HER

Prologue

She felt empty, useless and numb. Mostly numb because of the bruises on her face and body but that wasn't the worst of it. She might not be able to feel a thing but she could feel her soul giving up, surrendering to the numbing ache in her heart. She was used to it and she was coming to accept the fact that this is love; love according to him.

She met Tom at the orphanage when she was sixteen and he was seventeen. He had lost his parents and none of his relatives wanted nothing to do with him. He had been lonely and she felt sad seeing him that way. She had been the first one among the other kids their age to talk to him and she did most of the talking because he was either brooding or really angry. She preferred when he was brooding because he yelled and pushed at her when he was angry but she hadn't given up on him. It took a couple of months before she finally wore him down, broke his walls and got him talking. He got out when he was eighteen and came for her when he got a job and an apartment a month later.

She hadn't been sure if she wanted to leave the orphanage because she grew up there, it was her home. Unlike Tom, she hadn't known her parents, she hadn't lost anything like he had because she didn't have anything except the nuns at the orphanage. But she knew once she turned eighteen, she'd have to leave. So, she left with Tom. She got a job at a super market a few weeks later after she moved in with him. Everything was going great and she was the happiest she had ever been in her entire life. Nothing could ruin those moments for her, not even the man Tom had become.

It all started when he lost his job a year later and was miserable. He had arrived home that night drunk and pissed off. She had tried to calm him down, console him but he was too intoxicated to know what was going on much less understand what she was telling him. He had yelled at her like he had done the first time she had spoken to him at the orphanage and then pushed her unexpectedly, she had fallen into the glass table at the center of the living room, hitting her head in the process. She regained consciousness hours later and found him asleep in their bedroom, then she had gone to the hospital to see a doctor who didn't let her leave till he was sure she was fine and not concussed. Her head was pounding and her arm which had received the brute of the fall had cuts from the glass. She had gone back home the next morning, she had planned on taking her medicine and going to sleep off the headache but Tom had other ideas. The second she walked through the door, he grabbed her by her arm and flung her behind him, slamming the door behind him. He yelled at her for leaving him alone drunk and needy. She covered her ears from the screaming which was making her head worse but Tom wanted her listening to every single word. He hit her across the face which sent her stumbling backwards in pain, shock and fear.

She had stared into those ocean blue eyes of his and seen no remorse at what he had done, instead he hit her again. She didn't remember much of that morning because she had blocked it out and the apology that came after and the beating after that and the apology that followed. Seven years later and the cycle continued.

Nina stared at her horrible reflection in the mirror and almost winced at how terrible her bruises looked. The next day was always the worst but don't they say it gets worse before it gets better.

She grabbed her makeup bag and took out her concealer and full coverage foundation. When she looked more like a person than a worn-out punching bag, she gathered her things and went to work with a smile plastered on her face.

This was just another day.