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For the past week or so, I've been getting the strangest string of calls from an unknown number, but they never leave a voicemail. But as May and I walk to our club, I answer it. 

"Hello?"

I can hear a breath behind the other end, but it takes them a moment to answer verbally. 

"Hello, Alex."

I stop dead in my tracks. 

"Carson."

I think back to the last time I saw Carson. We were in our apartment back home, he was saying goodbye to me to go to work, and little did he know, that would be the last time he ever saw me. 

"How did you get my number?"

"It's not that hard when your mother thinks I'm a godsend."

That's also why I don't speak to my mother. May turns when she notices I'm not right next to her. She rushes the few steps back to me, seeing the look of pure horror on my face. 

"What do you want?"

"I'm in the city, hoping you'll forgive me. I've changed Alex. I miss you."

I'm so afraid to see him again, it I tell him where I am. But I'm also so afraid of him that I'm worried what he would do if I didn't allow him to see me. 

"Where are you?"

"Your mother gave me your address. I'm at your door. Will you let me in?"

I start to feel dizzy. "I'm not home."

He changes his tone. "Then come home, bitch. I can wait here all night."

"Okay", I say quietly. "I'll be home soon."

I hang up the phone. 

"What the fuck are you thinking?" May slaps my arm. 

"You don't know him, May. It will be worse if I don't go home."

Out of the corner of my eye, behind May, I see Alexei and one of his friends from his Friday posse about to enter the club. Though he doesn't notice me, it takes everything in me not to run up to him and ask him for help. But he probably would never. I barely know the man. 

"Go find the girls. I have to go deal with him."

"Are you sure you don't want me to go?"

"God no", I blurt out. "If you went with me, he'd hurt the both of us."

"Please be careful, Alex. Call me, and I'll call the police."

I turn the other way to walk home, and all of my emotions flood through me. I think about how he was the perfect man two years ago; he wouldn't even have thought about stepping on an ant. But then he started to change. It started with just verbal abuse, but then he just hit me one night. It turned to slapping, punching, pulling my hair, kicking. I called out of work, stopped talking to all of my friends, shutting society out. 

I walk up to my third floor apartment, and there he is, leaning against the wall outside of my apartment.  

Once he spots me, I blankly walk over to him. A smile on his face, he reaches for me when I'm close enough and pulls me into his chest. 

"Hello, Beautiful", one hand grips the back of my neck to keep me in his control. He pulls me up to him, and he kisses me. 

His kisses are rough, and though I know what he's about to do, I know there's no chance for me to escape him in this moment. 

"Open the door, Alex."

I turn away from him like a robot and unlock the door, then swing it open. 

Before I can even look at him again, he shoves me into my living room. I fall to the ground, tripping over the rug. Carson slams the door, and the only light inside is the from the streetlight out my window.