Regret

If only leaving was so easy.

It would have taken Abel several years later to understand there was something unhealthy about his habits. Since the start of their relationship, there was this longing emptiness that devoured at the core of his mind, which only seemed to be satiated with the luxurious effects that came with inflicting pain. Not pain on himself, that habit bore no fruit of excitement upon his life �" but instead pain on someone he held a significant amount of devotion to.

Abel had no recollection of where these violent habits came from. He questioned if it came from the higher demand at work, his friends neglect at keeping him informed on future plans, or maybe…maybe it was always there? Hiding behind the genetic makeup of his veins, making the reoccurrence of his father’s habits nearly impossible to prevent. He had difficulty accepting the latter option, since such habits had only begun to be formed after his three year anniversary with Layla. Her name flowed off his tongue like untouched honey, seeping into the corners of his gums and gliding down his throat �" alleviating all sickness that that threatened to plague his mind with visions of red.

She was so unbelievably divine, her hair illuminated fresh locks of stolen sunshine, and her voice echoed with the same vibrations that made Abel’s heart sing with need. He wondered how she could ever love him, a lonely man who knew nothing but how to worship her. He questioned how she needed him, respected him, trusted him…Though he was being generous if he said she trusted him, that emotion was soon replaced with newfound fear that crippled her once confident gaze, and forced her into a more submissive position she grew loathsome of.

Abel hated himself for having hurt and degraded her independent beauty, and yet he made no attempts at stopping. He was so engrossed in keeping her at his side that his vision became blind of what was really important: her safety.

Concerning their latest spat the week before, Abel remained oblivious to what sparked his most recent frustration on her. It was about some call on her phone, from some name he didn’t recognize, he didn’t realize how angry it had made him until he realized his hands were upon her, clawing laws of servitude upon her flesh and demanding she never endanger their relationship again.

Let go, she begged.

But he could never let go, the tantalizing sensation of her figure beneath his own left him starved. She thrashed, cried, her voice boomed and demanded freedom, and yet he had only tightened the binding of his fingers around her neck.

Let me go

Let me go

Let me go.

The next morning when Abel arose, Layla had departed. She had slipped away when he had fallen asleep. There was no note on his nightstand. It was three days later that she had called him. Their conversation was short, for Abel could stomach no apologies

“I still love you,” he begged, licking his lips and tasting the sweet strands of innocence that were still left over from their last night together. “Please, don’t go.”

“I have to.”

And with that, the call had ended. For the first time in too long, Layla could once again breathe without having to feel her lungs ache with starvation. She felt reborn, free; though she would never again feel that compelling buoyancy of freedom. Only two weeks later, a maternity test would read that she was to be the mother of Abel’s unwanted child.