Romantic love story

Chapter Thirty-seven: The Call from Syracuse

Long after she heard Terry's soft breathing fall into the rhythmic pattern of sleep, Madison couldn't close her eyes. That good night kiss had hurt both of them. She could still see his face, that male look that said she'd put too much into her kiss. The last thing she'd wanted to do was hurt Terry, or remind herself of the fact that she wasn't being a real wife to him.

Being married to him, kissing him whenever she had the chance, helped her. It eased the tension, and gave her so much comfort to know he was there, that she'd loved being with him. But this last time had been different. She hadn't been careful, and she'd let herself kiss him without holding back. Like she would if she were normal, if she were anyone but herself. And now she'd done it. Now she had to face the consequences.

Blood pounded in her ears so loudly she wondered it didn't wake up the house.

Images flashed before her, and she turned on the couch to escape.

Wedding dresses. Think about those.

It was better than what she was running from, and Madison forced herself to picture a white fluffy thing with a long veil. Her body tensed. No, please, God. Air pushed from her lungs. She saw the Dragon, she saw him touching the wedding dress, and she wanted to cry, wanted to vomit, and all she could do was sit up to try and stop the images from coming. She had enough movies in her head-- real movies-- she didn't need to think up new ones.

She could still feel him, she knew him so well. She hated his touch, despised it to her very core. The way it made her feel, the way it weighed her down with so much garbage until all her senses were clogged with him. Sometimes the only way she felt alive was when that slice of pain cut through, and she saw that red pulsing from her, and then she'd know she was still alive. Then the pain would be so much worse, because she'd be sure she was still alive and nothing had changed, nothing had stopped. But she'd changed the pain to something she could control. She could stop that pain, she'd had that power. The cutting had started long before she'd ever seen the pastor on TV. Though she didn't know how old she'd been when hope had first come, she'd been much older, and it amazed her to think she'd never tried to kill herself. She hadn't though. Not even once. Madison writhed on the couch. If only she'd stopped cutting before now, this wouldn't be so hard. She wouldn't need it so much when she was struggling with another fight.

Madison scooted onto the floor, huddled on the carpet beside Terry's couch to be closer to him, and pulled her knees to her chest. Her body craved something she couldn't stand, and her answer was to punish it with something God didn't want. Oh, she was crazy, all right, crazy and so far gone she wondered why God even bothered with her. It was cold on the floor, but she welcomed the sharp chill-- anything to stop it from happening. It was coming though. She could feel it.

The stitches on her stomach were still healing, but if she sat a certain way, and held it long enough, she knew they could turn her skin on fire. Madison sat that certain way, held it, and let the pain steady her before she realized what she was doing.

"God, help me. Please, help me," she whispered.

As she moved to stop the pain, her tears started to fall. She breathed through her mouth to keep from sobbing out loud and waking Terry. God cared that she hurt herself, but sometimes she wished He didn't. Could she say that? Was it all right to think that, or would she be thrown into hell for even forming the words in her mind? Though the rain helped to smother the sound of her tears, it didn't stop the movie that had already started to play. It was playing, desire was washing over her and she needed help. She knew this one, knew her own cries, every laugh of the Dragon's, for he'd made her watch it thousands of times. To move would mean even more punishment, so she had to watch.

If only she could've cut. And yet, as the images moved in front of her and her own torture played out, something else washed over her. The knowledge that God cared, and that help was coming.