Girl On The Run

35

I hopped up from the matress ignoring the concerns of the two women and bolted to the nearest bathroom to release the contents of my stomach.

Nothing made me sicker than the fact that after all that Antonio had done to me and all that I had put myself through to leave him, I had just now been reminiscing about times we made love.

I had desired him so intensely.

Despite his revelation on the news, despite all the inhabitants of Earth looking for me for a cash prize of ten million dollars, despite the countless years of abuse I had endured...

I still loved him. And I had confused hate with heartbreak.

Stockholm Syndrome: is a coping mechanism to a captive or abusive situation. People develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time.

___

I did not want to believe that being in a relationship with Antonio had given me any more psychological conditions than I thought I had. 

Anxiety, Ptsd, depression, and now Stockholm syndrome. 

It was evident that that was what I was suffering from. My first time seeing Antonio since I had left ended with me fantasizing about our most intimate moments. 

The mere thought of that made me so sick I started uncontrollably barfing. 

I am sure that if he were to bust through these bathroom doors right now I would jump on him and kiss him like I would never get the chance to again. 

Even though I had dreamt about shooting him seven times for seven years of abuse in our marriage. 

Or stab him twenty-four times because before I even turned one I had known Antonio. I had known him for twenty-four years.

My whole damn life to be frank.

I had wanted so badly for him to feel even a slither of the pain he inflicted on me. I had prayed on his downfall and for the day I would receive justice. 

But just the sight of his face had reminded me why I had put up with his behavior for seven whole years. It had brought back the love I had locked into a forbidden memory in my brain. 

Antonio was unfortunately my soulmate. My twin flame.

As bad as he was for me, as much as he hurt my soul more than anything else, he completed me. 

He so happened to be food for my soul.

He knows me more than my own family does, more than I do. He will forever own my heart and soul. 

He has isolated me from all I have ever known and that wasn't much since we got married when I was only seventeen. 

He has had my soul for over twenty years. I had given it to him the second we officially met in kindergarten. 

Antonio had consumed me. He had broken me just to build me back up. He was the only person I had when I was healing from the mental and physical pain he had put me through. 

That had involuntarily strengthened our bond. Like an invisible rope tying us together, I needed him more than I needed anything. 

He controlled and owned every part of me. And as much as I hated it, it's all I was used to and all I've ever known. 

So it ended up being all I ever wanted. 

Antonio has personally destroyed me however, I longed for him deeply and had a sickening urge to turn myself in to be with him at last. 

My body ached for his touch and to know that he could protect me from Kit, from anyone, lengthened my desire for him.

It physically hurt to be apart from him as much as it hurt to be a victim of him.

I hadn't even realized I had been violently sobbing on the floor until a hand caressed my trembling back. 

"You must be the wife?" Cathleen questioned. 

I couldn't even form my words the only noise my mouth could release was the sound of gut-wrenching cries for a man that was not good for me. 

"Drea, is it?" She waited for me to respond but I physically could not find it in me to utter a single sound other than painful sobs.

"By the looks of how you're acting, I'm assuming you don't want to go back. So me and Thelma will not rat you out. We are girl code enthusiasts." She laughed trying to lighten the mood. But nothing could lighten up the darkness clouding my mind. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" I heard a distant voice, it must have been Thelma.

"Oh look at the poor thing she can't even speak. God... handsome men are the most evil." 

Cathleen had stopped rubbing my back and gasped, "Oh my you had an accident!" She exclaimed, referring to my barf. The swish of the toilet indicating its flushing had erupted deep PTSD within me. A memory I had attempted to never bring up had made its way into my mind like a sea rising onto the shore.

Antonio had forced me to drink something as unsanitary as toilet water to "punish" me for simply having natural urges to pee. The same man who had shattered my self-worth and sanity was earning such shrill cries from a woman who still managed to love him.

I lay on the floor for hours crying until I had absolutely no tears or a voice left to cry. Cathleen and Thelma had been long gone by now. As much as they tried to offer me some girl support my brain was mush and was like a broken record replaying every moment I fell deeper in love with my husband. 

I had sunken impossibly close to the floor in hopes it would swallow me whole and take me to a parallel universe where my Ant was always good to me. 

A universe where he had stayed right by my side through elementary, middle, and high school. Never having his innocence stolen so quickly and shipped off to a foreign country and returning a damaged man.

It wasn't his fault and it wasn't mine. 

It wasn't a case of the "right person wrong time" trope. We were the right people at the right time with the wrong plot. 

It wasn't supposed to go this way. We were never supposed to break promises or hurt each other. 

He was never supposed to hit me and I was never supposed to leave him. But circumstances that were not in our favor screwed up our love story and I could not completely blame him for that. 

I am destroyed beyond repair and have nothing left even when I am free. That is my fault, not his. 

I am the problem. 

I know what I have to do. 

It was going to be the right thing, for the both of us.

No more pain, no more suffering. 

Just peace. Forever.