Stall

Chapter 20.

"Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only one who needed saving
'Cause when you never see the light it's hard to know which one of us is caving"

***

*bang*

Huh?

*bang bang bang*

What the hell?

I peel my eyes open, feeling like theyre stuck together as I blink trying to clear the fog from sleep.

I hear another loud series of bangs, so loud that they cause me to jump, and I turn to look at the clock on my bedside table, the red block numbers reading 4.30am.

I'm still half asleep and trying to figure out what's going, the banging gets louder and I can hear muffled shouting.

I frown, pressing my hand to my face and wincing forgetting how tender it is, and throw the covers off my bed, crawling carefully out of it as my body aches.

I walk slowly out of my bedroom door, and the thunderous banging starts again from my front door.

I immediately freeze, fear gripping every nerve in my body.

Is that Andy again? I can't let him near me again, I can't go through something like this again.

I knew he would come back.

I knew I wasn't safe.

I press my hand to my chest, trying to calm my panicked breaths that I can't seem to inhale, I feel like I'm being suffocated. I searching my eyes around my apartment frantically for somewhere I could hide if he manages to break down the door in.

The banging becomes more furious and I swear I even hear the wood crack, I press my hands over my face, feeling my body starting to tremble already as images flash in my mind of those same brown eyes, the feeling when his fist connected with my face and how scared I was.

Please don't hurt me again.

There's another loud crack against the door and it sounds like someone had kicked it.

"ABBY!"

The familiar voice that bellows through the door makes my hands drop and my heart stills in my chest.

I stay frozen for a moment before I take slow cautious steps towards the door, feeling that familiar lump in my throat.

I jump as there's several more loud bangs before I reach the door, and when I grab the handle they stop.

He must have noticed the handle move on the other side.

"Abby, open the door, please open the door, it's me, I need to know you're okay" he pleads from the other side, sounding borderline hysterical with the desperation in his voice.

I swallow, wetting my lips, as I flick the lock on the door. I turn the handle, opening the door timidly, my heart beating faster with each inch.

My tired eyes land on those terrified green ones, and I swear I see a hundred emotions flash in them at the same time.

He's standing in my doorway shirtless, in only his jeans without even a pair of shoes, his sweat covered chest heaving up and down a hundred miles an hour as if he's run a marathon and he looks like he's just seen a ghost.

"Oh my god..." he breathes out like the oxygen has just been kicked straight from him.

His broken face flashes from shock, to agony, anger and all the way back around again.