Sophie
I can't take it anymore. Seeing her so vulnerable is making my emotions go out of control. Tears brim my eyes and I get up from the bed. I head to the hallway bathroom and brace myself against the sink. I let out an ugly sob as memories rack my mind. I cover my mouth to stiffer the sound of my crying.
Flashback
"I'm home!" He calls as he comes in the door. He's in a bad mood today for some reason.
"Hi, honey." I say to him smiling. I carry his tray filled with his dinner to him as he slouched down in his recliner. I set it on the coffee table in front of him like usual. He throws his jacket to me and I scramble to not drop it. I hang it on the coat hanger by the door. He sets the tray on his lap and goes to start eating he cuts off the end piece of his steak and puts it in his mouth. He spits it back out immediately which I know is a very bad sign.
"What is this?" He yells at me
"I-It's steak and mashed potatoes. Y-Your favorite. I thought you m-might like it because it's our special day." I stutter to him
"It's horrible. Can't you do anything right?" He bellows at me. He chucks the tray off his lap and it clatters to the floor. Smearing mashed potatoes and steak juice all over the carpet. I had spent all afternoon trying to get it right. It looked perfect to me, and the mashed potatoes tasted great.
"I'm sorry." I whimper in fear and he takes long heavy steps to me
He throws a hard punch to my right eye making me cry out and stagger backwards, clutching my face in my hand. He punches me again only this time in the stomach which makes me fall to the ground. He delivers kicks to my body multiple times as he tells me how much of an fat, useless woman I am, and how I can't do anything right. I let out small screams with each hit until he finally stops. I say I'm sorry over and over again in hopes to not make it any worse.
"No one will ever love you, so don't ever think of leaving me. I'm the only one who can put up with your bullshit." He growls at me
"I'm s-sorry, I'll do better, I p-promise." I sob into the floor
"Clean this up, and make me something actually edible you fat whore." He orders me
"And eat your fucking salad. You're fat enough already. Actually, don't eat anything at all. We can't have you gaining any weight or else you won't be able to fit into your clothes." He says giving my one final slap to the face. My clothes were loose on me, so I don't know why he would say that. I'm starving, but I know better than to go against his word. He's right. He's always right. I'm just a fat, ugly, useless, and unlovable person. Josh is the only one who is ever going to love me. He isn't always like this. Sometimes he is tells me he loves me and we cuddle. He even brings me flowers sometimes.
I clean up the mess and make him a sandwich since I know he wants something immediately. I bring it to him and he shoos me away. He yells for me to come back when he is done and makes me take his plate. I clean up dinner and sit down on the couch. I feel a sharp tug on my hair and I'm drug to our room. He rips off all my clothes before I can even start to process what's happening. He somehow has tied my hands to the bed so I can't stop him from doing anything. I look around flightendly to see a whole bottle of Jack Daniels empty on our nightstand. I can smell the alcohol coming off him and realize he's drunk. It's not uncommon that he is though, but this is a first. He gags me with a tie after I beg him to stop. I scream through the gag as he hurts me. He's never been this rough and insensitive before. Not like he ever was gentle or sensitive, but never this bad.
When he is through having his way with me, he unties me and takes out the gag. My numb arms fall painfully to my side.
"Get out." He tells me
I try to move off the bed but pain flairs through my body. I look down to see blood between my legs, but he doesn't seem to care. I force myself to stand, only to fall to the ground in tears because of the pain.
"Josh, I c-can't walk."I cry softly
"Then crawl." He orders me
I know there is no use in trying to reason with him. I drag myself out of the room and to the guest room. I start a warm bath to get cleaned up and lower myself slowly into the warm water. I sink into the bath and try to forget the pain. It leaves my body after a while. I clean myself up and make myself stop crying. It's not going to help anything. It will only make his angry because he says it's annoying. I slip on my loosest pair of pajamas and use the wall for support as I make my way to the guest bed. It's pretty common that I sleep here instead of with Josh. Sometimes he lets me sleep with him, but he never cuddles unless it's a very special occasion. I hold a pillow close to my body and pretend it's someone else. Someone who doesn't hit me. Someone who says nice things to me and likes me for me. For those few minutes I can feel hope. Only to have it die when I open my eyes again to see pillow and not a person. It will never happen.
