Bent, Not Broken(4)

“I’m feeling fine today.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the complete truth. She stared at Gregory, watched as he jotted down his notes, and looked at her hands. She twisted her fingers together, knew that she’d have to be honest with him if she was going to make any progress.

“Amy, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you,” Gregory said, crossed a leg over the other, and stared at her. His blond hair was perfectly styled to the side, and his thin glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose. He was sophisticated and professional and had helped her through a lot.

“My mother died.”

“I know,” he said without sarcasm, only interested in what she had to say and encouraging her to share more. “How have you been dealing with that? I know it’s been a few months, but you have to be struggling with your emotions.”

She stared at her hands again, looking at the redness of her skin from the constant rubbing of her fingers over her flesh, and nodded. “It’s hard, I won’t lie, but I am working with that more than I am with the fact I will always be damaged.”

“Amy, I thought that we were going to work on the fact you are not damaged, that you need to start seeing yourself as a strong, independent woman.”

She nodded, knowing he spoke the truth, but having such a hard time coming to that realization. “I want that, I do, but when I close my eyes, I can still see him, still smell his rancid cologne and cigarette breath as he comes into my room and climbs onto my bed.” She wanted to move on, to be a woman that didn’t let the past hurt her, cripple her life, and take things away from her.

“There is no time frame to make things better, Amy. That’s why we are here, to try to help you get through it one day at a time.” He smiled at her. “But you have to start with yourself first. You have to realize that you are better than everything that happened to you.”

It was hard though, but she was working toward that, and hoped that one day she could look behind and see that all of this hadn’t destroyed her, but had made her even stronger.



Joker sat in his SUV, the piece of shit man he stared at was just asking to be sliced right across the throat. He watched as Amy’s father, Bruce, a fucker that needed to die a slow and agonizing death, took another hit off his cigarette and snubbed it out on his boot. He had gotten the information on this motherfucker from Zeke several months ago, had tracked Bruce, and now he knew exactly where the piece of shit was staying.

He also knew his routine, where he hung out, and the fact he was a fucking low life that was an infection on the world. Joker inhaled from his joint, let the smoke slowly billow out of his mouth, and watched as Bruce headed back inside. He could have killed the asshole last week when he had locked down his routine, but the truth was that Joker wanted to prolong this; he wanted to make the fucker suffer before he begged for death. So he wouldn’t be killing this piece of shit tonight. No, he was going to torment him first, make him beg and scream for mercy.

Joker started the engine and headed toward a bar out of town that was known for back alley and bloody, raw fighting. Right now, he needed to let his aggression go, needed to fucking hit someone over and over again so that he would have a semblance of control when he finally took down the piece of shit that had hurt his Amy.

He drove for an hour before the small bar that specialized in illegal fighting came into view. Joker had gone there on more than one occasion to try and ease some of the destruction housed inside of him. Getting into a fucking crazy fight helped erase the darkness inside and helped him cope with the fact that he would probably never have the woman he wanted: Amy. If she knew the shit he liked to do in the bedroom, stuff she hadn’t seen all those months ago when she’d come into his bedroom, she’d probably run in the other direction and never want to see him again. He wasn’t into the conventional way of sex. Domination, submission, and bondage, along with the mixing of pain and pleasure is what he liked to indulge in.

He parked his vehicle, took off his cut and left it in the SUV, and headed toward the front of the bar. Once inside, the place reeked of cigarettes, nasty fucking alcohol, and vomit. The women walking around were glorified, trashy whores. He walked right past them and moved toward the rear of the building. Joker pushed open the back door, walked into the large building reserved for the fighting, and stopped to watch the fight currently underway that was just about to end. There was blood and sweat everywhere and the scent of the anger and testosterone in the air was suffocating.

The fight was over quickly, and Joker was putting his name in to be next. He needed this fight, needed to feel bone breaking, blood spraying, and pain filling his body. He stepped into the center of the room, took off his shirt, and stared at the man he’d be fighting. He was a big motherfucker, tatted up like Joker, rippling with muscle and rage: the perfect contender. The guy bared his grilled-out teeth at Joker and didn’t waste any time in attacking.