"I-I told you!" I stuttered, pleading for him to believe me. "There isn't anyone!"
"You can't trick me, bitch!" Jesse reached down and fisted his hands into my now messy ponytail. He yanked his hand down so that my face was lifted to his and his gaze searched my face. I watched him smirk at the damage he had caused.
"I mean it, Jesse!" I wailed, grasping in my mind for anything that might make him stop his relentless beating. "I love you! Only you!"
"Oh yeah?" he smirked, and I nodded hoping my performance was believable.
I could feel the blood from my head dripping down my neck and forehead, blending with the blood from my eyebrow and lip. My teeth had cut up the inside of my mouth with every punch and with every swallow I could taste the salty metallic liquid flowing down my throat.
Jesse released one hand from my hair, keeping his other fist locked tightly around my ponytail. He reached down and unbuttoned his pants, and I heard the zipper as he unzipped his jeans and pulled them down his hips, his boxer briefs following. I felt bile rise in my throat at the sight of his arousal. He was turned on by his attack to my face and body, and it took all of my strength to swallow the vomit rising in my throat.
"Prove it," he sneered, using his hold on my hair to lift me to my knees. I whimpered, and shook my head, understanding what he was expecting me to do.
"C'mon, Brookey Baby, you know you want to." His once endearing nickname filled me with disgust. His words were playful but his tone was forceful. I suppressed the sob that was climbing up my throat.
"Fuckin' do it, Brookelyn!" He yelled, bringing his face down to mine, close enough that I could feel droplets of saliva hit me in the face from the forcefulness of his shout.
I shook my head no longer able to contain my tears or the violent sobs that racked through my body. As soon as I felt the tears hit my cheeks a sharp pain went through my head as he grabbed me forcefully by my hair and yanked it downward so that my face was tilted up to his once more. I closed my eyes to avoid looking at him in the eyes and so the sharp sting that shot through my cheek took me by surprise. I whimpered and reluctantly opened my eyes. He grabbed my jaw roughly between his fingers.
"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKIN' TO YOU!" He bellowed before delivering another hard slap to my face.
"I...I'm s-sorry!" I cried, knowing that there was no way I could get away from him.
His eyes flickered with amusement but quickly shifted back to the fury filled depths.
"No, you're not. But you will be."
He hit me again only this time his hand was closed into a fist. Another throbbing pain sliced through my skull and I felt more warmth trickle down my lip before he pulled me to a standing position, and pushed me backwards onto his bed.
He wasted no time ripping my thong from my body and plunging into me.
"No, no, no!" I sobbed, pushing against the strong chest above me. "Get off! PLEASE!"
He chuckled, and continued to thrust into me. One hand was gripping my thigh open so hard that I knew he'd leave a bruise. His other hand moved from groping my breast to my throat, and I gasped for air as he tightened his fingers around my neck.
"Scream again, and it'll be the last breath you ever take you stupid whore!" he spit at me, venom lacing his every word.
I closed my eyes as tightly as possible, and thought to myself that this was it. This was the moment that I would die. You think about it, and you know about it, but you never think about how you'll feel in your last moments alive.
I couldn't wrap my head around what had happened to him. I know that they say that drugs will change a person, but he said he'd never hurt me. He said he'd stop using. He promised that he would stop. That he wasn't addicted, and he just used recreationally. Marijuana could be used recreationally, not this stuff he was on. I should have been smarter.
This was not the guy I had fallen for. This was a monster. This was a murderer.
I could feel myself start to slip out of consciousness at the same time that he let go of my throat and moved inside of me one last time. He let out a loud grunt and collapsed on top of me as I gasped for air.
All I could think about was that I was alive. He didn't kill me. Not yet.
I wished he had just let me die.
Wes was struggling to grasp everything I had told him. He had known I was afraid of men, but to hear why, and in such detail, I knew he was fighting an internal battle.
"I'm gonna kill him." He said, his voice hoarse. He didn't look at me, he kept his focus straight ahead, and his arm around me was tense. His other arm lay beside him, his fist tightly clutching my bed sheets, his knuckles white from the force. Normally the sight of a closed fist caused by anger would send me into a panic, but I found that I wasn't scared when I was with Wes. I felt safer with him than I have ever felt in my life, especially in the past eleven months.
Wes grabbed his cell phone from my nightstand and scrolled through his contacts before pressing send. After a few moments of silence the person answered. I strained to hear the other half of the conversation but I could only hear Wes's side of it.
"Where the fuck is he? Yeah, I know. She told me. Now, where the fuck is he? I know you didn't know, Reese, but I don't give a fuck! Tell me that fucker isn't at my apartment. Good. He better fuckin' not. I'll be the one going to prison this time, Reese. I swear to God. Yeah, I'm staying here. No, don't do that. I'll ask Brookelyn. Okay. Yeah, well you better not ever bring your prison scum near my girlfriend or me ever again dumbass. Whatever, Reese. Save it. You want to apologize to someone, apologize to Brookelyn. No, you're not talking to her right now. Fuck off, Reese. Make sure he's out of town."
Wes ended the call and let out a long breath, "Sorry about that. Reese had him leave once he put two and two together. He said he drove the scumbag to the train station and stayed until he got on one."
"Okay," I whispered, and buried my face into his warm chest.
"Tell me the rest," Wes asked with a sigh.
"I don't like making you upset," I told him.
"Brookelyn, I'm not upset with you. Do you have any idea how badly I want to track that piece of shit down right now and kill him for ever laying a hand on you?" he said firmly, bending his head to place a tender kiss to my forehead. "I care about you so much, Brooke, the thought of someone hurting you in any way, especially like that … fuck, I can't stand it."
I leaned up on my elbow and planted a soft kiss on his lips, letting him know how much I cared for him as well, and how much I appreciated his care for me.
"Tell me what happened next," he insisted, placing another chaste kiss on my lips and then leaning back, preparing himself for the rest.
"That's the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital. I had lost consciousness from the blows to my head and all of the blood loss." I told him, my story easier to tell now that I knew he wasn't going to leave me because of all of my problems. "I guess after that Jesse had left to buy some more drugs. He didn't lock his bedroom door behind him and so when his roommates came home from the game, one of them, Nick, had came into his room to tell him about the big win. Except, instead of finding Jesse, he found me curled into a ball on his bed, unconscious, naked, beaten and broken, with blood all over me. He called 911 and the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. The police were waiting to speak to me but I had been in a medically induced coma for three days. The doctors had to put me in the coma while the swelling in my brain started to heal from the severe head trauma I had sustained.
Because Nick had been the one to call the ambulance, the police had questioned him first. He told them how he'd found me in my boyfriend's room so they had gone to talk to Jesse while I was still unconscious. They found him at the house and luckily for him, there were no drugs anywhere near him and so he couldn't get arrested for possession. However, the police could see that he was under the influence and noticed his knuckles were raw and bloody so they questioned him and arrested him, keeping him locked up until they could speak to me.
He was charged with domestic battery and assault. I didn't tell them about the rape. I had been with him in the past and I didn't want my sex life being examined in front of a courtroom. I was embarrassed and I felt violated as it was. I didn't want to go through anymore. So he ended up being sent to prison for the battery and assault. I had to sit on the stand and tell the court in detail every single thing he had done while he sat across from me, hatred pouring out of him. He wasn't supposed to be out yet. He got eighteen months. They promised me eighteen months."