“I hope that I stain through your memory.”

Tears stream down her face, coated in sweat as she pants and holds the gun, fighting to keep it steady as she aims it at his chest. In his eyes, an expression that seems a cross between disdain, torture, and longing. He breathes rapidly, deeply as he stares her down, refusing to look anywhere else but directly into her eyes. Refusing to even blink.

She lets out a cry of anguish, faltering for a moment as she loses aim. But as he goes to move towards her again, she pulls the gun back into position as she blindly holds him at bay. Tears begin to bead his eyes, “You would rather me die than fix what we’ve done.”

“We??” A chuckle of disbelief escapes her sobs, “I didn’t put us in this position. I didn’t do ANY of this, it was all you!” He attempts to step forward, and she begins to thrash the gun violently in her hands, “DON’T FUCKING COME CLOSER!”

His hands are up beside his shaking head, “You’re not going to do it.”

She chokes on her own spit, her nose clogged and her eyes blurry as she manages, “Don’t come near me again. I won’t let you do this to me again. I WON’T LET YOU HURT ME AGAIN!”

Fury rushes to his face through his tears as he balls his hands into shaking fists, “I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT YOU! I DON’T EVEN REMBER DOING THAT TO YOU, I WAS DRUNK!”

“YOU ALWAYS SAY THAT,” she keeps over and takes a moment to hold herself, overridden with pain, anxiety, and betrayal, “IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME, IT NEVER GETS BETTER. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!”

He takes the chance to take a few cautious steps forward, “You know I can’t do that.”

A wail of defeat leaves her throat, her hands to both sides of her head as a splitting migraine makes residency, the gun still tight in her right hand. She contemplates turning it into herself for a moment. The fastest way to ensure she’s never in this position again. This never-ending cycle of adultery, violence, substances, and false promises. Those delightful little false promises, the very same ones broken and left with her begging to be set free. To not be plagued in her mind by the thought of him and where he was, whether they were together or not. Whether she was the only one. Whether he would come home drunk and heavy-handed tonight or not.

“Listen…,” he moves closer, keeping eye contact with her as he lowers himself onto the ground nearby herself, “I know we’ve had our ups and downs. We both need to accept where we’ve both done wrong and do better. We can make this work. We can do better. And I know I’ve done wrong, but this isn’t just me.”

“We’re both just as guilty.”

She sits on the floor, her knees folded up to her chest as she clings to the gun. Her last lifeline. Its now or never, and the longer she tries to fight for herself, the longer and narrower the hallway leading to escape seems to be.

Could she really be as guilty? Could it be that, with every return she makes, she buries herself alive in his presence? Was she allowing him to mistreat her?

“…&%@$!%^?”

She looks from the hallways up to his eyes. She’s right where he wants her. She knows it.

The longer she stays with him, the more she wants to bash her head into the bedside table, over and over again. The way he manipulates and gaslights her, makes her question her reality, pushes her boundaries and limits daily as easily as he breathes air. He may as well be the one bashing her head into the bedside table. And if it were not figuratively already, it would be literal in time with the way he had just tried breaking her arm that night.

“….Please just hand me the gun.”

She shakes her head, her heart quickens in pace, and she knows she must make a decision. The pressure had been building, warning signs flashing that she was about to fall off the cliff. To exit the ride as quickly as she could.

And yet, when he looked at her that way, she could see him. The humanity in him. The part of him she had fallen for and loved so adamantly. He had come to the surface again, who knows for how long this time, but he was here.

The cliff was approaching rapidly. He reached his hands out for the gun. She could easily point it back at him, run out, leave, never return. But he would never allow that. She knew it. They both knew it.

She was branded by his touch, her ring finger scarred and disfigured from the abuse he called love. And in every way in her life, no matter where she may hide, she would forever be haunted by him. The feeling was… addictive.

He pried the gun from her hands slowly, placing it onto the floor within his reach yet outside of hers, and forced his way into her arms in an embrace.

The doors slammed shut, a free fall from the cliff as she missed her que to press the ejection button before the crash.

Is there anything more horrific than to allow yourself to be eaten alive just to feel the rush of being loved by another?