Page 93 of Relapse

The scared part of my brain was yelling: What’s next? What is the plan? How do we stop him if he continues to attack?

He was staring at me from across the room. His eyes twinkled with rage, his smirk gone, one arm still holding his wounded side. I still couldn’t be sure what his next move would be.

With a quick, dismissive flick of his wrist, he sent the heavy bedside lamp sailing through the air. I saw it coming, a blur of ceramic and metal, but my body couldn’t think fast enough. Before I could even consider twisting away, my arms flew up instinctively, hands clamping over my head in defense.

Unfortunately for me, that wasn’t where David was aiming.

The lamp slammed into my side with a sickening, solid crunch. The sound from inside my body was audible.

While I couldn’t distinguish pain at first, the force felt like it went straight through my torso, knocking the air from my lungs in a violent rush. For a split second, there was nothing, just the startling emptiness in my chest. My hands sank down to the spot where the lamp hit like they were moving in slow motion. I couldn’t even make a sound.

“Don’t you ever call me that again,” David growled lowly. “Or next time, it will be your pretty fucking face I break.”

I shifted and the pain bloomed, a hot, searing fire that radiated from the point of impact. Agony flooded my senses. The color of the room drained into a monochrome gray. Before the shock could fully register, the shadows at the edges of my sight rushed in, swallowing me whole.

Day Five

When I awoke I was looking at the ceiling. I was flat on my back, situated atop my crisp, clean bed sheets. The stench of apple cinnamon—my mother’s favorite bath soap—filled the air, a sweet lie that coated my bruised and aching skin. It was the scent of normalcy.

It was a fucking mockery.

The smell alone made my stomach coil, and before I knew it I was throwing up. With each attempt to lift my head, the pain pulsated through me. The incessant throbbing that pounded out from my ribs prevented me from being able to turn myself, and before I knew it, I was choking on my own bile.

Just when I thought I was done for, a hand cupped the back of my neck, leaning me to the side so I could clear my airways. I coughed, gulping in the oxygen greedily, glad for a steady flow of air. The hasty beating of my heart slowly began to return to a normal rhythm

I finally had the sense to look at the person who helped me. Kim, our house maid, stood at the side of my bed, looking down on me with widened eyes.

“I think you have a broken rib,” she whispered softly. “I bandaged it for you.”

I winced as I began coming to sense with my surroundings. I was in clean clothes, and through them, I could feel the wrapping wound tightly across my sternum and back. I had no memory of what happened after David struck me with the lamp. With the pain that radiated from my entire body, David could have fulfilled his twisted desire and I would be none the wiser. Everything was hurting.

“Your throat is also really swollen,” she said, leaning over me with a cup and straw.

I shook my head. I didn’t want anything. I didn’t care.

She glanced around at the new mess I had created after getting sick. “I…I will clean this up, don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” I croaked. The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but I still tried. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She took a few steps back and continued to stare at me. The terrified look in her eyes told me that she knew something that she shouldn’t.

“M-Mr. Hansen…your father…came out of this room l-looking— well he was very angry, and… h-he told me that you needed to be patched up. That y-you might have injured yourself…” Her explanation was broken with periodic stutters and pauses. She was clearly a nervous wreck.

“I’m fine now,” I replied, my voice tight. I just wanted her gone. I needed her to stop talking, stop looking at me with those pitying eyes.

“You were in the closet…” she murmured.

Her words might as well have been a shard of glass into an open wound. I didn’t respond. I knew what that meant.

Kim clenched her fists together at her sides. I watched her face contort with several emotions. She was weighing her options. She took a deep breath.

“Mr. Hansen, when I opened the closet door you were covered in—”

“Shut up,” I spat, the words tearing from my throat. The sound of her voice, her concern, it was all just noise. Noise scratching at the raw, bloody memory of what he did to me. Nails on a fucking chalk board. “Just shut up and forget about everything you saw today.”

Her posture straightened. “No.”

I paused. Was she serious?