by Kira Berger
“I’m not going anywhere. Alex,” he calls, but I ignore him while taking slow, measured steps toward the flowers. Meanwhile, my mind keeps assaulting me with images—bruises covering my body, the terror wracking my body whenever I’d hear the door open, the cruel words whispered at night.
It’s too much. He’s found me…
My nightmare has finally caught up with me.
My body starts shaking while a chill runs down my back. I’m terrified.
“Gorgeous, what is going on?”
“Nothing that’s any of your business,” I say harsher than I intend to, but it’s either be a bitch or break down, curl up into a ball, and hide somewhere. And I need my strength, I can’t afford to lose it. “I don’t want you here. Just…” I have to stop and gather my resolve to say what I need to say. “Get the fuck out of here already.”
It’s cruel, and I’m breaking my own heart, but I have to. What if something happens to him too because of me?
I block out his presence after that. I can’t watch him walk away from me, out of my life, and hate me, so I don’t notice him not moving a muscle behind me.
Once I reach the roses—I always hated fucking roses, especially white ones—I grab the card stuck into the top. With shaking fingers, I open it.
Over the last week, Duncan has been able to start healing my heart, my soul. It takes only two words to annihilate any progress I have made, any hope I had left. It’s all it takes to extinguish the light he’s brought into my life. Darkness is already creeping in on the edges, waiting for me to fall.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, I gather the last of my strength and read the words that obliterate what was left of the person I have become over the last four months.
Hi love,
It’s time. My patience just ran out. You’re MINE, no one else’s. Definitely not that motherfucker who’s been fucking you. You belong to ME. I own you. It’s time you remembered that.
I’ll be coming for you soon, my love. I’ve missed you.
Love,
Niall
I cry out when my knees hit the floor, jarring me while a low keening sound escapes my lips. I don’t notice though.
He’s found me.
How? How in the hell did he find me?
He doesn’t know about Tom and Luna or that my mom was American. I never told him. He shouldn’t have found me. They assured me I couldn’t be found.
My mind is reeling, working a mile a minute, trying to come up with an explanation and a plan at the same time.
I need to leave.
I need to get the fuck out of here before he comes back.
I need to run.
I need—
“Motherfucker,” I hear from right behind me. And I’m so absorbed in my nightmare I scream and try to scramble away from the voice. In my panic, nothing registers except the deep voice of a man behind me. I run over the flowers in my fright to get away and shatter the glass vase they are sitting in. Not caring in the least glass is scattered all around me on the floor, I continue to make my getaway on my hands and knees.
The pain of the glass ripping open my skin doesn’t penetrate. The slickness coating my hands, making it hard to not slip on the floor, doesn’t register.
The room is closing in, leaving me no room to flee. The darkness is back and wrapping me in its old, familiar blanket.
Despair.
I can feel it swallowing me whole again. Welcoming me home.
I have lost all sense of my surroundings, my past invading my present, clouding my vision with blood and smoke.
I can feel hands on me. Hands reminding me of what’s to come. The punishment will be brutal this time.
It might even kill me. Please, let it kill me.
The terror invading my body has stolen all my senses. All I know is I need to get away. But the hands won’t let me go, holding onto me for dear life.
“Shh, baby. It’s me. Duncan. I’m here, Alex. You’re safe.” The voice is soothing and for some reason calming me. It’s making me feel safe. It keeps repeating the same words over and over again. “You’re safe. Come back to me.”
I’m slowly coming out of my panic attack. I haven’t had one of these in months. I thought I left them behind, but like my other baggage, it’s come back to haunt me.
Once my senses return, I realize I’m shaking like a leaf, my teeth chattering uncontrollably, and my hands are fisted in a shirt.
I take a deep breath, filling my lungs to capacity, trying to calm my erratic heartbeat, when my brain registers the scent surrounding me. It’s all man with a hint of firewood.
It’s familiar.
It’s safety.
Duncan.
Once his name enters my consciousness, my back straightens and I lean away from him. Shock is surging through my body. What is he still doing here?
“What—” My voice breaks, and I have to clear my throat before I try again. Though, it comes out fragile—the vulnerability can easily be read. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I told—I told you to leave.”
“And you actually thought I would?” For a second, he looks at me incredulously, and hurt, before he sighs. He reaches out and gently cups my face. The look in his eyes is tender and understanding, but there is more. Like he just solved a puzzle he has been trying to solve for weeks. The longer we stare at each other, the more they fill with determination.
“Listen to me, Alex. Listen and hear me.” He stresses his words by leaning forward until he’s a mere inch away from my face, all I see are his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. Not now, not fucking ever. I don’t care how angry you are, or how much you piss me off, I won’t leave without a fight. Okay?”
Hearing his declaration, my eyes fill with tears. I can’t do this to him though, as much as I want to. He’ll just end up getting hurt because of me.
I open my mouth to protest, to say something to make him leave, but he cuts me off before I can even get one word out.
“I don’t care what, or who, you’re running from, babe, and I know you’re running from something. You won’t get rid of me.”
