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Oh no! I forgot about the hide-a-key!
My head swings to the front door just as the handle turns and the hinges creak upon its opening. There, standing in the darkened hallway, staring at the entryway and into the faint light shining in from the outside, is the blackened silhouette of my worst fears come true.
Fear turns to sheer terror. It blankets me with a weight that is suffocating and I’m frozen to the spot. My skin begins to prickle as awareness sets in. He will most likely catch me, but I can’t stand here and do nothing, I have to run.
Turning, as fast as I can, I limp-run down the hallway. Digging through my purse again, my fingers wrap around my cell phone. Yanking it out, I swipe it on to unlock the screen and pull up my favorites list. The pounding of the blood in my ears is so loud, it’s completely shut off all the noise surrounding me, leaving only the sense of touch and feel. The sensory for vibration is burning up my legs as I can feel the pounding of his shoes ricocheting across the wood floors—straight to me. Touch is that one sense you can’t turn off. I can close my eyes, shut my mouth, cover my ears, and clog my nose, but nothing can separate touch.
One one-thousand.Oh God, he’s going to catch me.
Two one-thousand.What’s he going to do to me?
Three one-thousand.Why doesn’t he love me anymore?
SLAM!
His hands make contact with my back and I know it’s over. He’s caught me and there’s nothing I can do to escape him.
Falling.
Falling.
Down.
My body strikes the ground and I cry out in pain. His knee jams into my back to hold me in place, as one hand wraps around the back of my neck keeping my head shoved into the floor, and his other punches the wood directly in front of my face. Four times. Four times I think it’s going to be me, four times I wince from the closeness of the impact, and four times I fear what he is going to hit next.
Leaning over, his nose and then his lips rub against my ear. His breathing is labored, but his words are not.
“I’m so mad, I just might kill you.”
His voice lingers in the hallway, taunting me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears roll down the side of my face and I think, “If I don’t see what he’s about to do to me, then I can’t see that memory, and seeing nothing is better than something” My mind closes off and my heart locks down. This can’t last forever, right?
Chris is talking to me. His mouth is moving next to my ear and his hot breath is fanning over my face. Desperately I want to move away from him, but I can’t. The voice returns, I hear it, but something is off. It’s not his. This voice sounds almost panicked, and Chris is never panicked. Yes, he’s impulsive, but he almost always stays calm, even in a rage. Focusing on the voice, it gets louder and louder. Slowly, the surrounding noises return and take over the thrumming in my ears. My chest aches, I can’t breathe, and I don’t know what happened. A finger touches my chin and that’s when I hear him.
“Ava! Open your eyes and look at me!” My eyes flash open and stare into the most soothing shade of blue. I know those eyes. Those eyes are kind and at the moment show only complete concern. He waves his fingers back and forth between the two of us, and if I could, I would stare into these eyes forever.
“Breathe with me.” Ash is lying in the damp grass and dirt, his face next to mine, but he’s not touching me. Obeying, I follow his breathing, and that’s when I realize there’s no one here but us and a large black and tan dog standing over us, panting. That’s what I felt in my ear, not Chris. I haven’t been caught, he’s not here to hurt me, it’s all going to be okay. Relief floods through me, and more tears drip down the side of my face.
“I need you to tell me what hurts,” his voice is calm but laced with concern.
My eyebrows pull in because I am not sure why he’s asking me this. These tears are out of relief not pain. Chris isn’t here and he didn’t get me . . . and that’s when I feel the shooting pain up my arm. The pain is so fierce, I gasp and immediately know something is broken. Rolling further into the dirt, I want to escape his handsome face. I really don’t want him to see me like this.
“Ava, please look at me.” His voice is so kind and warm, it vibrates throughout my heart. Along with those blue eyes, I think I could listen to him as well as look at him forever.
“I am so sorry,” he says and I peek back over at him.
“What happened? Were you chasing me?” I can’t imagine that he would’ve been, but maybe. With the earbuds in, I never would have heard him call out to me.
“No, but Whiskey loves to play chase, and I yelled for you to stop, but I don’t think you heard me.” At the sound of his name, the dog leans down and nudges Ash’s head, pushing him a little closer to me.
“Whiskey. That’s his name?” The dog whines and then lays his head down on Ash’s arm, looking at me.
“Yeah. Clay and I found him behind a bar called Whiskey’s last year.” Silence surrounds us as I roll onto my side to face him. Worry is etched into the lines of his face.
His face.
The uneasiness in my stomach changes and is replaced by nervous flutters. He’s so close to me I can feel the warmth of his body as it closes the distance between us. The stubble on his chin is longer than it was yesterday and I like it. His head is covered with a gray beanie leaving only little pieces of his hair sticking out, and there are little freckles under his eyes, making them even bluer than they already are.
“Can you tell me what hurts?” he asks again.
