Sensing me behind her, she takes my plate from me and I'm about to tell her no when I remember what Lucy said to me.
You have to let her continue her routine for the most part. Trying to change it all at once is going to paralyze her. She's scared and she's been doing the same things every day for years. These are things she views as requirements. The only way to get her out of it is little by little. A couple changes a day, any more and she'll have a breakdown.
I let her take the plate from me as she mindlessly goes through the motions. I want to reach out and stop her. Throw the goddamn plate against the wall. I want to pull her to me and tell her to forget all the bullshit he drilled into her, but I know that would probably do more harm than good.
I wait until she's done and then take her hand leading her back to the couch. "I need to ask you something and if you aren't comfortable telling me, just say the word."
She nods.
I take a breath trying to watch the way I say this. "Why didn't you leave him? You couldn't have been happy."
Her eyes go blank.
***
Jasmine
I listen for the car pulling out of the driveway, my body shaking with what I'm about to do. Dylan has been getting more violent and controlling since we moved out here. Yesterday he took my cell phone. He says my family is trying to come between us.
I need to get away. Before he hurts me even worse than he already has.
A small backpack sits by the door, with enough to last me a few days. There's exactly two hundred and nine dollars and eleven cents in my purse-the measly fruits of two months of slipping small bills out of Dylan's wallet when he was passed out. The directions to the bus station loop in my brain. I must have studied the map for hours trying to commit them to memory.
This is it.
Taking a deep breath, I open the door, the sunlight warming my face. I smile. Then my face in cast in shadow and a hand closes around my throat.
I open my eyes. How did he know?
Dylan's face is full of anger: the whites of his eyes bloodshot, his teeth clenched, chest heaving. He squeezes, draining the breath from me. "You stupid fucking bitch. You thought you could leave me?"
He pushes me back into the room and I fall to the ground.
I cough, trying to catch my breath.
I hear his boots on the wooden floor, coming toward me. I curl into the fetal position, but when his hand grips my hair and he starts to pull my ponytail like it's a leash, I'm forced to get to my feet, walking backward up the steps as he drags me behind him. When the top step catches my calf and I stumble, my foot slipping, my entire weight suspended by my hair, I scream. Dylan does nothing but laugh as he yanks me back up, pushing me into our bedroom. The crack of my skull hitting the dresser echoes through my head and dots pepper my vision as I slide down the heavy drawers into a heap on the floor.
"Dylan, please. I'm sorry."
He walks into the closet and emerges with his box. "Not yet, but you fucking will be." He turns, two sets of handcuffs in his hands. They're the metal ones. The ones he always clicks too tight. The ones that bite into my skin and leave dark bruises that keep me indoors for days afterward. "Undress, now."
It takes me three attempts to stand up, my legs not listening to me, and I have to clutch at the dresser to stop myself from falling down again. My head throbs. Lifting my shirt over my head, I start to cry.
"Faster!"
I jump at his voice and move as quick as possible. "Get on the bed, slut." I flinch at the harshness of his voice, even though it's a tone I've heard numerous times.
Moving over to our bed I climb onto it, he smacks my ass so hard the force sends me falling onto the mattress. I yelp from the pain and his laughter sounds behind me.
With my face buried in a pillow, he grips each of my wrists in turn, hooking the handcuffs around them and then around the bedpost. The fabric closes in around me, making it hard to breathe, and my arms are stretched so tight that I can't even bend my elbows. His hand clasps around my ankle and he twists. Pain shoots up my leg and I scream into the pillow, my tears soaking it. Something soft is wrapped around both ankles and then my legs are pulled.
I can't move.
My limbs are pulled so tight that it feels like they might rip off of my body. I know what's coming. My muscles tense in anticipation and fiery bursts shoot through my limbs, like someone has crawled inside my body and is ripping me apart from the inside. Blackness encroaches on my vision as my breath is trapped in the attic of my throat and the pain starts to take me-not away, but to some place deep inside my psyche that knows how to deal with this. How to make it through. With every sob that leaves me the pressure increases and I feel myself start to unravel. But I won't give that to him.