Letters From the Lost

~Max~

TW: abuse

The car ride home was silent. Not even music was playing. I could hear Jackson's breathing. I was holding my breath so I didn't piss him off more. I guess the 'stunt' I pulled during lunch still had him pissed off hours later. I suppressed his thoughts, I didn't want to hear about the vulgar things he was thinking abou. I always tried to ignore what he was thinking, there was never anything good.

Jackson used to be that way, his thoughts were always so kind toward me. He always thought so highly of me when we started dating three years ago. We had met when I first moved here at thirteen, that's when we both started liking each other. On Valentine's day he had asked me out, we were only fifteen at the time. Our relationship was the longest lasting middle school relationship anyone had ever heard of. I was around seventeen when the abuse started. It's not like anything I wasn't used to. My father had been quite abusive until he finally kicked me out and I was all on my own.

The car pulled into the driveway of my home. Jackson got out of the car and immediately went inside. I followed slowly behind. Once I got inside, I heard Jackson opening a can of beer. My body shivered. He came into the living room where I stood, he stared at me. His body was still, he would lift the can to his lips and he would take a large gulp. His eyes were full of hate. I took a deep breath and listened to his thoughts. They didn't make sense. It was rambles of words, nothing making sense. The cruel things I could make sense of made my body shake. I was better off blocking the thoughts out again.

"Go to our room, I will deal with you in a moment," He barked. I did as I was told and went to our bedroom. I paced the room endlessly, waiting for him. I hope he would be in a better mood now so I would get off with maybe the belt. That was the least painful punishment I would get from him. Sometimes he would use things like matches and burn my hand.

He entered the room, his eyes were black. There was no soul left in his eyes. "Jackson," I whispered. Hoping that my voice would bring him back to reality, but I knew he was too far gone. He grabbed a clump of my hair and yanked it down. "Jackson, please!" I yelled.

"You don't love me, don't you? Why else would you not listen to me, and talk to that freak when I told you to stay away from him," he stepped toward me, with every step he took, I took one away. "I thought you loved me, Max. If you really cared about me, you would actually listen to me. I guess you just don't love me enough."

I pulled out of his grip, surely losing hair. "Jackson, I do love you! Of course I do! I love everything about you! I made a mistake and I'm sorry, I'm promising you that it'll never happen again, I swear."

Jackson got closer to me, inches away from my face. "You don't care. If you did, we wouldn't be having this problem. You would have listened to me."

"Jackson, of course I love you! That's the problem, I love you and I really don't want to. I love you so much, Jackson. It hurts that I love you this much because I allow you to constantly hurt me, why can't you see that?" I yelled.

Jackson grabbed my biceps and pulled me closer to him. I tried to pull away, but his grip grew tighter. "Christopher really convinced you that I was a bad boyfriend? You must be cheating with him, if you love him so much why don't you just run off with him? Just like everyone else says, he's dangerous. He'll probably sacrifice you to the devil if you go with him." He took a deep breath.

"I didn't mean it, Jackson. I promise, I just said something I didn't mean. I love you and I love that I love you, that's all there is to it. Please believe me, I swear on my life I didn't mean it!" I pleaded. Tears started streaming down my cheeks. "I swear...Jack...Please. I didn't mean it, I do love you. I swear on my life."

"You swear on your life? That's a very bold thing to say, Maxine. You know you should never swear on something that doesn't matter," He said. I could feel my heart shatter, I knew he didn't care about me but he had never said anything so mean. "Your life is worthless. The only thing that does matter is me. You're not pretty enough to have worth. You're not smart enough to matter. Sometimes I genuinely wonder why I chose you, someone as attractive as me shouldn't be with someone like you. I honestly only got with you to piss your brother off."

"Why would you want to make him mad? You should already know he's a hot head, with hot headed friends. He's only one call away and you'll regret everything you've done." I immediately regretted opening my mouth. Jackson lifted his hands, shoving me backward. My back hit the wall. I sank to the ground and tried to crawl to my escape.

"You know I hate it when you mention my brother. He's not worth enough to be in a conversation I'm part of. You keep mouthing off and you know I hate that." Jackson kicked my side, knocking me over. He rolled my body over so I was on my back, then he sat on my stomach. He got close to my face. He slapped my face, then he punched me repeatedly. I felt blood stream down my face. His hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing tightly. I felt myself get tired, I drifted in and out of consciousness.

After a few minutes, I was on the verge of passing out. But I fought it, I knew something even worse would happen if I let myself pass out. He let go. I gasped for air. He got off of me, I laid there, helplessly. "I'm going to go out for a few hours, if I find out that you left or talked to anyone, you're screwed."

I waited to get up until he was gone, listening to every sound until I couldn't even hear his car anymore. I slowly pushed myself off the ground, the room spinning around me. One of my eyes was swollen shut, tender to the touch. I looked around the room, most things were blurry. Just inches from my feet was a small pool of blood staining the carpet.

There was a list of things I needed to follow with something like this, to hide the fact that this ever happened. But, I couldn't think, the room around me spun. My head pounded, making it hard to hear even my own thoughts. I stumbled to the kitchen, to grab an ice pack. First thing I needed to do was get the swelling down, that would make it easier to cover the bruise tomorrow.

. . .

It was too peaceful. The silence was deafening. I tried to fall asleep on the couch, but it was too quiet. Usually, the tv would be playing quietly, or even the sound of Jackson breathing while he slept. But there was nothing.

The faint sound of Jakcosn's car pulled up to the house. I immediately rolled over, and pretended like I was sleeping. "Max!" Jackson yelled. His voice had a hint of joy, making me confused. He walked over to me and sat on the couch by my feet. His hand placed on my calf softly. I almost flinched, but fought against it.

"I love you, Max," He whispered. My heart skipped, I slowly opened my eyes, making sure it was truly him. He looked at me, with pure love in his eyes.

"I love you too," I replied. It was nice to finally hear that again. "How much did you have to drink?" I asked. The overbearing smell of cigarettes and alcohol filled my nose, regardless of him standing five feet away from me.

"Not enough, come here, I want to tell you something." I cautiously got closer to him. Terrified of what he might do. He lifted his hand and smacked my cheek. I feel backward. I pushed myself off the ground while gripping my cheek as it stung.

"Jackson, go to bed, you're drunk!" I said. Hoping he couldn't hear the genuine fear in my voice.

"Oh, come on, why don't you join me? I've been waiting on you forever!" I shook my head no, I wrapped his arm around my shoulder and helped him to our bedroom. Laying him down on the bed. He fell asleep almost the second he laid down. Once I knew he wasn't going to wake up any time soon, I walked out to the living room and laid down on the couch.

I nodded off and on, I wanted to fall asleep but I feared what Jackson would do while I was completely powerless. There was a soft knock at the door. Anxiety filled my body. Who would be knocking on the door in the middle of the night? I took a deep breath and pushed myself off the couch. Still groggy, I trudged to the front door.