Breathless | JJ Maybank

2. KEGGER?

Outer Banks, Martin's house
July 10th, 2020
5:37pm

"So what? You're a P-Pogue now?" Rafe spoke, disgust dripping off his voice.

The tone he used and the way he struggled to string a sentence together helped me figuring out where he had spent his day and what he had done. I rolled eyes and sat on my bed. I tried to read what was in his eyes but his pupils were too dilated for me to see anything through it. "Rafe I'm not doing this again, not while you're high," I sighed.

"I'm doing my best to- to save our relationship okay! Because, I.. I love you! You're talking to me like I'm some random dude but-but I'm your boyfriend. And you're mine alright?" he began, in a sort of endless screed. "Remember? I'm the good guy and all those Pogues, they're not good enough for-for us!"

I shook my head. "You're disgusting Rafe"

He grabbed my wrist holding it so tightly it hurt me, and as his eyes locked in mine, fear filled my body. Because the other times when we argued, I could still read how much he loved me, but then, as he held my wrist, I only read anger. And I didn't know how far it could go with him. A few tears then escaped my eyes and he hurt me more as he didn't let go of my limb. "I'm what?" he asked.

"Rafe- let go of me. I-I'm not going to this Kegger," I sobbed. "Not if you don't want me to"

"Repeat what you said before. I'm what?" he threatened. "Disgusting?"

He went closer to me and my nostrils filled with the awful scent of sweat mixed with cocaine and whatever drugs he was on. I felt nauseous but I ignored if it was because of the sudden smell or because of the current situation I was in. Maybe both. Rafe placed his lips near my right ear and replaced a strand of hair behind it. "Say it," he whispered.

"I- I said you disgusted me," I mumbled very low, hoping he wouldn't hear me.

I knew he had heard me when he let go of my swollen wrist and slapped me across the face. I screamed in pain and gasped as I realised maybe someone had heard us. More tears streamed down my cheeks because Rafe had crossed a boundary he had never crossed before. Maybe he had already scared me and been violent to me but it had never been physical. Not once.

Until then.

"Rafe what did you do?" I sobbed more.

The rings he had around his fingers had cut my skin and so a few drops of blood fell on my bed sheets. I wiped them with my hands, the pain hurting more and more every second that passed. Even though he was really high, I noticed soon enough that he realised what he had done, and he leaned over to me, tears filling up his eyes. "Baby you're bleeding," he said.

"Yeah no shit!" I screamed at him.

"I'm sorry my love. I'm- I'm so sorry I don't know what- I mean I don't know why I did this," he kissed my hurt cheek several times as if it would heal the pain.

Maybe it did, heal the pain, but not my sorrow. The man I had loved for years hurt me physically and nothing would erase that from my mind. "Get off me!" I screamed at him.

I got up from my bed and ran away. I ran away from my bedroom, away from my house, away from Figure-Eight and wherever he could find me. My lungs hurt me, everything ached in my body but it didn't matter as long as I was away from him. I loved him, at least I was sure I did, and so every single time I pictured him slapping me across the face, I cried more. At some point I cried so much and ran so far away that my destination didn't matter. Even running away from Earth would not erase this memory.

Of course, there was worse than being slapped, but it meant a lot and proved how toxic our relationship had turned. People lived sadder things I mean, Kiara told me about her friend who lost his dad by the sea, this was a type of pain nobody would ever be ready to face. Being slapped was not as traumatic. Lana's sorrow after her husband's death was for sure something she would never recover of, and it was understandable. I would recover from being slapped. But it was more about what it meant and how things would never be the same as before.