Seraphine

seven

Seraphine

"Derek?" Seraphine calls as soon as she walks into their apartment, closing the door softly behind her. She slips out of her shoes and leaves them by the door, neatly tucked out of the way, unlike Derek's haphazardly thrown pair of chucks. She shakes her head at his untidiness and continues into the apartment, swinging her gaze back and forth looking for a familiar mop of brown hair and brown eyes.

Brown eyes, nothing like Dr. Michaels' chocolate gaze.

Seraphine pauses at her thoughts, confusion settling over her like a haze.

Why am I thinking of Dr. Michaels? Why can't I just think of Derek?

As if summoned, Derek pops his head out from the bedroom, a wicked smirk on his face. Seraphine smiles up at him, but it slowly drops as she recognizes the glint in his eyes.

He wants sex.

She sighs and rubs her throbbing forehead, still embarrassed about earlier today. She had to sit through Dr. Wern's lecture with that scene replaying in her head the entire time. It got worse whenever Dr. Wern would glance at her--which happened quite a lot--and she would immediately drop her chin to her chest and shield her face with her long hair.

"Derek, look, I'm not in the mood--" Seraphine tries to lightly reject him, staring to untuck her shirt from her jean shorts. He steps out of the bedroom fully and approaches her, pulling her hands away from her shirt. Her heart stutters as he lifts up the fabric and pulls it off of her, and for a moment she's turned on, but it all quickly fades into fear as his angry scowl comes into view.

It's then when she hears the loud, violent music playing from the record player under the TV.

"Derek?"

"You're going to pay for what you did today, Seraphine." His playfulness completely gone, he yanks on Seraphine's wrist. She sputters broken words as she stumbles behind him into the bedroom.

"I-I didn't--I just said no! Am I not allowed to say no?" She asks incredulously, true confusion blinding her as her boyfriend shoves her towards the bed. She lets her body crumple onto the rough covers, making herself as small as possible.

"It's not even that, Seraphine. Your precious professors keep cockblocking me. I'm going to get what I want, what I deserve, and no one's going to stop me this time." The air rushes out of Seraphine's lungs as she catches his gaze--it's deadly.

For the first time in her life, Seraphine is terrified of him.

"D-Derek, they--they're not mine," she tries to reason, lifting her shaking hands in surrender. Derek only throws his head back and laughs a cruel, dry laugh.

"With the way they look at you, they might as well be," he spits, and Seraphine's eyes go wide before she can help herself.

They look at me?

"Oh, that gets you going, does it? Do I have to remind you of who you are, what you are, who you belong to, who loves you? Or have you forgotten so soon?" Seraphine's eyes dart from Derek's figure to the red bundle he pulls from a drawer as her mind races back and forth. Tears prick the back of her eyes as her thoughts run rampant, trying to defend Derek's words while also screaming at her to run.

"Please," she whispers, staying put on the bed, grasping at straws. She hopes, she prays that he'll stop, that he'll go back to his old ways, back when they were in high school and he was sweet and caring and loving--not this, this monster.

Derek shakes his head, stalking towards her while untying the red bundle of rope he's holding. Accepting defeat, Seraphine lowers her head and lets a few tears escape, running down her cheeks and staining her sweaty shirt.