Meet Me in the Hallway (HS AU)

fifteen.

Friday consisted of painting the table tops. Harry did not grace the room with his presence that day so I was able to solely focus on painting. It turns out, painting 12 table tops a light blue colour when the original colour was a deep ugly brown, takes more than three coats. I now know this because at 4pm when I finished the third coat of paint, the brown still shone through and I knew I was going to have to come back next week to finish it.

I thought about going in on Saturday to do more coats of the table tops but decided to instead soak up possibly the final day of being home alone.

I slept in until 10am and made myself scrambled eggs. I left the kitchen bench a mess to deal with later because I didn't have to clean it up right this very second.

I sat on the couch, ate my breakfast and watched a movie on netflix. And in that moment, sitting in my pajamas at almost 11am eating breakfast with a mess in the room beside me, I felt a warmth in my chest that has been absent for a very long time.

I should leave Will.

The thought shot through my head quicker than I could register it.

That's stupid, I can't leave Will.

It was silly of me to even think of leaving Will. Other than when he drinks, we are perfect. Drunk Will and Sober Will do not even exist in the same universe. I couldn't leave sober Will because of the actions of Drunk Will. That would be unfair.

Is it fair to have the shit beaten out of you weekly? My subconscious quickly added.

I shook my head to rid it of the thoughts. I returned my attention back to the tv and tried to focus on the feel of the leather couch below me. The movie finished but I hardly noticed because I had tuned out of the last 40 minutes of it. I just sat there, focusing on the feel of the leather, the sound of the netflix previews playing, and the voice in my head begging me to just breathe.

Breathe, Josephine.

Will was truly a beautiful soul when I met him. He said all the right things and did all the right things for the first year and a half of our relationship. He would always pick me up from my house and drive me to university, then wait for my class to finish and take me home. He was always surprising me with dinner dates and planning amazing nights in. One time he even hung a white sheet in the backyard and projected a movie onto it and we had a movie marathon on the most stunning summer night.

I had met Will through a mutual friend at a party just before I finished highschool. He and I kept in contact and he quickly became one of my best friends. It wasn't until halfway through my four year university degree that we started dating. He was so accommodating and understanding of my hectic study schedule and always made time between my study and his full-time electrical job to hang out with me and make me feel special.

It wasn't until a year into our relationship that he started getting plastered at parties and becoming a little difficult when he drank. My friends told me that I should leave him because apparently the way he spoke to me back then was disgraceful. I didn't listen and instead expressed their concerns to Will, hoping they could put aside their differences because I loved my friends and Will equally.

Will then told me that one of my 'friends' had been trying to hook up with him while we were together and to take her opinion with a grain of salt. I listened.

My friends and I slowly drifted apart because I couldn't be friends with people who didn't respect my relationship and my decisions. By the end of my third year, I wasn't speaking to any of them anymore.

But Will was all I needed. My immediate family lived in a different state, so I relied on Will to be my first point of contact if something were ever to happen to me. So we decided to move in together halfway through my final year of university. Will chose the house because he had more savings built up by working, than I did due to my study. 21 year old me was so excited to move into a beautiful home with my boyfriend, as opposed to the shitty unit I had been renting for the past three years.

But that's when things started to change.

Will finished his electrical apprenticeship halfway through my final year and secured a new job at a larger electrical company. He made friends there and built up his savings again at a much quicker rate.

The first time he hit me was September of that year. He had arrived home from the pub at 2am, I had begged him to not stay out late that night because I had an important presentation the following morning for my class. Obviously when he came barreling through the front door, making a mess of the living room and somehow creating more noise than I thought possible, I had left the bedroom to call him out for his lack of consideration.

He yelled for a little while on how it was 'his house' because he had paid the majority of the deposit and how I 'had no right trying to tell him what to do when he was the reason I was staying afloat in life'. So I shot back something along the lines of 'whatever, you cockhead'.

He pushed me against the wall, wrapped his hand around my throat and held it a great deal tighter than the times he had choked me during sex. That was how I knew this wasn't sexual tension spilling over, but pure rage. He cocked his fist and socked me in the jaw.

I left for class long before he awoke the following morning and on my way back from class I had bought a suitcase and I was going to leave him for how he had treated me the night before. But when I got home and saw the look of anger flash across his face before he started the rapid fire, 'Who did that to you? I'll kill them. Are you ok? When I find out who did this I swear to god." At that moment, I knew he had no recollection of what had happened.

So I gave him the benefit of the doubt and told myself it was just the once and he would never do it again.

Until he did.

My brain couldn't piece together that these two people were in fact the same person. How could someone who had shown me so much love be the cause of most of my pain? It didn't make sense to me. The thought of leaving the Will who bought me fresh flowers every few days because he 'just felt like it' was enough to convince my brain that a slap here and there was going to be worth it in the long run because MY Will was perfect.

A buzz from my lap pulled me from the thoughts of my past.

Message from: William Gregory

Hi we mifht be coming home tomow

Tomorrow

I cant wait to see uuuuuuuu

It was as if someone had thrown ice water over the warmth in my chest because any source of contentment was now gone, and I felt empty again.