One in the Same

Ch. 13: Arkyn/Sylvia

I sat at the kitchen table the next morning, her hands in mine. My laptop is sitting on the table in front of us. Breakfast made and devoured, the soft hum of the dishwasher filled some of the silence, but not much.

Open, but the screen black, blank. The words were right there on my tongue, but I didn't know how to form them. The answers were right there in front of her, but I didn't know how to give them to her.

Sylvia's stare bored right into the side of my face, I was sure she could leave a hole with how intense she was staring at me. After the night we had, we should be sore. We should be tired. But one thing was on the back of our minds and we knew we would have to face one way or another.

"Wheever you're ready, Ark." She whispered, squeezing both of my hands. Swallowing, I let go of her, clicking the space bar on my computer. Everything was there.

Her gaze diverted from me to the screen, and her body visibly tensed. Her eyes darting across the screen taking in everything that was being shown. The freehand that she had, she used to scroll on the mousepad. The air was thick. So silent you oil hear a pin drop to the floor.

"Her name was Anna, and she was the last person I was with that made me feel like I was worthless." My chin dipped as my eyes dated to the screen, watching her scroll deeper and deeper. "She did all of that to me over the course of three and a half years."

Syliva said nothing, just scrolled, as her thumb caressed my hand, soothing me somehow. The other uses the mouse pad to click and hover over the worst ones. The next one she came to, I could still remember as clear as day. The night after our anniversary, we had gotten into another argument and it was the same result. Me running to the other room to get away from her, banging on the bedroom door to let her in, and examining what was wrong.

Over and fucking over the cycle was done. On and on, the words fell out of my mouth. It was forever ago, but everything I told Sylvia was something different. It felt as if I was talking about everything for the first time. All over again to my therapist who I am tremendously grateful for. Nonetheless, after everything, Sylivca had the right to know.

If I wanted her to be in my life forever, and stop going to each other's houses, and have her here under mine, it would make life that much easier. And that much better for the both of us in the end. In all honesty, I would much rather wake up to her in the morning than the goddamn pillow I think is her.

"Anna did everything in her power to tear me down, rip me apart until I was a pile of ripped shreds,. Damage goods. Nothing worth repairing. Nothing worth caring about." I whispered, the tears threatening to break free from me. Tempting my eyelashes to flutter more than needed to let them fall.

Sylvia sighed deeply, and I noticed that she was crying herself. Her eyes glued to the second to last photo. It was me standing in front of the bathroom mirror, taking a selfie of more claw marks, a couple of bite indents, as well as a black eye and matching busted lip. The first day I had asked my brother to buy me some pain killers for this reason. The only other person who knew that everything was going in behind the scenes.

Then she came up to the final one in the folder. The glass in the ziplock bag. I had managed to salvage a print and left over residue for testing. Come to find out, like I always do, I was right about her drugging me. Traces of Rohypnol were confirmed by the labels when I had left. Along with her prints on the glass. Two way combo for the arrows to be pointed at Anna.

"Whats this?" Syliva asked, wiping the tears. Reaching up, I gathered on my thumb whipping it for her. Her face leaned into my touch, as if she missed the warmth of me around her. Her body turned to me, and my heart nearly broke in tow right then.