"Happy anniversary Josh." I whisper to myself and drift to a much needed sleep.
I open my eyes to find myself sobbing uncontrollably in a bathroom floor. I remember that I'm in Luke's home and he is comforting Evangeline. I check my phone to see I've been in here for ten minutes crying. I pull myself off the cold tile floor and dab my blotchy face with a damp cloth to clean up a little.
To know that someone has been hurting her for so long is crushing my soul. I could have stopped him. She wouldn't have ever been hurt if I would have known.
'Why was I so stupid?' I scold myself. I can't stop a few more tears from leaking out as I open the bathroom door. Luke is standing against the opposite wall and I try to hide my face by looking down to the floor. He practically leaps off the wall to in front of me. He holds my shoulder lightly in one hand and brings his other up to my face. I turn my face away and brace for an impact that never comes. I open my tightly shut eyes to see a very confused and surprised Luke staring at me intently. I try to relax but it's proven difficult with him right in front of me. He touches the bottom of my chin lightly a tilts my face upwards to meet his. His eyes fill with concern as a tear rolls down my cheek. He suddenly pulls me into a hug and I break down in his arms. We somehow end up on the edge of his bed with him comforting me. When I finally calm down enough to get words out, I look up to him and he wipes away some of my tears.
"What about Evangeline?" I ask
"She's taking a nap." He says and brushes a piece of hair over my ear. "Wanna tell me why you are crying?" He ask
"It's.... a long story." I mumble
He checks his imaginary watch because he doesn't have his on and looks back to me. "We have time." He says
I sigh because I know he isn't going to give up.
"Oh to hell with it." I mumble to myself. "But, you have to promise me you won't lash out again." I order him
"Promise." He says. I take a deep breath to prepare myself. I wipe my cheek and stare at the floor in front of me because I know I won't be able to look at him while telling him.
"I haven't been in a relationship in a little over two and a half years, but trust me, that's not why I'm crying. My last relationship wasn't a good one. It lasted for almost two years before I finally came to my senses and broke it off. Well, more like the cops did." I say without looking at him
"His name wash Josh. I thought I was in love with him. We met in a coffee shop one day and he seemed really nice. We went out on a few dates and everything was... normal, I guess. That changed when he moved in with me. He became possessive at first, but I just thought it was because he didn't want anything to happen to me. That changed into him being very controlling. I couldn't go anywhere, talk to anyone, basically I couldn't do anything without his permission. I barely left the house, and when I did I had to text him every hour if I was at work. When I did go out, he would have to approve of my outfits. I lost a lot of my friends and kind of drifted away from my family." I say sadly. I can feel him looking at me, but I can't face him; not while I'm telling this story.
"It started out with small comments about how I needed to watch my figure, or how my duty was to please him. I never liked to fight with people, so I just did what he wanted me too. It got to the point where he would control how much and what I ate. He would constantly tell me how fat or unattractive I am, especially if I did something wrong." I say twiddling my thumbs in my lap to occupy my hands. He stays silent so I can tell my story.
"It progressively got worse. So much that he would hit me when I made him angry. It would be over the smallest things too. If I made the toast too crispy, or if I didn't have the right dinner made, even though he never told me what he wanted, or even if I didn't smile when I greeted him; he would hit me." I tell him. I sense Luke becoming upset beside me, but he still doesn't say anything. I can tell he's trying to keep it together and not let his anger show.
"I had the same routine just about every day. Wake up before he did, get ready for work, put on the outfit he had laid out for me the night before, have breakfast ready by the time he got up, go to work, and come home. I had two hours by myself before he would get home, so I used it to clean or grade papers or whatever needed to be done. I had to have dinner ready and waiting for him when he got home. I would have to bring it to him in the living room and sit beside him to make sure he didn't need anything while he was eating. I couldn't talk while he was eating because he would be watching tv, or I would be punished I guess is a way to put it." I say trying to figure out what to call what he did to me.
"Sometimes I would be allowed to sleep in my bed with him, or he would make me sleep in the guest bed." I say bluntly. It didn't affect me much. I just missed my bed.
"The second worse thing he started doing to me was on our first anniversary. He....." I trail off. Luke starts rubbing my back to comfort me and I take a deep breath.
