Why do these men think that they can treat women like shit?
“You’re an idiot,” Cal says, pulling me a little bit closer to him. I welcome his comfort, his familiarity, and the way he doesn’t judge me for what has happened. “You can stay tonight, but that’s it.”
“Is this a regular thing? You being kicked out?” I ask Sullivan.
“Happens once every few weeks and I usually sofa-surf until she forgives me,” Sullivan says with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Wow.” I can’t help my response, I’m astounded that this guy doesn’t seem to give a shit how his actions have impacted someone else.
“She’ll have calmed down in a few,” Sullivan says.
So, he’s gone from a shitty prankster to a shitty all-rounder. Whoever Danielle is, she should stay away from him.
Some men are just toxic.
“One night,” Cal says firmly before walking through to his kitchen, leaving Sullivan shouting thanks behind us.
I sit myself at the kitchen table and take a few deep breaths.
This is it.
After today, I need to start piecing myself back together.
I made a promise to myself when I left the hospital that I would do everything that I could to move past this and learn to live with what Michael has done to me.
I’m giving myself tonight to wallow, to feel sad every time I see the purple bruises that mark my neck, to look into the dull and lifeless eyes that have plagued me for months.
Tonight, I’m too tired to push past all of the emotions inside of me.
“You want a drink?” Cal asks as he clicks the kettle on.
“Please,” I say with a soft smile.
He busies himself wiping down the worktops as I let my eyes roam around the room. Pale grey walls, black worktops and a terracotta-coloured tiled floor. The colours don’t match, and it looks like this place could do with some much-needed life injected into it. It’s almost as if someone started the work and then couldn’t be assed to finish it.
“What are you thinking?” Cal says, bringing my attention away from the God-awful tiles as he sits opposite me, placing the drinks down.
“Just that this kitchen could look really good… Not that it doesn’t already… I mean…” My voice fades off as I struggle to find complimentary words about the décor. “The kettle is cool.”
The kettle.
Good save, Lucy. Not.
Luckily, Cal starts to laugh before my anxiety levels can shoot up at the possibility of offending him.
“I only bought this place a few weeks ago, so the décor is nothing to do with me,” he informs me.
“Oh.” I didn’t even know that he was buying a house because I was too busy getting beat on by my fiancé, too wrapped up in my drama to know any different. I feel like a shitty friend all of a sudden, and the guilt wraps around my throat, squeezing tighter than Michael’s fingers ever did.
“Hey, where did you go?” Cal says as his hand covers mine, his thumb moving over my knuckles slowly. I watch his thumb for a few moments, wishing that I could turn the clock back and make different choices. But I can’t, and hindsight is a wonderful thing.
With a deep sigh, I tell the truth. “I’m so sorry I’ve been a shitty friend to you. I’m so sorry that I let myself be manipulated by a monster, by someone I trusted, and by someone that ultimately tried to destroy me. I’m sorry that I continued to stay with him, to try and be some sort of fucking hero that could find her own way out.
“I’m sorry for putting you second. I’m sorry for being too much of a coward to speak out. But most of all, I’m sorry for myself. Sorry for the woman that I have become, and for the woman that I lost along the way…” My voice fades off and sobs rack my body.
I feel Cal’s arms go round me and then I’m being lifted from my chair and carried. I don’t care where, I’m too distraught to question it.
I cry as Cal lays me down on a mattress.
