F^ck You

An abused college girl...you can read the rest

I smile at my dorm room in pride. My bedroom, like my roommate's, was supplied with a dresser, a desk, and a bunk bed with the desk space being where the lower bunk would be located. After filling my dresser with all my clothes, and hanging a mirror up next to it, I decorated the rest of my dorm. 

A large desk organizer and an ottoman sat opposite each other, separated by the strange, wide wooden ladder that leads to my bed. Three, circular mirrors hung next to the ladder, as well. I hung Christmas lights that had Edison balls around the upper trim of my room, and pictures using wooden laundry clips on twine hung on the bottom of my bed and above my desk area.

Other items around my small bedroom included a small, but comfy couch, a fridge, and a door to the jack-and-jill bathroom my roommate and one of my best friends, Bliss, and I share.

Bliss, her twin sister Felicity, and I have been best friends since we were toddlers. Our mothers were friends in high school and continued being friends after college. I met them when I was four-years-old, I believe. We did everything together. We did cheer growing up, we did clubs, went to dances, bought our first cars, and chose colleges together. I felt terrible because Felicity's boyfriend broke up with her when he discovered our plans to move from the suburbs of Chicago to the sunny, beautiful Santa Monica.

They were a great couple, and I was sad it had to end for them. I only wish the same had happened to me.

"Wow, Mal," Bliss whistles in surprise as she enters my bedroom. I smile at her and lean against the ladder to my bed as she walks over to my couch and falls back onto it. "Your room is gorgeous! I mean your room back home in Chicago was amazing, but this place? Outstanding."

"What? No way," Felicity scoffs as she walks into my room, a bag of pretzels with Bliss' name written on it in her hands. Bliss screeches in horror and rips the pretzels from Felicity's arms while her more outgoing and extroverted twin rolls her eyes and sets her frame against my doorway. "Your room was definitely nicer than Mal's and my room combined into one percentage of awesomeness."

I roll my eyes as the twins begin to bicker. The three of us have somehow always managed to work even though we all seemed to be almost complete opposites. 

Felicity was the loudest voice in the room wherever she was. 

Her conversations were buoyant and intended to be heard. There was something of the unsatisfied thespian in her. Everyone knew she was an art historian within moments of meeting her like it was her most favorite badge by which to identify herself. On every subject she was opinionated and if you didn't agree with her she wasn't angry, she just pitied you for not understanding the "correct" way to think about it. 

But if a friend, or even an acquaintance, was in trouble she was right there with both boots on. In any crisis, she took charge, steered the most efficient course through the problem and never stuck around for any "thank you". You could forget to call her for a month or three and still she'd be happy to talk to you. 

It was like she had been born without the ability to harbor a grudge, though I suspect it's in there, perhaps reserved for people she expects more from.

Bliss was an introvert, always preferring solitude over the company of others. If there was a party she was at home, rather than go to a bar she invited her close friends to share a bottle of dry white and appetizers. That's why her first relationship, which had started this recent summer, was so strange.

How she met Ryan? No one was quite sure. How they bonded so tight? That is just as much a mystery. Him being Mr. Loud and brash. But she gave his something he'd been missing for a long time and he gave her a whole new breath of life. She never minded when he went out with the boys, he loved cozy nights at home with her. They've been dating for three months, but I wouldn't be surprised if they spent the rest of their lives together.

Then, there's me.

I am not an introvert. Not at all. I'm too interested with people to be. However, I push myself away from most people in society, so I can't really be an extrovert either. So, in the best way I have found I can put it, I am an extroverted introvert. A perfect mix of Bliss' solitude and Felicity's external ability to shine. 

I like to go to parties, but when I do, I'm with the small group of people who go into the host's backyard and play poker while swimming in the pool. 

Suddenly, Felicity and Bliss stop arguing when someone knocks on the door to my dorm. I walk out of my room so I can answer it, but I regret it the minute I do. My boyfriend, Ames, stands in the doorway. In his hands, a bouquet of lilies and a package of lemon cupcakes. My favorites, but in that moment I can see that those are not gifts of love, but bribery to let him in. 

My mind flashes back to two months ago, in June, when he took me to a beach house in Hawaii. Just the two of us, a romantic getaway, but it was anything but. 

Purple welts were scattered across my abdomen like a disease for three of the seven days. It hurt to breathe and I had wondered if some ribs were cracked. They weren't, but I was so sure that what happened in that house would forever haunt our relationship. I was right.

His presence was taunting me with him just standing before me. I could hear it.