"He raped me." I whisper. His hand stops in the middle of my back. I see him from the corner of my eye tense up. His jaw sets tight and his body is rigid.
"He would get drunk, and I wasn't strong enough to fight back. Eventually I stoped trying because that only made it worse. Then, the next day he would be really nice and said he loved me and promised to never do it again. I believed him every time too, and he would just keep doing it." I say barely above a whisper.
"The day after the first time he did it, I went to uhh...make sure I was, you know, alright. The lady said I showed signs of rape and asked if anything had happened to me. I was so stupid. Good lord I was stupid. I lied and said I liked it rough." I say laughing a bit because my emotions are going haywire again. My laugh turns into a crying laugh which then turns into just crying. Luke pulls me into another hug and I cry into his chest.
"Shhh, it's alright. Everything is going to be alright. You're safe and so is Evangeline. No one is ever going to hurt either of you anymore." He assures me
I will myself to stop crying and wipe my tears away.
"I finally came to my senses one night. The only catch is, it took him stabbing me to realize I need to get away from him." I say once I calm down again.
"He had come home drunk out of his mind. He had gotten let go from his job that day. Everything I did that night made him angry. I made the wrong food, it wasn't hot enough, when I warmed it up it was too hot. By the end of the night he was screaming at me how all of it was my fault. Somehow everything was always my fault, no matter what it was. He started to try to rape me again, but this time I tried to fight back. I had been cutting something, and he grabbed the knife. He stabbed me right here." I say and run my fingers over a spot just under my left ribs where a scar now lives on my skin.
"He beat me worse than ever before. Broke two of my ribs on my right side, but managed to miss everything important with the knife. My neighbor had heard me screaming and found me bleeding out on my kitchen floor. She called the cops and they found Josh at a bar down the street; still wearing the shirt with my blood on it." I say.
"How come they never heard it before?" He ask cautiously
"She had just moved in and we lived in a neighborhood full of older people. Most of them couldn't hear well." I explain
"Oh." is all he says
"He got eight months in jail and I got therapy, a scar, and a life time supply of anxiety and trust issues." I say with pathetic sounding fake happiness.
"He had a really good lawyer who got him less time in jail." I say coldly
"Is he out now?" Luke ask
"Sadly yes." I say. Knowing that he's out makes me want to puke. He should be locked up in jail for the rest of his life.
"Do...Do you still go to therapy?"he ask me. Blush creeps across my face from embarrassment.
"Yes." I mumble "Every Wednesday after work." I admit timidly
"Do you like it?" He ask
"Am I supposed to?" I say back sarcastically
He shrugs "I don't know, I was just curious." He chuckles nervously. "Does it help? Like, are you getting....better?" He ask curiously
"It helps some. It's not always easy, but it has helped." I say fiddling with my hair bow on my wrist.
"It was my therapist's idea to get Sugar in the first place." I explain
"Really?" He says surprised by this new information.
"Yeah, she thought Sugar might help me. I get really bad nightmares and I was really lonely before, so she thought maybe having a companion to take care of could help me get back into the world again." I say and pet the dog beside me. She had come in when we first ended up here and sat beside me. She always does it when she senses something is wrong with me. She has even woken me up from bad dreams before.
In the beginning, sometimes I would get such bad nightmares that I would go into anxiety attacks. Having Sugar really has helped. Not only is she fun to have around, but she is a great help with calming down. She will cuddle up next to me and set her head in my lap to let me pet her. I feel less alone too.
"She's registered as an emotional support dog, so I can take her anywhere I go if I need to." I say scratching behind my lovable puppy's ear.
"Is he the reason why you think you aren't pretty?" Luke ask
"Well, when you hear something for so long you start to believe it. When you believe it, it sticks. Then, it's hard to not believe it." I explain sadly
"You shouldn't. You really are gorgeous." He tells me. I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks and a small smile spreads across my face.
"Thank you." I say
"How long where you in the hospital?" He ask
"I thought Grayson was the questions guy?" I say back sarcastically. He shrugs and smiles
"Can't I be curious too?" He ask which makes me laugh
"Uh, three weeks. Then I stayed with my parents for about a month until I could get on my feet again. They helped me move here after that, and here I am." I say and motion to his house.
