Broken- And Fixed Again- (A Jamilton Fanfic)

Book 1, Chapter 1: Broken

//TW: Self-hatred, self-harm, domestic violence, verbal and physical abuse, mentions of sexual assault, and mentions of suicide/death\\

Thomas

Broken.

The state of being fractured, or damaged, or no longer in working order.

And there is no better word to describe myself.

Four years with someone who constantly told me he loved me, and that he would go insane if he lost me, even as he hurt me every chance that he got. That's all it had taken.

Four years, and everything that seemed to matter lost its importance. Everybody who seemed to care faded away. Everything that I loved, ripped right out of my hands by the person I trusted more than life itself. My life before had become a dream, a hazy, distant dream lost to time, its details slowly more and more obscured as the days dragged on. Who was I, without James? What was I without the things he did to me?

"I'm the only one that loves you," he hissed into my ear, sending shivers down my spine as he set the knife down on the bedside table. His lips nipped against mine, almost as an apology for the things he had just done to me. But all I could taste was the blood welling in my mouth. All I could feel was the icy cold shock of his skin. And all I could know, buzzing through my head, was the fear he had wrought and the pain he had inflicted.

James drew away from me. "Never forget that, Tommy." The word slid of his tongue so possessive, so demanding. It struck the air as two rotten, maggot-infested syllables, ringing through my ear like the dying notes of funeral bells.

He turned and slammed the door behind him, just loud enough to make a whimper coerce itself from my throat. Darkness reemerged in his absence, almost taunting me and the blood trickling down my wrists. I struggled against the overwhelming urge sucking whatever last bits of life remained in my veins, before surrendering to the needle pricks of tears stinging my eyes.

I wished I could hate him.

I've never been as afraid of someone as I was around him. I could always hear his words, constantly barbed, inches away from digging into my skin, even when he wasn't around. The mere thought of him burned the corners of my eyes with tears and chilled the back of my spine.

He was supposed to love me.

He tells me all the time how much he loves me, how much he needs me, how he's the only one who'd ever be able to love me. He needs me, and I need him, just as I need air. I can never leave him, and even if I wanted to, even if I tried, he'd always find me again.

I wished I could hate him, but no matter what he did, he still had a tiny glowing cord wrapped around my heart, keeping us connected forever.

The ghost of the melody I had been singing still whispered into my ears, intent on finding me wherever I went. It grabbed at the back of my mind, trying to pull me back to its warmth, but there was simply no warmth to be found. Just the freezing, oppressive darkness of the tiny, empty room.

It wasn't James's fault for what he had done. He had simple rules, rules anybody could follow, and I had still broken them by singing that tiny little song. I forgot where I had first heard it, what it had meant to me years ago, why the carcass of such an minuscule thing still stuck with me. But it's not like it mattered, anyway.

It was just a song.

Tears ran down my cheeks, burning as they fell. I shoved my non-bleeding hand over my mouth, stifling the sobbing that threatened to spill out into the air so he couldn't hear. A teardrop splashed against my wrist, my blood pooling up where the knife had slashed across skin. A mixture of new and old scars ran up and down my arm, each one with a story that haunted every dream I had, every moment I closed my eyes.