Page 172 of Perfect
Not about that.
I know there’s no way for Theo to find me, but in the back of my mind, I still thought he’d appear out of nowhere. I know he didn’t mean to break his promise to always show up, and I know he would have if he’d had a way.
I wish he still had a way.
Danny grabs me by my dislocated arm and yanks hard, dragging me backward. I’m too dizzy and in too much pain to even scream, and I watch with confusion as I leave a trail of blood behind me. I look down at my leg in horror and realize I’ve already bled through the bandage.
Thatistoo much blood.
Danny picks me up and throws me on a bed, and I moan in agony as I land hard on my wrists, feeling something in my other shoulder tear. I’m in so much pain that it’s all blending together, and the shock is blurring out and dulling everything into one constant thrum of pain through my body.
Danny rips my underwear down my legs and grabs my knees, shoving my legs open. I try to pull them together, but he’s already kneeling between them and undoing his pants. He babbles as he jerks himself off, using that harsh, rapid tone of voice he uses when he’s about to do something I know I’ll hate.
“You’re such a stupid fucking cunt. You’re so fucking pathetic, you’re not fit to be my fucking wife anymore. You humiliated me, you stole my fucking money, and you whored yourself out to that piece of shit. You wanna be a goddamn dirty fuckingwhore,Alice? I’ll treat you like one, don’t you fucking worry. I saw how he treated you. You like it rough? You have no idea how rough I can be. I’m finally gonna give you what you fucking deserve.” Danny’s hand grips my throat, and I start to choke as he pushes down on my windpipe, and then he’s on top of me.
No.
I fuckingrefuseto have this be the last thing I experience before I die.
My mind finally pulls away from my body as he forces his way inside of me, and I go somewhereelse.
It’s not the numb, grey state I remember living in after my parents died. It’s not the cold, staticky zoning out I felt anytime Danny got angry and started yelling. It’s not the buzzy, confused way I feel when I’m too upset to handle something. It’s not the hazy, pleasurable floating outside of my body feeling that Theo gives me.
This is different.
This isterrifying.
It’s a painful shrinking, an excruciating feeling of smallness, and it feels like I’m falling down, down, down into a deeper part of myself than I knew existed. I’m lucid, but nothing makes sense. I can see something above me, and I know it’s Danny’s face, but it’s just a vague jumble of colors and shapes. I can hear something, and I know it’s Danny yelling at me, but I can’t distinguish what he’s saying. My body can feel pain, but I’m not connected to my body, which is getting number by the second anyway.
I know what’s happening to me, but I can’t process it.
The only thing I can process right now is that I’m going to die, and I’m pushed farther inside of myself as a wave of hopelessness hits me.
I don’t want to die.
Maybe Danny was always going to kill me, but I really thought I’d gotten away from him.
I really thought everything was going to be okay.
I ran to the other end of the country and rebuilt myself, built a life out ofnothing. I built something imperfect, maybe, but it’s mine and I love it.
Ilovedit, I guess.
I loved this small, beautiful town. I loved my tiny, shitty, freezing apartment that I covered in myart. I loved my friends, who I was finally feeling closer to. I loved the women I worked with and how they sort of became my family. I loved my job, my routine, my structure, and my color-coded planner covered in red ink. I loved my sweet, damaged, slightly delusional ex-stalker of a boyfriend who almost ruined my life.
FuckingTheo.
I hope he knows he was the best choice I made, besides leaving Boston.
I’m going to miss making choices.
Before, I’d always let other people tell me how to be, what to do, and how to live. Here,everythingwas a choice I got to make. There were confines to the choices, maybe, but I got to make them all the same.
I didn’t realize that’s what life was supposed to be – a series of choices you made for yourself until you built something that fit you.
I wish I would have known that earlier.
I don’t know what it would have changed, but it might have changed something. Maybe I never would have let Danny in. Maybe I would have accepted help earlier. Maybe I would have run sooner. Maybe nothing would have changed, but I still would have known I could have lived differently.
