Slapped on Our Anniversary - Chapter 5: Chapter 5
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I couldn't afford treatment, and I figured even if he despised me, he'd at least throw me some cash so I wouldn't suffer too badly in my final days.
But that afternoon - our anniversary - he called me to Olivia's birthday party instead. Then he slapped me in front of everyone, declaring a lowly driver like me had no business in the VIP section. Olivia and his entourage laughed like hyenas, turning me into their personal punching bag for entertainment.
Seven years of this.
Seven years of similar humiliations until I was too broken to try showing him again.
"Because I've finally paid you back every cent," I spat through clenched teeth, dragging my broken suitcase behind me. When Ethan came chasing after me with wild eyes, I glared like a wounded animal. "Keep harassing me and I'll drop dead right at your feet!"
That froze him in his tracks.
With my last few hundred dollars - painkillers were all I could afford now. Even this money came from collecting bottles after Ethan's endless parties with his girls and cronies.
For seven years he'd treated me like some common thief, installing surveillance cameras like I'd steal the silverware. Pathetic - thirty-three years old and I couldn't even afford a motel, just wandering the streets until my 10 AM bus tomorrow.
The autumn chill drove me to that crumbling apartment building - the one Ethan had once killed himself working to buy me. The window frames rattled with holes, wind kicking up dust ghosts of our past.
For a moment, I swore I saw us there - young Ethan wrapping his arms around me at that same window, his voice bright with promise: "Don't worry about the cracks, Rachel. Next place I buy you'll have bay windows big enough to drown in sunlight."
Back when we'd just escaped that moldy basement. Back when he worked himself half to death on three jobs, collapsing in crosswalks with taxis screeching past - all to keep me out of hospital beds.
A sudden downpour washed the memory away.
Curled on that rotting couch, pain twisted through me so violently I couldn't even open the pill bottle. The darkness crept in, and just before it took me under, I saw him again - Ethan's silhouette in the doorway.
How pathetic - even my dying hallucination was of him.
As my eyes fluttered shut, one last thought surfaced: Next life, I'm keeping my heart under lock and key.
But that afternoon - our anniversary - he called me to Olivia's birthday party instead. Then he slapped me in front of everyone, declaring a lowly driver like me had no business in the VIP section. Olivia and his entourage laughed like hyenas, turning me into their personal punching bag for entertainment.
Seven years of this.
Seven years of similar humiliations until I was too broken to try showing him again.
"Because I've finally paid you back every cent," I spat through clenched teeth, dragging my broken suitcase behind me. When Ethan came chasing after me with wild eyes, I glared like a wounded animal. "Keep harassing me and I'll drop dead right at your feet!"
That froze him in his tracks.
With my last few hundred dollars - painkillers were all I could afford now. Even this money came from collecting bottles after Ethan's endless parties with his girls and cronies.
For seven years he'd treated me like some common thief, installing surveillance cameras like I'd steal the silverware. Pathetic - thirty-three years old and I couldn't even afford a motel, just wandering the streets until my 10 AM bus tomorrow.
The autumn chill drove me to that crumbling apartment building - the one Ethan had once killed himself working to buy me. The window frames rattled with holes, wind kicking up dust ghosts of our past.
For a moment, I swore I saw us there - young Ethan wrapping his arms around me at that same window, his voice bright with promise: "Don't worry about the cracks, Rachel. Next place I buy you'll have bay windows big enough to drown in sunlight."
Back when we'd just escaped that moldy basement. Back when he worked himself half to death on three jobs, collapsing in crosswalks with taxis screeching past - all to keep me out of hospital beds.
A sudden downpour washed the memory away.
Curled on that rotting couch, pain twisted through me so violently I couldn't even open the pill bottle. The darkness crept in, and just before it took me under, I saw him again - Ethan's silhouette in the doorway.
How pathetic - even my dying hallucination was of him.
As my eyes fluttered shut, one last thought surfaced: Next life, I'm keeping my heart under lock and key.
End of Slapped on Our Anniversary Chapter 5. Continue reading Chapter 6 or return to Slapped on Our Anniversary book page.