safe in my arms | solangelo au | under editing

Chapter Four

tw: mentions of abuse, alcohol abuse

Nico

We get back to the apartment and Luke slams the door and locks it, then storms off to the kitchen. I sigh. He's going to get drunk. And when he's drunk, he's violent. And when he gets violent, I'm his punching bag.

I remember when I met Luke. It was two years ago. I was fifteen, he was nineteen. He was angry and resentful towards the world. His boyfriend, Ethan, had been murdered in front of him, and he was hurting. Despite the violent tendencies he showed (I suspect he killed the man who killed Ethan, but he won't discuss it). I wanted to help him. At first things were great. He was still mourning, but he was happier than before.

At times, though, it was... dodgy. He would slip and call me Ethan. He wanted me to cut my hair in a certain way, wear certain clothes, act a certain way. I realised that he wanted me to be a replica of Ethan, so I started to refuse.

That's what made him start to change.

At first it was little things. Insisting that I don't wear certain clothes (he burned anything he disapproved of), controlling what I ate. Then he made me quit my job. In fairness, I was too young to have a job anyway, but the events leading up to that point had made me mature faster than the average teenager.
"I'll provide for both of us." He'd told me. "You can just relax."

I had no living family by the time I met him, and he cut off all of my connections with the few friends I had (or so he thought. I have two friends, Hazel and Reyna, but we're not that close, and Luke doesn't know they exist. I relish the small secrets I am able to keep for myself.)

Then the abuse started. First it was just a few slaps when I did something wrong. But slaps turned to punches, and punches turned to shoving, kicking, even choking. He often found excuses to hurt me... Sometimes he would do it just because he felt like it.

I have nobody to turn to. Hazel and Reyna have problems of their own; everybody in this apartment complex does.

I tried to run away a few times, but he always catches me before I even get out of the building.

I live in constant fear of him. But what can I do? If I follow instructions, try not to provoke him, it's almost bearable.
Sometimes, if I've been extremely good (if I seem very reminiscent of Ethan, I think cynically when it happens), then he's almost like the old Luke. But the rest of the time, he's somebody else. He drinks, and the monster comes out to play.

Luke has changed. He's no longer his old self. He's no longer the man I fell in love with.