I crouched beside her, taking her pencil-stained hands in mine. My heart fluttered when she relaxed under my touch, her body drifting toward me in an involuntary reflex, as if seeking protection. Four months didn’t diminish the effect my proximity had on her. She stopped trembling and looked into my eyes, hers full of sadness.
“Adrian did that?” I asked, knowing damn well he did, but I had to tread lightly.
The frightened-lamb look on her face kicked my ability to control my temper up to never-before-seen levels. I drew small circles on the back of her hand with my thumb; my throat dry, voice coarse. There was no telling where my strength came from. I sure didn’t feel strong. I was trapped somewhere between insanity and the land of the mad.
No words left her lips, but she gave me a small nod.
“It wasn’t the first time, was it?”
Nadia remained silent for a long time. She stared at our interlocked fingers, as if remembering every single time that piece-of-shit hit her.
“Drugs made him aggressive,” she said.
My jaw tightened again, and my eyes fluttered shut for a moment so I could compose myself. Nadia lived through her share of violence, and although I wanted to trash the house and scream at her for going back to Adrian, I held it in. Scaring her was out of the fucking question.
“I…” She cleared her throat. “I was naïve. For months I thought he’d quit, but he refused to get help…” her voice broke, and she looked at Nick. “I should’ve told you sooner.”
She wasn’t crying. Her eyes didn’t even tear up, and it was like another low blow to my stomach, because I knew she experienced this so many times that she was no longer hurt or surprised.
“Why did you go back?” Nick cried, his voice a portrayal of my agonising mind. “Nadia, hehityou! You should’ve left the moment he did it, but you stayed! How long was thing going on for?”
She squeezed my hands and swallowed hard. For a moment I thought she was going to lie, but she must have reached her limit, and she understood that Adrian didn’t deserve her protection.
“Since January.”
January?She came home in June. Six months of abuse. Six months of pain and fear.
God, she tried to tell me all along. She was hinting the abuse, but I was too blind to decipher the clues.
“I know you want me,” I said. “And since I’m the only one you’re not afraid of…”
“Doesn’t it scare you?” Nadia cut in, crossing her arms.
“That you trust me? That you’re not anxious when I’m close? It’s intriguing, not scary.”
“It should be.”
“What’s worse,” Nadia whispered, “pain or fear?”
I didn’t blink, afraid to miss her reaction.
“Pain.”
“Fear,” she countered. “It lasts longer.”
Nadia snapped me out of the memories of the small pieces of puzzle that fell in place and revealed a spine-chilling image.
“It wasn’t so bad at first… It just got worse every time he got high, but I really thought he could stop,” she paused to inhale, then gritted her teeth, adamant to keep talking. “I wanted to help him the way he helped me, but he took it too far, and I had to leave.”
“Too far?” Nick repeated. “Hitting you for the first time was too fucking far, sis. What the hell did he do?!”
She looked at me, then at Nick, but she couldn’t speak while holding our gaze and ended up eyeing the wall. Her shame fuelled the fire raging inside me.
“He dragged me out of my dorm room one night. He was always jealous, but when he started using, his paranoia grew stronger. He got it in his head that me and Ty were sleeping around… He threw me down a flight of stairs. I broke two ribs.”
The images played before my eyes. I felt sick. There were no words to describe how vile a man had to be to hurt a woman. I doubted even devil himself wanted those fuckers in his kingdom.
“The campus security called the police. Adrian’s mother was informed. She bribed a rehab facility to admit him against his will, and I packed my bags, but I had to wait for my ribs to heal first because I couldn’t take a breath without bursting into tears… And I didn’t want you to know what Adrian did, because it wasn’thim. It was the drugs,” Nadia explained, her voice small. “I thought it was over, but then he tried to kill himself. He got clean for me, and I wasn’t there. What choice did I have? I had to go. I couldn’t let him try again.”