Promise. (Manthony)

Thirty-Five

     Amber sits down next to me. Both of us had nothing left to say. I was nowhere near being close to Amber in the way Christian and she were. I felt weird for dumping all of my worst secrets onto her. 

Amber clears her throat to catch my attention. "You have to tell him. That's not someone he should be with." Amber tells me sincerely. I rest my head in my hands. 

"I'm serious, Mitty." I feel her rest her hand on my forearm. I sniffle and wipe a tear away in embarrassment. 

"Time is going to go by, and it's going to be too late. Your friendship with Christian is slipping. He needs to know the truth. You should've said something initially, but I think he'd understand that you began to feel scared. Did Elijah ever hurt you? Physically?"

I lift my head. I recalled the worst moments between Elijah and me. 

He grabbed ahold of my arm, turns me around, and shoves me into my car once again. My face hits the metal hard. I hope that didn't leave a bruise, or I'd had a lot of explaining to do to Christian. 

I swallow hard and remember another moment that had happened while we were together. 

"Elijah, you're drunk," I tell my boyfriend. "You need to sit down, or you're going to hurt yourself." I continue. 

Elijah pushes me away. "Stop fucking telling me what to do. You're a pain in my ass." Elijah snaps. He sits down on the couch, leaving me by myself. 

I push his words aside and sit next to him. 

"Can I get you something?" I ask, attempting to lighten the mood. 

"Can you fuck off?" Elijah says instead. I sit back and feel myself begin to feel hurt by Elijah's words. 

"Babe, what'd I do?" I ask nervously. Why the fuck was I suddenly so weak? It must have been a reaction to Elijah's drunkenness.  My dad acted the same way he did when he was drunk, especially after finding Christian and me in my bed. 

I rest my hand on Elijah's to get his attention. 

Elijah moves quickly and slaps me in the face. I immediately bring my hand to my cheek to ease the pain. I looked over at Elijah to see if it was a mistake, but his face read no remorse. He had done it on purpose. I notice my eyes flood with tears. 

I get up and stand in front of Elijah. 

"What was that for?" I ask firmly. Elijah gets up and sizes me up threateningly. I felt small under his gaze. 

"Don't fucking touch me," He spits in my face. I wince and move out of his way. I notice him heading towards his room. 

"Where are you going?" I ask sadly. I didn't want to be alone, and I was excusing his behavior because he was drunk. I walk over to him and attempt to grab his hand, but he grabs ahold of my shoulders and shoves me against the wall. Pinning my wrists against it so I couldn't move. 

"I said don't. fucking. touch. me." He repeats. I nod, and Elijah lets go. 

I snap my attention back to Amber. All I could do was nod. 

"While we were together and when we weren't."

"Mitchel," Amber says with a tone of voice that sounded a lot like defeat. 

"I know, I'm a fucking idiot."

"No, I wasn't going to say that," Amber states. I look up into her pretty eyes. 

"I'm sorry you had to go through all of this by yourself. I can tell you had your heart in the right place and were scared of his previous actions. Whatever he did, physically, should never have happened, including that fight. None of it was your fault. You deserve better than that and always have. Don't think because you didn't stand up to him or tell someone that that makes you weak. It doesn't, Mitchel. I promise it wasn't your fault." Amber tells me sincerely. She pulls me into a hug.