Sophia looked in horror at the abandoned bottles, littering every square metre of the house like overgrown confetti. She waded through the debris that was now her home, and every single room told the same, solemn story.

The stale stretch of beer and pungent marijuana slithered through the house and curled around her nostrils.

No matter how much she longed for this to be a tragic break in, the glaring signs were telling her otherwise.

The low hum of drum and base music seemed to reverberate between the walls. With each step, she could hear the gentle snapping of what sounded like cornflakes beneath her feet. Every few seconds or so, she felt her shoes sticking to the floor, and it made a horrible noise like a waxing strip being torn from bare skin.

Sophia’s heart lurched with each disgusting discovery.

Her beautiful, precious furniture was covered with discarded cigarettes and stains of a rather suspicious yellow hue.

No. Oh no.

Not her sofa - her treasure, she’d saved for months - it had its cushions torn and ripped from its horrendously expensive amethyst seams.

Where was he?

“Toby?” Sophia growled, her voice betraying a fury she did not recognise.

She reached the kitchen. The speakers were playing to themselves. She banged her fist down onto the ‘off’ switch.

Now however, there was a familiarly unpleasant sound, laboured, rhythmic breaths like a lawnmower that couldn’t quite jump to life.

Her stomach twisted.

Slowly, she edged towards the bedroom and found her Prince Charming. He was bare-chested, spreadeagled on the bed, like a man awaiting crucifixion, breathing heavily with crumpled cans strewn by his sides.

Here was a man who didn’t have a care in the world.

Sophia sat down at the edge of the bed, looking at her reflection in the mirror. The rings around her eyes resembled that of a wizened, rather battered looking tree. Her gaze shifted down towards her scrubs, dirty and discoloured after a twelve-hour shift.

Her hands began to tremble and her shaking fingers formed quaking fists. Fury, iron hot fury, coursed through her veins like lava. Her heart felt too big for her chest, her breaths became shorter and shorter.

The sarcastic remarks she could put up with. The upturned nose at dinners she slaved over, she could handle. The bruises to her ego, day in, day out, she could just about stomach.

Toby let out a long, laboured grunt and turned heavily onto his side.

But this. This. Her home. Hers. Everything that she’d worked for, longed for, it was here within the walls of this house. But not him, not this man and his drinking, his gambling - his lies.

No more. Never again.

The lava bubbled and boiled, filling her lungs with a raging fire, scorching, rising like bile in her throat.

A scream straight from the bowels of hell erupted from her and rose to a deafening crescendo.

“Get out!” She bellowed to the stirring lump on the bed. “Go!”