I didn't make it through Lent, unfortunately I gave up something I needed and I didn't realize it until I had a craving that was uncovered late last night.
I stayed up to read. I've been doing that a lot lately. My doctors have said part of my sleep issues is that I use the bed for everything. Eating. Watching movies. Reading. Having long conversations and longer naps. Looking at my phone. Drawing. Watching the birds outside the window or the fire inside. Sex. Everything but sleep, unfortunately and so a line was drawn and everything but sleep and sex has to be elsewhere.
Or sometimes sex can be elsewhere.
Caleb came downstairs just as I was nodding off at the last page of my chapter and pushed his head against mine from behind the big chair with the lamp where I curl up to read. He kissed my temple and told me to come up and nap with him.
And I realized I was hungry. Not because my stomach growled but my heart did and he said if I loved him I wouldn't freeze him out like this, so long, so abruptly, and it hurts his heart to even look at me and he needs to hold me, needs to feel needed and as he said this my ego swelled right out of my head and for a brief moment I held all the power over him which is a feeling I would sell my soul for, as it's fleeting and rare.
I said it was fleeting because I was pulled to my feet, book hitting the ground and I was steered upstairs to his room, door locked behind us, steered down the hall, another door, another lock and I was pushed down, stripped and turned over and I was not about to give up that power so fast so I cried out.
Gingerbread!
Nothing, he isn't listening. His hunger is so much greater than mine and I don't want to have it be like this. Not like this. I hate it like this.
Wenceslas! Diabhal, please.
But his ears are suddenly deaf, like mine and he says something dismissive that I miss and he is inside me and I was fighting him but I can't now, pinned into the blankets like a Riker frame, a fluttery little moth stuck inside a window glass, looking out at freedom, looking at the reflection of her own death.
I stop fighting and go numb, curling inward, letting my wings rest. He hates this more, and it's the only strength I have left, to deny him any reaction at all. Any response. Any reaction. He slows to a crawl and then turns me over and is back inside me.
Neamhchiontach, look at me. Tell me you love me. Every moment hurts. Does he care? Of course not.
I stare at the wall.
Harder and I cry out involuntarily. Stop it. Stop hurting me. A sob escapes and he slows, more gentle now.
I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you.
Liar.
I can't help this, Bridget. It's what you do to me.
Don't blame this on me.
It's how I feel when I touch you.
Like a monster?
Yes. Exactly.
You can stop it.
Not after so long.
Then you need to fix that because this is the past. This is where we're supposed to be better than what we were.
I'm never going to change, Bridget. Not as long as you're not with me. Full time.
Then you'll always be the bad guy, and you'll never get what you want.
There isn't a chance anyway so none of this matters.
Then maybe you should go. He hates that suggestion, and he covers my whole face with his hand. I can't breathe. He ramps up hard again, violent driving into me and I squeal into his fingers, tearing at them with my own but he doesn't stop until he's finished. Then he gets up and lets go of my face and as I take a huge breath, ready to light into him, so angry and betrayed that he breaks his promises time and time again, he tells me he needs a sixty-forty time or the world as we know it is going to end. I turn back onto my stomach, skin stinging from his harsh touch and I ignore him. He's not going to negotiate from this place of the enemy.
The world ended in 2007, I point out, muffled against the sheets.
Caleb swears and walks out. I hear the shower and I race off to my dreams, to meet my ghost. He's always a safe haven even if he did leave me here with the monsters forever.