In The Depths Of Her Soul

Chapter Twenty-One

"Please answer my texts, it's been two weeks, Emma. I haven't seen you once at drop-offs or pick-ups. What the hell is going on?"

She bitterly throws her phone into the mattress with all her pent-up frustrations and fights back the redundant tears. When will they ever stop? One text a day. That's fourteen texts gone unanswered and Regina is still fighting for her.

Fighting for a woman who gave up on herself a long time ago.

She shuffles her heavy feet, as if they are made of lead, toward her ensuite. She stops dead in her tracks and glares at the bright assortment of flowers displayed upon the windowsill. Her upper lip twitches, knowing those flowers mock her pathetic life. She contemplates, long and hard, whether or not she should chuck that vase across the room from knowing exactly what they represent.

Instead, she takes a deep breath and continues her path into the bathroom, ignoring the taunting thoughts, whispering maliciously in her head. She quietly shuts the door behind her and clenches the cool vanity to steady her balance while every nerve ending tingles, knowing what's to come.

Will this ever get easier?

She sucks in a deep breath, scrounges for some inner strength and snaps her head up to face herself in the mirror.

Fuck.

She leans in closer to the reflection that she swears over and over again is not her. She slowly turns her head to the side, so she can examine just how far the purple tint has spread to. The poisonous mark is almost black in the corner of her eye, near the bridge of her nose. The mulberry tint sweeps along the edge of her swollen cheekbone and fades near the outside of her face. There's a heavy bag pulsating through the painted flesh below her eye, that has her stomach clenching painfully tight.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

She's trying so desperately to keep her eye pried open, but it's swelling far too quickly by the minute. How the fuck is she going to lie her way out of this one? With the first blow to her lip, she lied and said she was struggling to open something, and her hand slipped, and she accidentally punched herself in the mouth. Henry easily bought the lie, no questions asked, but this...

Fuck!

The violence has increased with each passing day and she has tried to stay strong, but she's slowly losing her willpower...well, what's left of it anyways. She swore to herself that their relationship would never come to this, but now she sees it.

She sees that black eye staring back at her, taunting her. Asking how she is going to explain this to her son? Her eight-year-old little boy who has already endured more than enough heartache a child his age should have to. He can't see this.

Jack has gone out of his way this week to use her body as his own personal punching bag in places where her son would never discover, but last night, Jack lost what little restraint he had left.

He came home drunk, yet again, but this time he wanted more from her. His hot breath soaked in whiskey was barreling down upon her face while his hands groped and roamed violently. She couldn't stomach the stench and more importantly, she couldn't stand his unwanted touch, so she fought him. She kicked and punched until she won herself this nice shiner.

She rolls her eyes at her own stupidity and exhales out the disturbing memories embedded into her head.

In the end, she says she won that round, because he left her alone and she was no longer trapped beneath his crushing weight. She saved herself from a horrific event that could have been so much worse and damaging.