Shorts

Short 2

Blinding whiteness, so blinding it felt like I was burning. The harsh jagged bumps digging into my side. Floods of tears, or was it blood dripping down my swollen face. Pooling into my eyes, seeping into the skin of my face, pressed against gritty ground.

Is my breathing too fast, or is that my erratic heart beat?

The numbness was slowly spreading. From the top of my forehead it created its own path, covering my head and fanning out across my neck and shoulders. My eyes fluttered uncontrollably, pointlessly trying to clear themselves of the stickiness.

My body sharply rolled foward, pain erupting throughout my back. I gasped in pain, my arms stretching foward, hands desperately clawing at the ground trying to get away.

I could feel the prescence still behind me, leering at my prone motionless body. I wouldn't be able to get awway...not this time.

SHE wasn't always this bad. And i'm not just saying that, we were happy. Very happy, we would have regular date nights. We were in love, but then all that spiralled down.

It began when a new girl started at my work. She was gorgeous, there was no denying it. But one day she came to work upset, looking for any kind of comfort. Which I was stupid enough to give her. I was close to finishing my shift at the time. SHE would be picking me up. I had only hugged her to offer comfort, but all SHE saw when she came to get me was her girlfriend hugging someone who wasn't her.

I should have apologised straightaway, explained myself, but instead I stayed quiet, feeling unnecessarily guilty. I had done nothing wrong, but the look on her face said otherwise.

We got home...and that was the first time she hit me.

It carried one, almost every night. SHE stopped being so loving, the affection stopped. I would have to wear more makeup than usual to cover the cuts and bruises. And it only got worse. SHE would catch me talking to my coworker and drag me out of work to 'Teach me a lesson'.

But no matter how much she hit me, how much she hurt me mentally and physically, I could still never find it in myself to stop loving her, stop caring. Could never find it in myself to leave her. I had done nothing wrong, but but nonetheless felt guilty for everything she was accusing me of.

Then one day I knew, I just knew something had changed. SHE was acting too nice. Kissing me goodbye before work. Packing me a lunch, just smiling TOO much.

If I ever had any thoughts about leaving I should have done it then. I should have left before the end of my shift. But I didn't, I naively thought SHE was trying to apologise for how she had been acting. But then I saw the look in her eye when she picked me up, the manic gleam lighting her face.

I got in the car. SHE drove off and the last thing I saw before SHE pulled out of the parking lot was my coworker standing in the window, looking troubled. She had noticed something too.

I could feel the panic I had tried to squash resurface as we turned down unfamiliar roads. We parked on a desserted street and she got out, beconing for me to follow before she locked the car.I followed her doewn an overgrown path in the forest, until we reached a delapidated building with a gravel carpark.

SHE wouldn't answer any of my questions, not telling me why we were here. SHE walked a few paces infront of where I had stopped dead, then slowlyturned to face me. I tried, but I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying. But there was one word I heard perfectly clear "Kill". I felt the panic break free of the bubble and turned sharply.

I started to run as fast as I could, but knew it was pointless she had always been better at sports than me. I made it to the tree line before I felt a huge weight knock me from behind. I face planted into a tree, hearing a crunch from my nose, the bark scraping my skin.

I cried out in pain before knowing how much worse it was going to get. I couldn't have prepared myself for what she would do next. But what made me feel worse? I still couldn't stop loving her, not when she'd first strated with that first hit to know, when she was beating me black and blue.

I couldn't make myself stop loving her, her smile as she tried to comfort me as she hit me in the face. The way she would flip her hair as she took a break to get her breath back. Her skin glistened in the fading light, her chest would heave as her breaths deepened.

But I knew, just knew that through all this she still loved me. She was doing this because she loved me. And some sick crazed part of my mind thought it was okay. That as long as she loved me it would be fine. That I somehow deserved this punishment, this pain. All because I had somehow betrayed the girl I loved. The girl who was supposed to be my everything.

I had betrayed her, I deserved this. I closed my eyes and felt every hit. I tried to breathe through the pain, but it was getting too much, I oculd feel something snap in my chest, making ti hard to breathe. That's when I fell, the gravel biting into my hands and knees.

A retching cough tore it's way through my chest and throat. My mouth opened and I could feel something thick ooze out of my mouth. I looked down to see a thick red gooey liquid seeping into the gravel before me.

I stared at the mess in shock, in retrospect it was what brought me out of the haze I was in. I felt myself struggle to get away. Crawling to get away from her. No longer finding love in this abuse, no longer seeing the allure she once held.

So I tried to fight, tried to get away. But it was no use, she had always been stronger than me. I tried pushing myself up, it took a few tries but I managed to get up onto my knees. I felt a grip on my hair and suddenly I was flung accross the gravelly ground and rolled to a stop.

I lay there half submerged in an icy cold lake, that I had not seen. I surveyed the damage I could feel from that last throw. And I knew that even if I got medical attention right this second...I would not survive.

"Is it cold my sweet?", SHE asked serenly. I rolled my eyes up to look at her. I watched as she slowly got undressed. "I have to get all this yucky blood off me before I go home. Can't imagine the neighbours will like the sight of me covered in blood.".

SHE stepped closer to the lapping water and dipped a toe in, shivering as she pulled her foot back. Without missing a beat she ran into the water before diving in. A few minutes later I felt her hands grip me as she pulled me into the water.

I felt the frigid water rush around me as she swam deeper. "I was going to bring you here for our anniversary next month. But you had to go catch the eye of another woman.", I felt as she stroekd down my face and neck, then down over my breasts before resting a hand on my stomach.

"I love you so much.", SHE gripped my numb soaked head and pressed her lips roughly against mine. Resting her forehead against mine she whispered, "Sorry.", I felt her tears drip onto my face as she pushed me under.

The water encasing me into it's icy depths. As I slowly descended I let my eyes trace her body. Wanting that to be the last thing I remembered, the last thing I saw. And as I felt myself slip away there was no life flashing before my eyes, just the image of her gentle curves and long powerful legs swishing through the water, trying to stay afloat.

As I neared the bottom of the lake my eyes slipped closed and the last of my breath escaped me in small bubbles floating away.

I was ready to go.

But I still loved her.