Page 311 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
He drags one of the throw pillows to my face, and for a second, I feel like he’s gonna suffocate me. Then his fist rains down, hit after hit, until my head pounds.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten?—
I lose count of how many times the pillow protects me slightly from his brutality, but after a while, he drifts away, leaving the pillow, now soaked by my tears, pressed against my face.
Slowly, I sit up, only to be hit with the blanket as he tosses it back on the bed. He kicks the soda can, and it knocks over the lamp, blowing out the light and leaving me sitting in the glow from the creepy movie.
I need Duggan.
I need a reason to get out of this room.
“What?” he snaps, but I’m not even glancing his way.
“Nothing.” The whisper is so weak, it makes me feel sick with myself. “I just wanna go to bed.”
“What’s the point? We aren’t gonna sleep. We’ll probably just argue more.”
I can’t make him angrier, so I tell him what he wants to hear. “Come on. Get in, please? We won’t argue. It was my fault again. Please, let’s just get some rest.”
The begging from me makes me feel weak, and a deep-rooted hate rolls through my body because of it, but placating him feels like the easiest way to get him to calm down.
“Why should I get in? You don’t want me near you.”
I don’t.
But he isn’t going to leave, or he’d have done it before starting any of this, and I want to be safe.
Pacing while he thinks of it, I ignore my need to rock myself into a place of calm, my eyes roaming for Duggan.
A picture fills my head of him in the den, still cuddled in the comforter.
I wish I were there, too.
Finally, Shane gets in bed, turning off the TV and silencing the creepy movie. With force, he throws the remote toward the wall, but it knocks over a stack of books that are ready to be put back on the bookcase downstairs.
My favorite copy of Pride and Prejudice lies sprawled on the floor, pages open and probably creased. It has survived over two hundred years with no more than age spots until now.
My feelings shift between hurt and anger over my stuff getting damaged because of Shane’s outburst. It bothers me as much as the purple bruises I’ll have on my face tomorrow, but I voice no anger or sorrow as I set my phone on the nightstand.
He huffs as he pulls himself under the covers and turns away from me.
We lie there, facing opposite walls, him letting out heavy breaths of agitation caused by me, and me, trembling because of it.
Hours pass before I glance over my shoulder in the dark room, wondering if Shane has fallen asleep.
Still and quiet, he makes no sound until my feet touch the floor.
His devil senses must alert him to it.
“What are you doing?” he asks, with only a hint of tiredness in his voice.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I reply, with all my pain still trapped in mine. “Is that okay?”
Why on earth did I ask that?
To avoid more trouble.
“Don’t be long. I’ll wait up. I have work tomorrow, and I’m gonna be so fucking tired in the morning because of you.”
