she was doing for months but I never expected her to take it out on me physically.

All I did was come home at 5:09pm instead of 5:00pm exactly. There was traffic on the road and I couldn't have gotten home earlier. Yet, when I tried to explain this to her, my girlfriend of 5 years, the person who was supposed to love me, the punches flew. Jules was the one who was supposed to protect me, not the one I needed protecting from.

The first contact was with my face. A violent punch to the base of my eye and along my cheekbone. She must've clipped my nose as she threw this one as I felt the hot blood flow down to my lips and the metallic taste line my tongue.

"Jules, please, it was just traffic! There was nothing I could've done." I begged. I pleaded. Until the second punch hit my ribs and the wind was knocked out of my lungs. This inevitably made me unable to get any oxygen in let alone form the words to say anything more. I believe this is when I started to cry. The desperation, the fear, the absolute, utter disbelief that this was happening.

"Don't start crying now!" She shouted, causing me to panic and my breath to quicken. "You, YOU are the one in the wrong here! You don't get to cry in this situation, Y/N."

The worst thing was, as the final blow landed on my temple, I started to believe her words were true. Emotional gaslighting does that to a person, especially when they've endured it for years. Maybe she was just having a bad day, right? That's the only reason this is happening. She doesn't normally act like this. To be completely fair to her I was late. I promised I wouldn't be. Maybe I do deserve this. Maybe this is what I'm worth.

With these twisted thoughts in my head manipulated by her twisted words, I fell to the floor in pain. In exhaustion. In hopes that she'd leave me alone. It seemed to work. Jules wiped her bloodied knuckle on her black jeans causing them to change shade slightly, unlocked the apartment door and left without a word.

My position didn't shift on the floor of our apartment. I just cried. And heaved. And tried to get the air into my lungs which my body craved so desperately. Only now that the adrenaline calmed down did I realise how much pain I was actually in. It surged and coursed through every bone, joint and muscle in my body - including my brain. My head ached from a combination of the punches and emotional strain.

The longer I lay here, the more certain I was she wasn't coming back. Not for a while anyway. So, despite the excruciating pain through my entire being I clambered up from the floor and limped over to the laptop on her desk. This was risky. If she found out I knew she would go ballistic but I had to take the risk if I ever wanted to escape her controlling reins.

I logged in, memorising her password would come in handy some day and I guess today was that day. I went onto the browser and clicked onto the private search bar and slowly typed in the words - the pain making it rather difficult to complete.

Boxing and self-defence classes near me.

A number of results came up. Most of which seemed unrealistically positive and I could tell most of the people attending or even coaching wouldn't have a clue how necessary self-defence was - it wasn't a joke, in today's world it was a much needed skill.

I scrolled for what seemed like hours until I saw a simple website which didn't look overly enthusiastic about survival skills.

Natalie Rushman's Kickboxing and Defence Class

Interesting. I clicked on the page and read up the description she had put. Turns out she had real life experience with real life combat. Had experience fighting, defending and attacking. And she was a woman coach which meant maybe, just maybe, she'd understand how I was feeling more than a male instructor.

I clicked onto bookings. Pay as you go - no contract, no membership, completely flexible, cash or card. That worked for me perfectly. I couldn't use card in case Jules found out so cash it was. The next class was a week today, time for the bruises to heal slightly but soon enough for me not to chicken out.

Booking Confirmed. July 21st. Pay in person on the day.

I'd done it. I'd taken my first step to getting out of this godforsaken mess.

A/N: This is my first chapter of my first full length fanfiction so bear with! I hope you enjoyed it. This one, if you couldn't tell, is the set up so we'll be meeting some more characters soon. Including Natasha or Natalie Rushman of course.

Let me know if you enjoyed it.

My updates might be irregular because I am so bad at focusing but hopefully I'll be okay seeing as it's summer soon.