Afterlight ✔️

chapter ten

— Chloe Romano

After a couple minutes that felt like hours, the car had finally stopped in front of Justin's house. He snatched the keys out of the ignition, got out of the car and came around to get me. He yanked me out of the seat, shutting the door back, dragging me up the sidewalk. Unlocking the front door, his right hand was squeezed around my arm, jittering in complete anger. He opened the door, shoving me in the house as hard as he possibly could and the back of my body slammed against the wall. I breathed heavily as I waited for him to come in and shut the door after himself. He flicked on the light, immediately standing close to me with his face red with distemper.

"How dare you!" He shouted in my face, scrunching his eyebrows together. "You're lucky enough that I fucking brought you home to finish this bullshit up! I could've embarrassed you at the diner just like you embarrassed me."

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Justin held up a finger. "I have you sleeping over my house, I feed you, I do everything for you although I don't know shit about you and this is how you repay me? You need to learn your place, Julia!" He paused, panting extremely hard with his right hand resting against the wall. "I'm sick of you acting like you own me when I pay for every fucking thing you do around here."

"That's your fault," I spat, feeling my cheeks become warm. "You brought that girl home yesterday and now you want to bring over another one? That's disgusting, even for you!" My face got closer to his, muscles locking with anger.

His eyes snapped closed before he regained control. "It's none of your business what I do in my bedroom." His sudden calm voice made me stutter.

"Yes, it is since I had to hear everything downstairs! And the way you talked to the waitress today? That is not how you treat women, you should be ashamed of yourself." I shook my head in disbelief.

"Fuck hell, Julia. I was obviously trying to make you jealous!" Regret flickered across his face so quickly as the words slipped his mouth, I wondered if I imagined it.

"What?"

"Listen, I don't know shit about you. You should be grateful I'm not letting you stay in the streets!" He breathed hard, and his anger sent fear down my spine. After that, all I could hear was the ticking of the wall clock in front of the couch. He was angry with me, his hands were balled into fists and his eyes widened but I wasn't going to let him scare me away.

Let the games begin.

"I'd rather be on the streets than to be living here with a disgusting, misogynistic, sex addicted pig!" I shouted, grinding my teeth together in utter annoyance.

"No, you wouldn't." He spat, his brown eyes boring into mine. "You wouldn't even survive a day out there!"

"You don't know what I am capable of!" I shouted back at him, stepping even closer to his face. I was so tired of letting him walk all over me, disrespecting me.

"You need to respect me as much as I respect you because what you did in the fucking diner to me crossed the line!" Justin seethed, starting to breathe through his teeth as if he were at his highest level of anger.

Respect?

"What the hell are you talking about?" I questioned in disbelief. "Apart from that one moment at the lake, you were nothing but disrespectful!" I screamed with a rawness in my throat that caused Justin to blink.