“I–I—you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You need to leave. I told you, I don’t want you here.” But I can’t look into his eyes, belying my words.
I want him; I need him. Even if that makes me selfish, he’s the only safe haven I have left.
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he says, his forehead puckered in frustration.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper before I break. The tears that have been in the back of my throat finally break free. I plant my face into his chest, still clinging to his shirt, still not noticing the pain in my hands, or the blood. “You should run. Run far away from me. I will only get you hurt,” I say quietly, my words barely registering.
“I’m not going anywhere, honey.” His voice is just as quiet but filled with conviction.
With me in his arms, he slowly gets to his feet. I haven’t even noticed we were sitting against the wall opposite my door. He walks across the hall steadily while I bury my face in his neck. I don’t want to see the evidence of my past crashing into my present all over the floor.
“Let’s take this inside and clean up your hands and knees. You’re still bleeding.”
His words don’t register though. The darkness still consumes me, numbness taking over. “You deserve better. So much better…”
He puts me on my feet in front of the sink in my bathroom. My hands are still clutching his shirt. He has to pry them open. I glance down at my hands, finally realizing what a mess they are. They’re covered in cuts, and I can still see shards of glass stuck inside my skin. If I wasn’t so numb, I might have freaked out by the damage, but as it is, I hardly feel anything right now. All I do is stare at them dispassionately, trying to figure out why. Shouldn’t I feel pain? Something? Instead, I keep staring at my hands.
I hear Duncan sigh, deep and long, before
he grabs my hands and holds them underneath the running water, gently washing the blood off, causing me to twitch at the sudden movement. Once they’re clean, he leads me to the toilet and sits me down. Thinking I hear a noise somewhere in the apartment, I flinch and jerk my head toward the door in fright.
Is someone else here?
“Don’t move,” he says. “No one’s here but you and I.” Hearing the reassurance in his voice, I try to settle down. It’s like the knowledge he’s found me has sucked all the energy, all my strength and fight, out of me, leaving behind nothing but a wasteland. And now I’m petrified for what he’ll do to Duncan.
After rummaging through my cabinet, he comes back with tweezers. He starts to gently pick out all the glass from my skin. He doesn’t speak, seemingly concentrating on his task, while I stay silent because I have no idea what to say.
He shouldn’t be here. He should have left. Why didn’t he leave? Staying puts him in danger, yet he doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t understand… I need to make him understand.
I can feel him stare at me for a moment after he’s done caring for my hands. I keep my eyes averted though, I don’t need to see what he’s feeling right now. I can feel the tension radiating off of him from where I’m sitting.
I need to figure out what I’ll do, where to go.
Once he’s done bandaging my hands and knees, I reach out shaking hands to the sink to help me get up. I wince when the pain of my cuts shoots through my hands and up my arm. Before I can stand all the way, I’m swept off my feet again and in Duncan’s arms.
“I can walk,” I murmur.
“Probably, but I need to feel you in my arms for a minute. You’ve scared me.” While my voice shows just how weak and vulnerable I am in this moment, his is strong and steadfast, a rock in the middle of a crisis.
He puts me down on the couch with him leaning over me. Getting fed up with my eyes not meeting his, he softly lifts my chin. “Look at me,” he pleads. And it’s the note of desperation that makes me finally look at him. When I meet his eyes, my breath stalls in my throat. Instead of the anger I expected to see in his eyes, I see acceptance, empathy, and compassion.
“Give me a second, okay? I’ll be right back.” And with that he steps out of my line of sight, but it barely registers. All I can concentrate on are his eyes and the look in them. I’m confused, this is not what I expected.
I can hear Duncan on the phone behind me, but it’s too quiet for me to make out any words. Not that I’m paying all that much attention.
I replay what happened out in the hall in my mind while I curl up on the couch and wince. I can’t believe I completely lost it. I thought I was stronger than this. Oliver taught me to be stronger than this.
What should I do now? Instead of a solution, all that’s flashing in front of my eyes is the wreckage I caused. Each mistake I ever made which led me to where I am today.
Alone.
My whole family dead.
And my past nipping at my heels.
I’m startled out of my dark thoughts by a hand on my arm. I jerk backward with a shriek, not having heard him walk up to me.
“Fuck, sorry. It’s just me,” he whispers while he settles next to me. I move away from him slightly and lean onto the arm of the couch. His eyes narrow at my movement, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he clasps his hands between his knees and leans forward. He doesn’t look at me again, so I curl up more into the corner of the couch.
It’s coming after all, the “it’s not you it’s me” speech I expected. Except, it’s totally me. Who would put up with my crazy ass… The last one who did has taught me just how much of a pain in the ass I am.
I deserve everything he’s about to dish out.
My brother’s voice that’s usually the one telling me I’m being an idiot is quiet for the first time in months. Maybe he, too, finally realized I’m worthless…
“Alex,” Duncan starts, dragging me from the darkness. I try to shake it off and listen to what he has to say, I owe him that much. “What happened out there? I mean, one minute you were fine, and the next you have a massive panic attack. You didn’t even know I was there anymore.” His voice is even, like he’s discussing the weather and not my mental breakdown.