If you stay with me I'll kill you bit by bit. That's what I do to those who love me. Why? I'm not altogether sure. But when you soar high I'll drag you down. I'll stir up your anxieties just to be the one to soothe you and help you to find fault with anyone that competes for your attention. This is about as fair as I can be, it's your warning. So if you're still here in the morning you've chosen that life and if you know me at all you'll realize this isn't a joke. So, my smitten lover, you have some thinking to do.

I think he'll find me and kill me if I break up with Ames.

"Hey, babe," he greets, walking in when I move out of the way. He walks to the open kitchen which is connected to the lounge. My bedroom door is open, like Bliss', but the door to the bathroom is closed. Bliss and Felicity walk out and smile at Ames. As far as they know, he is trustworthy and would never do anything to hurt me. 

They're wrong. 

"Hey, Ames," Bliss greets, giving him a slightly awkward hug before mumbling something about going to Felicity's dorm a few floors up. 

When the sound of our front door closing echoes in the room, Ames suddenly turns cold. "You didn't tell her anything, did you?"

I shake my head, "No."

"Liar!" he barks. His hand hits me and I fell with the force of it. The first slap, eleven months ago, had been the worst. I hadn't expected him to be so strong but there were weight and strength enough to stun. Though his hand was empty, it was like being hit with a hunk of meat nonetheless and afterward, I would endure his words of hatred, all spilling from a man that professed so much love in his quiet moments of regret.

"I'm not lying...I promise," I whisper, leaving my head in the direction it had whipped to face after the slap. It was hard, but Ames had learned how hard was hard enough to cause me excruciating pain but not leave a bruise.

"I accept your promise," he scowls, sitting down at the kitchen table. "Let's go have a drink and you can tell me all about your day." I reach my hand out to his. He looks away, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists. 

Rolling his shoulder's forward, he looks at my hand hovering in the air. Fear bubbles up in my chest, but I can't let it show. 

"Come," I say, grabbing his hand, expecting to tug an unmovable boulder�"relieved when he allows me to lead him out the door. I lock it behind us. Although every nerve in my body is tingling, I feel in control, so far. When Ames is drunk, he doesn't get mad. He gets quiet and much like a child.

What hurts me the most is that I know exactly what he's doing and he knows exactly what he's doing to me. He knows when he sees my eyes brimming with tears that he should relent, that a decent person would show forgiveness. But he feels a frisson of excitement that transcends his better nature and pushes him on. Only when I am openly weeping and broken would he stop. He'd feel guilty of course, but that never stopped him before and it wouldn't stop him next time. He enjoys abusing me too much.

~~~

I wince as I sit up. On each arm, there are great purple welts that will only deepen over the coming week. Against my ghostly skin, they are grotesque, but I know I am lucky not to have broken bones. I woke up early enough that I can still hear Bliss asleep in the room across the hall. Her breath is loud in our eerily silent dorm.

I crawl down from my bed and look for an outfit that matches my usual style but will hide my bruised arms and torso. In the end, I decide on a black sweater, olive green hooded jacket, ripped denim jeans, and black booties. Even though I live in California now, it has been surprisingly cool recently.

As I start the perfectly warm water for my shower and shed my clothes, tears begin to fall from my eyes.

I didn't get Ames drunk at all, and instead, he just got pissed at me when a man noticed a bruise that looked nothing like a hickey, which is what Ames had called it.

The shadows of the beating were on my skin and in my heart. The knowledge that my own lover could do such a thing just breaks something inside of me, something that would remain long after my skin and bones were healed. It was a sadness in my eyes, a heaviness, an unyielding sorrow that slowed my speech and robbed me of my once easy smile.

"F^ck you, Ames," I spit out through clenched teeth as sobs begin to wrack my body. "F^ck you."

I exit the shower after doing my needed business in there, and down a robe. I am tying the belt around my waist just as Bliss enters the jack-and-jill bathroom. I am thankful I had the robe on so she cannot see the damage Ames caused last night.

"Morning," she mumbles before beginning to brush her teeth. "Classes start tomorrow, right?" she asks, her words estranged and garbled by the toothpaste and toothbrush.

I nod as I turn on my hair dryer. To be honest, I'm kind of scared. After I started to go out with Ames, he managed to isolate me from everyone except my parents, Bliss, and Felicity. He tried but he was unsuccessful because of their determination to be around me. I dry my light brown hair and straighten it. My hair curls when wet, but merely poofs up when air-dried.

After doing the rest of my morning business like brushing my teeth, applying makeup, and getting dressed, I fill my thermos with coffee and begin planning a quiet day in the college library.