CAUGHT

TWENTY EIGHT

Clarina woke up early and was disoriented. She closed her eyes and gave herself a couple of minutes to get her bearing. Her eyes landed on the empty side of the bed. Antonio's side. She stretched her arm out, feeling the soft material as her mind began to process her life. Different emotions rose and subsided. One stronger than the other at different intervals.

She felt emotionally unstable.

Alone in her thoughts after watching self-defense clips, her consciousness nipped at her. Clarina hated the feeling of being in an emotional predicament. She acknowledged that she had gotten comfortable with Antonio as time went by.

His dominating behavior and aura that was a large part of him. His green eyes that she had engraved in her mind. That deep enticing voice changed tones based on his mood and sometimes hers. Clarina lost count of how many times she caught him watching her. His dark eyes intently focused on her and she caught herself growing to like his constant attention.

It was overwhelming, having intense eyes solely trained on you as you slept. Having someone big tower over her both physically and mentally. She felt like she was in the middle of an ocean. His ocean.

With him being heedful when it came to matters that concerned her body and well-being. He could easily spot a lot of her moods and managed to tease her about them without her catching her feelings. Quickly.

His favorite was usually linked to how unstable her moods were and compared them to the weather. Clarina sometimes pointed out his shifts in moods as well and he would normally bring up how perfect for each other they were in one of his many dominating ways. She had grown to like him and she knew that somewhere along the way, his persistence and patience at her door had somehow cracked it open.

How far he had gone or how many walls she had lowered for him, she didn't know. But one thing she was certain about was the anguish and pain she still harbored brought by those painful dark memories.

They raged from within. The hurt, pain, and anger were there. They never left and she hadn't properly addressed them. Kept them bottled up and hidden because she had convinced herself Antonio would let her go by now.

During her short-lived escape. Clarina knew looking over her shoulder and leaving with growing paranoia was no joy. But she had managed to find the joy in it. She was going to leave the state and come back later. She had so much hope in her plan that when it was shuttered and the thought whipped out of her, she deliberately refused to acknowledge the emotional downward spiral. She feared the thought of her going into that dark pit because then she'd have to accept the state and fight her way out.

How would she if all that surrounded her held a reminder of painful memory? It was loud and clear in hindsight that she'd submitted to the state Antonio had induced as a consequence if she fought him again and run. Like a rabbit that was caged within the arms of a Lion, she had not better alternative but to yield.

So she ran to the next best option. Finding any silver lining. Even if it was a rusty thin metal coated in shiny color, she held on to it.

The day Antonio agreed not to hurt her physically was the day she believed to have opened the door slightly for him. Clarina had been happy, then he made her give him permission to punish how he saw fit. To trust him not hurt her.

Clarina stared at the thought of trusting him like the plague. Dangerous, unsafe, and with death written all over it. And as the days went by, he didn't hurt her physically. She opened her mind and let herself see him.

The sudden surge of rage came with mockery and condemnation. He wouldn't accept that what he had done to her was not okay but he had promised to try and be patient with her. That was an open casket. And she was to trust he wouldn't through her in it once she trusted him completely and found herself in it. Shuttered and disappointed.