“I–I’m sorry you had to see that,” is all I can think to say. I don’t want to tell him about my past, it’s too ugly.
With a frustrated growl, he turns toward me. His sudden movement draws my eyes. His carefully calm façade is gone, in its stead is an angry man who looks like he’s about to go on a rampage. My Viking come to life in this instance. I can picture him, standing at the bow of one of those old ships they used to pillage villages—fierce, strong, captivating. His blue eyes barely contain the storm that’s raging inside of him, letting me see just how affected he is. How his control is slipping, and he is unable to hold back much longer.
“Gorgeous, stop playing fucking games. Whatever that was out there fucking terrified you. Please, let me in. I wanna be here for you, but I can’t unless you let me. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you, ever.” I can hear the strength and conviction in his ability to protect me in his voice. But he’s wrong, he can’t protect me, he’ll only get himself hurt.
“You can’t promise me that. No one can. The last person who promised me that ended up dead at the bottom of a ravine.”
“What the fuck?”
I don’t want to talk about this, but I’m done pretending not to be broken. I have no energy left to dodge and distract. He leaves me no choice. It’s the only way to get him to leave me alone for good. To keep him safe.
I take a breath and turn my face away, I can’t look at him while I tell him about this.
“Those flowers outside, they’re from Niall, my ex-boyfriend.” I can feel Duncan tense next to me, preparing for what’s to come—not that he ever could. “The first time he gave me white roses was after he broke my arm for the first time. Then, after he raped me for the first time.” His audible gasp doesn’t stop me from spilling all the filthy details. “There were many more in between, but the last time was right after my family died in the car accident.”
I stare out the window, keeping my gaze averted. The weather is mocking me with its blue sky and the sun shining down on people, like the light is blessing them while my soul is breaking all over again.
“It’s his way of apologizing each and every time.”
“What are you saying?” His voice is as quiet as mine.
“He killed my family, and now he’s here to kill me.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What?” Duncan yells, jumping up from the couch. I’m still staring outside, but I can see him run his hand through his hair while he paces in front of the coffee table in the window’s reflection. His movements are agitated and erratic.
“Tell me the rest,” he says with an ache in his voice. I ignore his anguish, I need to in order to get through this.
“I met Niall two months before I graduated university. I wasn’t looking for something serious. I was about to move to London to teach and didn’t want to get involved. But he was charming and funny, fooling me into believing he was a nice guy. He never pressured me into anything. Hell, I never even slept with him until way past the third date, but he was persistent. I thought it was romantic.
“He talked me into giving it a try long distance. Even though we lived in two different cities, we saw each other fairly often. And in the beginning, it was all great. Or so I thought. I didn’t see what was happening. It was gradual. Hell, I thought it was adorable how he would text me every day and call repeatedly. I should have seen it was borderline obsessive back then, but I was naïve. So fucking naïve and stupid.
“He moved to London about five months after I did. Once he moved, it got worse. He’d make me feel bad for going out with my friends or coworkers, saying I should want to spend time with him instead. I’d come home straight after work and eventually stopped going out altogether. The sad part is, so
me of my friends tried to warn me that it wasn’t normal. But I explained it away, made excuses really, saying it was lovely that he wanted to spend more time with me, that he missed me during the day. They eventually ran thin, my friends getting frustrated with me and my excuses. I didn’t see what he was doing and thought he was just trying to spoil me with attention.”
I pause for a moment, gathering my strength. Confessing all of this isn’t easy. I hate how blinded I was, how I thought he was just being on the needy side at first. But the worst was yet to come.
“It started slowly—the abuse. The first time he called me fat was when we were having sex one night, telling me I was letting myself go and he couldn’t even stomach looking at me. I mean I was so busy in my first year of teaching I didn’t go to the gym as often as before. He would tell me I was getting gross, and I better get to the gym or I’d end up ugly and alone, that the women he met out at night were so much hotter than me. At that point, I was still me mostly, so I told him to fuck off. The next morning, he laughed it off and blamed the booze. He always blamed it on the fucking alcohol.” A bitter laugh filled with self-loathing passes my lips. “You know, I always told myself I’m this strong woman who’d never let a guy treat her this way. What a fucking joke. I became every cliché in the bloody book.”
“Babe.” Comes his soothing voice next to me, but I ignore it.
“We moved in together a year after we met, even though he’d been pressuring me for about three months before that, and it went downhill from there. The first time he hit me was because I talked to a guy from work and didn’t like how I looked at him. The man was in his forties and happily married. Niall would find explanations as to why he’d hit me every time. Then he’d come home with white roses. The excuses eventually stopped, the flowers never did. To this day, I hate the smell of roses, they make me sick.
“I’d never know why he’d lose it. By the time I realized just how bad it had become, it was too late. Looking back, I realize I was wrong, but in that moment, I didn’t think I had anyone to turn to. I had no friends since I alienated most of them. I barely spoke to my family. If I spoke to them too much or long, he’d beat me. He even checked my phone records. So, I only spoke to them enough to appease everyone, or so I thought.