DIVIDED HEARTS

II

England, November 1938

The pair sat in silence, one hand over her bare one. "Don't you think it's time, Edith?" The man asked, gently squeezing her palm. "Two years.." he continued, "Let that sink in."

He tried to give her a small smile of reassurance, that this would all be okay if she had just given him a date. That was all he needed, one date and time and boom! Fiancé's.

"Are you out of your god damn mind?" She muttered under her breath, loud enough for him to hear. "There are men dying at the battle front, Oliver. Fighting for this beauty of a country, and you're more focused on us?" She shook her head with disgust. "Foul man, too soon, I say!"

"Don't you twist my words like that," he scowled, slapping her hand and pinching the tension out of his nose bridge. She yanked her hand away before he could hit it, sliding it back to her lap.

That was the last time she ever showed her bare hands again.

"Too soon.?" His bottom lip stuck out, of course he cared about those poor men being sentenced to war, but this was the country side. A place of quiet, peaceful meadows for acres. "Of course I care about them, but it's been so long. You've put this off for ages and I've tried not to bring it up as much as possible but I've just right had enough, Edith!"

He snarled, standing up from his chair, raising his hand as if he were to hit her. "There's only so much time you can waste before a man gets bored!"

That's when she felt it. The cold slap of his hand against her neck. The same hand that'd walked her down those very same meadows, that same hand that walked her through the rain to school as children, the very same hand that she had squeezed time and time again, now resorting to beating her.

She flinched, eyes glued to the table as he hit her again, and again.. and... again.

After a while, he stormed out the family house in anger, taking his things and barging past the door, not even bothering to close it.

Not since the death of her parents had she ever wept this hard, sobbing into her hands as her neck flared a bloody red, marks of his nails into her back.

"May God humble your bones with a cardiac, you wretched beast!"

Word Count: 412