Fix You ~Completed~

Act Thirty-Two

It wasn't my time, I guess, because I woke up not long after being pushed into the counter to find Kyla beside me in our bed. He was on his phone, texting someone as though nothing had happened.

"Is that one of the girls?" I mumbled, ignoring the intense throbbing in my left arm. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to what was going on in my chest.

He nodded. "Yeah. We fooled around yesterday in this very bed while you were off with your little friends. When you wouldn't answer my calls, I invited her over."

"I love you," I sputtered. "I do. I love you more than she could."

I've tried so hard for you. Whenever I started to think about him, I'd stop myself because I love you, Kyla. I spend a disgusting amount of much time scolding myself for even looking at him, for being close to him, for letting him care about me the way he does. Do you realize how hard I try for you and you can't even give me that same kindness?

"I know. She's an airhead with a heart the size of a penny, but she gives good-"

I was up and out of bed before he finished. Alone in the bathroom, I laid myself down in the dry tub and thought out my options. Options? Hell, it felt more like I had a single option.

If I were to allow Kyla to do what he did to me any longer, I knew what would happen. He'd take it too far. The little hits and slaps, those I could handle, but what he'd done earlier in the kitchen...

He wasn't trying to shove me arm first into the counter. I could tell by the way he held onto me it was my head he was going for.

Staying with Kyla could only end one way: He'd end up killing me.

But I couldn't leave. I couldn't survive without my Kyla. Even if he couldn't stay faithful to me the way I did for him, he loved me. No matter what he did or how poorly he showed it, Kyla loved me.

I clung to that thought like it was the last bit of rope keeping me dangling in the air. If I let go of it, I'd fall into oblivion. I'd be done for.

No, I couldn't let Kyla continue that way. I couldn't let him go to prison for killing me and I knew he didn't have the control to stop himself before he did. My Kyla didn't deserve that. Prison was too harsh for him.

I knew what I had to do.

It would be okay.

I rested my head against the lip of the tub, grinning to myself. "I can do it this time," I promised myself, scratching at the bare skin of my wrist. While Kyla had been throwing me around, he'd removed my newest hoodie and tossed it to the floor, shouting questions about where it had come from. I was in nothing but an ugly old t-shirt with our high school's name printed across the chest. The longitude lines on my arms smiled up at me with a dead sort of malice.

Pretty soon, I wouldn't have to look at them anymore, though.

Nobody would.