Everything He's Not

 *All rights reserved*

I dedicate this story to every single person who thinks it's too late to get out of an abusive relationship. 

It's not.

 - Nickymb <3

 "Love? It must be a wave you want to glide in on, give your body to it, give your laugh to it, give, when the gravelly sand takes you, your tears to the land. To love another is something like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief."

                                                 Three Years ago

 I never wanted to fall in love with Ash Lowe. At least that is what I tell myself at night, when I try not to think about all the bad shit happening in my life. I also never expected I would become so dependent on another person that it physically hurt when they weren’t around.

He was my life, my love, my everything. For three years now he was the drug that infected my blood, my soul, and when the initial high finally came down, I realized something else about Ash Lowe.

It wasn’t his looks, his charming wit, or the way he made me feel like I was the only girl in the world. Oh no. I learned he was a demon stalking my light, my value, my happiness.

    Ashe Lowe ruined my life.

As I watch the light stream through the window, the suns rays dance along the purple bruise that laid a little above my wrist. It matches some of the more permanent scars on my back and thigh. He says he’s sorry, he always does, but sorry can only go so far. Sorry can’t fix what has already been broken.

Pulling my arm back, I turn on my side the exact same time the door slams open. I don’t flinch, I don’t move. What did that say about me? I was so used to violence I had no idea what I would do if some good actually landed on my doorstep.

I know it’s Ash by the way he talks under his breath, by the way he keeps throwing things around our apartment as if the mere sight of something makes him angry. When I hear the guitar, I can’t help but laugh.

My mother always said no good would come to me for loving a bad boy. She was right and deep down  that’s the hardest thing to admit. Knowing that all those times he defended me with anger, said he didn’t like what I was wearing, calling me non-stop, was more than just love. I claimed time and time again that it was charming, that he cared, but my mother was so right.

   Nothing good ever came out of loving a bad boy.

“What the fuck do you find so funny?!”

I sober up fast and glance over in time to see anger in case his face in hard lines. Great, he must have been coming down from a high. I pull the blankets closer to my chest and sit up, my mind figuring out a quick solution to the problem before it can even start.

   “Nothing,” I start, but he won’t hear it. He never does. Before I can get my bearings, he stalks toward me in three big strides and grabs my cheeks roughly. He leans forward until we were both eye level, then when he is satisfied with his position, he digs his fingers in harder.

“I didn’t ask a question that required a nothing answer.”

When I don’t say anything, partly because I can’t, he let’s out a disgusted sound and jerks away, the momentum knocking me back. I start to rub my fingers over my sore cheek as he paces back and forth, jerking his fingers through his cropped hair.