Page 20 of Taking Control
I have to take him down.
I can’t allow him to do this to another woman.
I can’t allow him to continue to do this to me.
I will make him pay.
I have to.
Chapter Fifteen
Help is on the way
“Are you still not hungry?” Michael asks as he devours the lasagna in front of him whilst I push my food around my plate.
“Not really.”
“Come on, Lucy, I’ve said that I’m sorry. I thought that we were okay now?”
Oh, sure, a night of being locked to a fucking bed can all be cast aside because you have said sorry. Not to mention the humiliation of waking up in clothes that were wet with my sweat and urine, because nobody can hold their pee all night long whilst being handcuffed to the bed.
He really is delusional.
Of course, I had no choice in coming out for lunch. Michael decided that was what we were doing, so here we are, sat in Alan’s, putting on an act for the outside world. Except, I can’t act today. I can’t put on a mask and pretend that everything is fine. I can’t hide how broken I truly am.
“Eat. Some. Food,” he commands, his patience wearing thin. I pick a chip up from my plate and take a bite. It tastes bland and I struggle to swallow. Feeling bile rising, I excuse myself and go to the toilet. Michael eyes me suspiciously as I leave the table. Lord knows what he thinks I am going to do.
I enter the toilets and lock myself in a cubicle before I bend over and start to retch. Nothing comes up which doesn’t surprise me. There isn’t anything to come up except for the bite of chip I just consumed.
Shaking, I lean against the toilet door and close my eyes.
How have I let it come to this?
I’m that broken record again, asking myself the same shit, repeating it, getting on my own damn nerves.
A light tap on the toilet door has me jumping a mile and panicking that it’s Michael.
“Lucy?” Kim’s quiet voice says, making me instantly relax. “Is that you in there?”
I unlock the door and fling it open, immediately drinking in the sight of Kim’s friendly face. She smiles at me before pulling me into a hug. My body trembles in her arms. She’s here, and God does it feel good to see her, even if it is in the fucking toilets of a restaurant.
She leans back after a moment, her eyes glistening as she looks me up and down.
“Jesus, Luce, you look awful.” I scoff at her, but I know that it’s true. Pale with sunken eyes and a smaller than usual frame, I am almost unrecognisable to myself let alone others.
“I’m okay,” I say as I wipe my few tears away. I can’t let Michael see that I have lost control of myself here. It will only piss him off.
“No, you’re not,” Kim says. “And I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Sorry? What for?”
“For being such a cow. For not being there for you when you clearly needed me now more than ever before.”
“Oh God, Kim, it’s me who should be apologising.”
“No,” she responds firmly. “You are going through something and I can’t even imagine what it’s like. Cal explained a few things to me. I’ve been so hurt and angry that I’ve been blinded to the truth. I thought that you had chosen him over us.”
“Never,” I whisper, her words impacting my ability to speak any louder. “How did you know I was in here?”
