H o w l

It was my fault, he was right. I nodded and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He leaned closer and kissed me gingerly, but that kiss became more desperate and I found myself being pushed back against the wall with a thud. I whimpered against his lips, but he didn’t notice.

A tell-tale lump formed against my abdomen, and I knew what was coming next. Bracing myself for more pain, I told myself that this was right. He still wanted me for some reason, and that was a miracle. I should be grateful.

To my surprise, he pulled away. “I need to go out tonight.”

“Why?” I asked breathlessly.

Adam placed both hands on either side of my head, supporting himself with the wall as he looked down at me. “Why should it matter why?” His mouth was a flat line, his jaw clenched tightly. “You trust me, don’t you?”

I swallowed and then nodded. “Sorry.”

He moved past me and slipped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. After a few seconds I heard the shower starting. I walked down the hallway to my bedroom, dropping the towel on the floor I moved for my dresser. Pulling out a pair of black girl boxers and a black tank top, I decided against actually getting dressed for now. I also had to do laundry.

I began to strip the bed, tossing the sheets and blankets into the clothes hamper. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get the image of Adam’s face last night on this very same bed. It was more than a little frightening.

We had been together for two years now. I was used to him hitting me, but never did he take me without my consent, it made me a little nervous. It reminded me of the first time he had actually slapped me, and how he had promised it was a onetime thing – that was a few months after we started dating. Would this be a onetime thing or would it occur more often? I wasn’t sure if I could handle it.

Adam entered the room with a towel wrapped around his hips, and I took in everything about him. He was very attractive, with well defined muscles and slightly tanned skin. Women seemed to fall head over heels for him instantly, I was no exception of course. And perhaps it was a bit surprising that I didn’t mind so much that he wasn’t faithful to me, as I knew that he had slept with other women many different times. For some reason, it didn’t bother me.

He glanced at me dismissively before changing into a pair of boxers and then some dark gray jeans. I watched as he put on his shirt, the muscles in his chest seemed to ripple almost, and I felt a sudden longing to be held by him. Adam looked back at me with a furrowed brow. “What now?”

I hesitated. “Can we watch some TV or something before you-”

“No,” He said bluntly. “I’m leaving soon. I need to use your car too.”

‘How am I supposed to get to work?’ I thought with a frown, but nodding dismissively before grabbing my car keys from the top of my dresser and tossing them to him. “The tank’s full,” I said thoughtfully, before tossing my hair into a messy bun. He nodded and moved closer to me, looking down at me with a frown. I looked up at him. “What?”

“I really do love you, Laura.” He said.

"I know." I lied.

***

The laundry room was incredibly hot, and I found myself rushing to get my clothes and the bed sheets into the washer as quick as possible so that I could wait outside in the hallway. I had learned the hard way not to leave your things unattended when I had first moved into this building, an entire load of jeans was taken while I was back in my apartment.

Sitting on the floor outside the room, I fiddled mindlessly with my cell phone. I read through the various text messages from Adam, and found myself deciding against texting him until later tonight.

My friend Samantha texted me earlier, but I had no interest in going out with her tonight. I had to clean the apartment up for when he came back on Sunday, everything had to be perfect. Another text was from my sister asking what I was doing next week, I decided against responding to that as well. I knew what she’d say about the bruises, and I didn’t want to deal with that.

I glanced up with a slight jump to see a man staring down at me with an amused grin on his face. “Hey,” He said holding the handles of his laundry basket. I couldn’t recall seeing him before, and so I assumed he had just moved in recently. “Could you help me out?”

I smirked. “You can’t do your own laundry?”

The man chuckled slightly before shaking his head. “I’ve never had to worry about it.”

I stood up and followed him into the room, feeling like a dwarf in comparison to him. He had to be more than six-four, since Adam was about six-two and this man was taller than that. I took in the fact that he was quite attractive, there was simply no denying it. He placed the basket on one of the tables and sighed. “Sorry, I suck at this being on your own stuff.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I smiled, sitting on the table and facing him. “Start by sorting your darks and lights.”

He held up articles of clothing and when unsure would motion to what pile I thought it should go in. Most of it was shirts and jeans, but he jokingly held up a pair of red polka-dot boxers about half way through the sorting process.

“I’m Nate,” He said leaning against the washer once he finished putting a load in. “I just moved in on the fourth floor.”

“Laura,” I grinned. “Top floor.”

A devious smirk formed. “You single?”

“No,” I said with a chuckle. “Taken.”

Nate sighed. “So, my helplessness wasn’t enough to seduce you?”

“I’m afraid not,” I smiled. “You’ll have to do much better than that.”

He looked up at me behind thick dark lashes, something about him made him so easy to talk to. It almost felt like we had known each other for years, and yet I had only met him about forty minutes ago.

I jumped slightly when my cell phone went off. I flipped it open and looked at the text from Adam, reading over it while biting my bottom lip. “Your boyfriend?”

My eyes drifted to Nate, who was giving me a playfully suspicious look. “Yep.”

“Tell him you’re busy fooling around with a real man.” Nate joked, flexing his biceps in various ways. For some reason I couldn’t laugh about it, because I knew the aftermath of a comment like that – even in jest. My stomach churned.

I shoved my phone into my pocket and lowered my gaze to the floor. Nate walked over and looked down at me with a furrowed brow. He then, to my surprise, grabbed hold of my wrist and lifted my arm upwards. I then realized what he was looking at.

“Laura,” He frowned deeply. “How did you get these?”