Betrayal Between Us | 18+

05 | The past

Finally managing to open his front door with one hand, we practically both fell inside his apartment. He pushed the pain back and walked over to his kitchen, his hand very sloppily moved along a medicine drawer grabbing an odd bottle. He pried open the bottle and poured a bunch of the pills inside his mouth swallowing like it was water, that was when I saw the label and quickly realized it was codeine.

I ripped my eyes off of him, my hand carefully closed his front door, and turned back to his place. It didn't look the same as it did four years ago, it looked like a disaster now. There were empty alcohol bottles lying all across his floor, and empty pill bottles of all sorts lying along his table. My fingers started fidgeting with each other, I could feel the trauma resurfacing just looking at the mess in front of me. I felt like this room held every good memory yet also the worst memory I've ever had.

My eyes focused back on reality when he fell on his couch, his lips tightly squeezed together. I felt like I was frozen in place, seeing him and seeing him like this is affecting me way more than I'm leading on. He lifted his shirt and that's when my eyes caught on to his huge bruise lying against his chest, and his ribs were definitely bruised.

"Where's your supplies?" I asked, my eyes still trained on his bruised body.

He glanced up at me, his face morphed with pain and frustration. "In my bedroom, on top of my bed."

Bedroom? I can't go in there, especially knowing the woman he cheated on me with most likely slept there. I couldn't move again, it felt like my body was trapped and my chest started heaving up and down rapidly. I can't look at his bed let alone touch it, my body will physically project vomit. I wanted to help ease his pain but going inside his room would cause me even more pain, my nails started digging inside my skin.

"Loren, nothing happened in my room." He grunted, very painfully like he understood my body language and that was scary.

He can still read my body like no one ever could, that's scares me.

I swallowed, and my feet carried me down the hallway past his spare bedroom. I thought his living room was bad, his entire TV stand had empty and full bottles of alcohol along with pills scattered on his bed. There was no longer a TV or pictures of us, or his family but instead blank walls with multiple punch holes. What happened to him? To his house? It never looked like this, it was never this bad. I found the first aid kit lying on his bed, the faster I got it the quicker I'll be out of this room, this house.

Rhys was feeling a lot better, I could tell by the way he was breathing and I knew it had everything to do with those drugs he inhaled. I held my breath as I sat right beside him, my shaky hands settled the first aid kit between us. I could feel his eyes staring at me but I couldn't look up at him, it was already hard enough sitting next to him in his house.

I opened the box and pulled out the hydrogen peroxide, I soaked the cotton pad and turned to look at his wounds. "Take your shirt off."

He groaned while carefully removing his shirt, my eyes widened when I saw the cut marks against his stomach and chest, the punches to his stomach caused his skin to rip. I pressed the cotton pad to each cut, my hands couldn't stop shaking and my breath was shaky. These cuts needed stitches but I knew he wouldn't, and there were even scars left on his body from previous incidents that made me wonder how often he gets assaulted. I taped some bandages to his cuts hoping they'd stop bleeding, I swallowed hard before lifting the cotton pad up to his spilt lip.