Cursed Fates

Charlotte POV

It wasn’t always like this. I’m not entirely sure when exactly everything changed, but it wasn’t all at once. In the beginning, he was the epitome of perfection.

We’d go out on dates. He’d hold the door for me. The warmth of his hand would envelop mine.

Somewhere along the line, his demeanor shifted, and the man that I loved drifted further and further away.

The man that held doors for me slammed them in my face now. The hand that used to make my heart flutter only causes pain, and yet…. I can’t bring myself to leave.

I was never taught to stand up for myself, so I ended up falling for it. I fall for everything.

Why can’t I just leave?

Is it pride? Is it that lingering love that still fights its way to the surface? Is it because I’m simply just pathetic?

“Answer me, Charlotte?” Stephan snarled, spit spraying from his mouth in tiny droplets across my face.

This happened more frequently now that I’d gotten a job. Stephan thought moving me away from everything and everyone I knew would keep me in his little bubble, but that bubble burst when we couldn’t make ends meet, and I was forced to go out and get a new job.

My options were limited in this shitty little town, and I’m forced to endure beratement for every polite smile or kind word I share with my customers. Words turned into blows, and most days, I hid the bruises with makeup.

I’m exhausted.

“I don’t even know that man’s name,” I whispered in a desperate plea. “He just asked for help finding a product.”

I tried to busy myself with dinner, but as I cut vegetables, my hands shook, knowing what would come next.

“From where I was standing, you two seemed awfully close,” he spat, slamming his fist against the countertop and making the knife slip.

I should have expected him to come into the grocery store tonight to watch me. He was like a dark, looming shadow in my life lately. Every moment he was free, he would watch me. Waiting for me to screw up again.

“I swear, it was nothing more than a customer asking for help. If I didn’t fake a smile, I wouldn’t have a job.”

He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. The alcohol lingering on his breath fanned my face, making me gag.

Slap.

My head whipped to the side from the force of his palm connecting with my cheek. A coppery tang painted my tongue, and I wanted to spit it back in his face.

When had I become such a coward? I used to have spunk. Maybe even a little fight in me. I used to smile and laugh, but now, it was all staged. A perfectly curated act for everyone on the outside while I was dying slowly on the inside.

“Your attitude is unbecoming, love,” Stephan gripped my face with his sweaty palm, and I ground my teeth together hard enough to crack a molar. “Why can’t you just be a good girl, Charlie?” his grip tightened, and fear curdled in my stomach like sour milk. “You know,” he growled, “I wouldn’t have to punish you like this if you would just act right!”

“I don’t know what you want from me!” his nails were digging into my cheeks, and with how tight his grip was, it wouldn’t be long before my jaw dislocated. “I try to be everything you need, and once I’ve figured out what you want, you go and change it on me. How am I to win a losing game?”

I pushed him backwards, and he released my face, but the fury in his eyes burned like a wildfire in the night. His deep brown eyes look black as he stares straight through me.

I’m royally fucked now.

My feet move on their own accord, backing away from him slowly. I’m no stranger to what tonight means. He’ll beat the shit out of me, and then he’ll have what he calls make-up sex with me, and then he’ll pass out while I drag myself to the bathroom to lick my wounds.

It’s a vicious cycle, and one of these days I’ll have the courage to leave, but right now, I have nowhere to go. My family wants nothing to do with me. My friends begged me to leave him, and I only cut them off to make him happy.

Now, I’m utterly alone in a world that I handcrafted myself.

I should get a medal for being the biggest fool known to man.

Stephan lunges for me, and in a piss-poor attempt to dodge, he clocks my left shoulder, sending me flying backwards into the cabinets. My head smacks the wood, darkness shrouding my vision.

“Stop, please!” I begged. “I’m sorry. I swear, I wasn’t trying to be nice to him. I was just doing my job.”

His footsteps pound towards me, and as I tried to move, making a bolt for the bathroom, he throws me back where I started. The partially chopped vegetables tumble to the ground, and he lets out a low growl, “Look at what you’ve done now? There goes our fucking dinner!”

If I could make it down the hall to that bathroom, I could lock the door. The door is barely functional from the last time I ran in here to escape his wrath, but just as I think I might have an opening, I’m yanked back by my hair.

The air leaves my lungs in a choked gasp.

I don’t have time to lie here. I have to move. I have to fight.

“You just never learn,” Stephan stops my movements, cloaking my body with his own. “You can’t just apologize and make it up to me for your behavior. You have to open that mouth, and not in the fucking way I’m looking for.”

His hands move to my throat, applying just enough pressure to cut off my airflow.

“You are the reason I’m like this, Charlotte. I love you!” he screams in my face, “I love you, and you consistently make these mistakes that piss me off. This is all your fault.”

“Stephan,” I choked out, “Please. I’m sorry. I love you too.”

His grip tightens around my throat, those dark eyes searing their hatred into my skin.

“I love you.”

I hate you.

“Please, baby. Stop this. Just take me to bed.”

You repulse me.

“I swear it won’t happen again.”

I want to leave you so badly.

“What did you just say?!” Stephan squeezes my throat tighter, “You want to leave me, Charlotte? Are you that fucking stupid?”

Did I say my thoughts out loud?

“Such a stupid bitch,” his grip grows tighter, and I’m fighting for oxygen. My hips buck, and my legs kick against the ground, but it’s no use. Stephan is a solid two-hundred-twenty-pound mass of muscle, and I’ve lost all of my muscle mass after being banned from going to the gym.

Stephan’s forehead slams against mine, “You think you could find someone better than me?” his voice is dripping with anger, “You are nothing without me, Charlie. NOTHING.”

My fight is slowly leaving my body. Stars dance around in front of his face as my consciousness begins to fade. His thumbs press against the middle of my throat with enough force to break through.

I hear the crack of my trachea, and his screams in my face slowly fade away into the background. Pain fills my body, and I no longer have the energy to fight.

Is this the end for me? Had I truly met my demise at the hands of a man that I’d once loved so deeply, I thought I couldn’t bear to live without him?

My body feels drenched with a cold chill, like someone injected ice into my veins, and it feels like I’m floating in arctic waters. I feel like I’m sinking beneath the surface as bubbles swim up from the bottom. I can feel them tickle the skin on my arms despite the all-consuming numbness that has taken over my body.

I guess this is it. My death wasn’t a noble one, nor am I proud of the things that I’d accomplished in my short twenty-five years of life on Earth. I never graduated from college or got married. I never had children or bought my first home.

I did nothing but allow a man to control my life like a puppeteer.

My fingers crawl across the cool, smooth surface of the countertop until I find it.

The knife.

My vision is dark, and it takes everything I have left to grip the handle, but I swing, stabbing until his hands release my throat, but in the end, it was all in vain. His blood spilled down my arms as he threw me onto the ground, tearing the knife from my hands.

“If I can’t have you, no one will,” Stephan snarled, sliding the knife across my throat. The last thing I saw was his bloody face before darkness consumed me.

Charlotte Banks. Twenty-five years old. Death at the hands of someone she once loved. There was nothing poetic about my death.

My death was simply a tragedy.