Slam!

Slam!

“Go away!” I sob, fisting my hands in my hair and pulling hard.

“Never! How can you even ask me that after all I’ve done to keep you? Please, just open the door. We don’t have to fight.” My breath hitches in my throat. How after everything can he still affect me like this? Make me doubt myself? I should hate him. I should fucking hate you.

But… I don’t.

“Little star…”

Slam!

Slam!

A sob leaves my throat as I clasp my hand over my mouth, trying to stifle the sound, “Why? Why did you do this to me?” I hear his head thud against the door as he leans on it. I can’t help but to take a few small steps forward, laying my trembling hand where the sound originated. Even now I want him, I wanted both of them.

“I know it seems harsh. I know that, baby, but you left me… just like she did. You left and there was nothing I could do to get you to change your mind. I had to. I had to keep you. You’re mine! Only mine. That’s why I did all the things I did, killed those people. They tried to hurt you, to take you from me. Can’t you see I fucking love you!”

Slam!

I jerk backwards from the door as it bows again, the trim pulling away from the wall, “Who did you kill…?”

“Why does it matter!? They don’t matter to you, Layla, only me!”

Slam!

He’s going to get in.

I scramble jerking out drawers, my hands frantically searching for anything I can defend myself with. But why? Given the opportunity, will I even use it? Will I try to save myself from him? From this… monster inside him.

Do you even want to?

I jerk open his underwear drawer, dumping the contents on the floor as a smalltinkinterrupts my pointless searching.

Slam!

The room goes still as I stare at the IUD laying on the bedroom floor. The walls of the room squeeze in on me as I gasp for breath.

I can’t, I can’t. God, I can’t breathe.

“Layla, just let me in. Let me help you, baby, please.”

Slam!

I can’t look away from the IUD as I bend, picking it up in my hands, every last brutal moment from the past month connecting like tiny explosions forcing my throat closed. I’m only more unsettled by the newfound silence coming from the other side of the door. My gasps for air are the only sound filling the room.

“Here.” Liam’s broken voice cuts through the panicked haze, drawing my attention back to my tormentor, the man I love as a small white pill slides underneath the door. I can hear the crack in his voice, practically see the glistening tears in his eyes.

My anxiety medication. He’s taking care of me even now.

I don’t hesitate as I fall to my knees, dropping the IUD and scrambling for the pill. I down it quickly, as my mind races. Hesitation and self-doubt taking a backseat to my anxiety.

“Open the door, little love, please. I know you’re hurting, you don’t have to. It’s hurting me too. God, I love you, baby, I just want you. That’s it. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. You didn’t need me anymore, Layla. I made you need me.”

Slam!

I stay there on the ground, staring at the floor in front of me as he slams into the door over and over again. It sounds far away, so far away. Each time it gives a little more, and so do I. It’s almost surreal watching my tears drip to the floor beside my hands as the sound of my whooshing heart fills my ears. That unsettling laugh of his snaps me back to him, “Fine! You want to do this the hard way. So be it, Layla.”