"Why here?" He ask
"It's a really safe neighborhood with lots of neighbors, and its close to the school." I explain
"Oh, that makes sense." He says understandingly
"Sorry, I talk a lot when I'm nervous." He apologizes and runs his fingers through his hair.
"Why are you nervous? I'm the one whose telling their biggest secrets here." I say jokingly
He shrugs again. "I don't know, I just don't want to say the wrong thing and make you upset again." He says
"Thanks, I guess?" I giggle
"You're welcome, I think." He chuckles
"Sorry about the whole mental break down thing." I apologize "It's just that knowing she was being abused by someone and I didn't do anything about it is hard to handle because being hurt by some is really hard to handle." I say
"It's alright. I didn't really handle it the best either. I really don't mean to scare her, and I'm usually not an angry person. You can ask Grayson if you don't believe me. I just get really protective over the people I care about." He says shyly
"I'm sorry that happened to you. You didn't and still don't deserve that." Luke says
"It's not your fault. It would have been different if I hadn't been so stupid." I say angry with myself.
"Sophie." He says
"Yeah?"
"Do I scare you?" He ask with a little fear in his eyes.
I have to think about this for a few minutes which I'm sure it doesn't help with his nervousness.
"I'm not scared of you or other people. I'm scared of what people could do." I admit to him
His face falls slightly when he realizes what I mean.
"I swear, I would never hurt you or her ever. I wouldn't hurt anyone. I help them, not hurt them." He tries to explain. It comes out quickly and all mixed together so that I can barely understand him. I place my hand over his mouth so he will stop speaking. I look him in the eyes and hold my hand in place.
"I'm not scared of you." I say sincerely. I feel his lips curl into a smile under my hand and I take it away.
He looks down to his hands and flinches when he moves his right hand. His knuckles are a light purple mixed with red and slightly swollen from punching the wall. I take he hand gently and mine and run my finger across his knuckles lightly. He grimaced a bit so I stop. I drag him downstairs to his kitchen. I make an ice pack for him and wrap a hand towel around it to make the coldness more bearable for his skin. I lay it as tenderly as I can on his hand and give him two Advil to help with the pain. It's not broken which is good, but it's going to be sore for a while.
"It's only six forty five, and she'll probably sleep until morning, unless she has a bad dream. Do you want to watch a movie?" Luke offers
"Sure." I say feeling shy all of a sudden.
We sit on the same couch but on opposite ends. Sugar and Nugget sit between us with their heads in our laps. Luke finds us a movie to watch and we stay silent as it plays. I can't stop thinking about Evangeline and Colin. How could he do that to her?
"Luke, what are we going to do about her?" I ask
"Tomorrow morning we go directly to your boss. I've emailed him and he understand the situation. He has contacted Colin's parents and we are having a meeting first thing tomorrow." He explains to me
"Okay." I yawn feeling drained emotionally and physically from today.
"I better go home." I say yawning again
"Want me to drive you?"Luke offers. He is just going to make me let him take me home, so there is no use in resisting.
"That would be greatly appreciated." I say
He smiles, grabs his keys, writes a note for Evangeline in case she wakes up, and drives Sugar and I home. Just as I get out he stops me.
"Sophie, if you ever need anyone then I'm here. Seriously, about anything at all at any time. Just call me." He says. This touches my heart and I nod in response.
"Goodnight Luke." I call out as I unlock my door
"Goodnight." He says back
I go inside and he leaves after I shut my door. I head straight to bed after showering. I lay awake in my soft bed, hoping to keep bad memories out of my dreams for at least one night. I've remembered enough for one day. Or month. Or lifetime. Instead I replace my thoughts with the happy moments from before at the dog park, and go to sleep.
*********
Helloooo my lovelies! Evangeline isn't the only one with secrets. What do you guys think Colin's punishment should be?? How are you all doing?
Guys, we are sooo close to 60K I love you guys! And 4K on votes?! You all deserve a medal 🥇you guys are amazing!! Thank you so much. I can't believe we've got this far.
-Have fun reading my lovelies
P.S. I have to read a book before school starts.... I haven't even started it because I've been so preoccupied with Wattpad. Oops.