****
When I had both of my duffel bags packed to the brim with everything I owned in this house, I carried them out to my truck, bracing myself against the torrential downpour of rain in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts.
Of course, the day I finally decide to make a break for it, and it had to be during a fricking Summer storm.
I tossed my bags into the truck, then lovingly placed my laptop on top of them before heading back inside to do one final check through.
I knew once I drove away from this house today, I was never coming back.
Rummaging around in the living room, I sorted through the stack of mail on the coffee table, sifting out anything addressed to me before tucking them into my purse.
When I was done, I mulled over whether or not I should go upstairs and tell Jordan I was leaving before deciding against it.
Walking back into the hallway, I opened the front door, and just as I was about to walk outside, the most horrific banging noise came from above my head.
Frozen in the doorway, I debated just running, but I couldn’t.
Stifling down a growl, I turned for the staircase and hurried up the steps. When I rounded the door of Jordan's bedroom and took in the sight before me, disgust churned inside my gut.
His black curls were overgrown and limp, his face was covered in a thick, unruly beard of black hair, and he smelled like alcohol and vomit and urine. The clothes he had on were the same he'd worn all week.
He was sprawled out on the floor with his back pressed to the foot of the bed, clearly having pulled himself into a makeshift sitting position after falling off the bed.
It wasn’t his appearance that caused my stomach to wrench.
No, it was the spoon filled with clear liquid that he was slowly sucking up with an syringe that turned my heart to stone.
"You selfish, stupid, son of a bitch," I hissed, glaring at him. "Look at yourself. Look at what you're doing to yourself!"
Jordan didn’t even look in my direction when he said, "Don’t wanna see? Close the fucking door."
"Close the door?" I repeated, appalled.
He kept his focus on the needle in his hand, like it was the holy grail, as he filled it with the poison he'd been flushing through his veins for months.
Frozen to the spot, I watched in horror as he readjusted the clasp he had clamped around his arm before aiming the prick of the needle to his skin.
Suddenly everything burst to the surface, and the pain I had been drowning in these past two months exploded out of me.
I was done.
So fucking done.
"Don’t you even think about putting that shit into your body in front of me!" I screamed as I rushed over to where he was slumped and literally kicked the needle out of his hand with the toe of my sneaker.
Jordan's head snapped up, and I honest to god had never seen fury in a man's eyes like I did in that moment. "You stupid fucking bitch!"
Too angry to care about the names he was calling me, I lunged to where the syringe was laying on the carpet.
"Hope, stop!" Jordan roared as he scrambled to his feet. "Don’t you fucking do it –"
"Too late," I snarled as I reached down and grabbed the plastic end of the syringe.
His hands came around my throat as my back hit the wall with a thud. "Give it back," he demanded, glaring at me with eyes black as coal. "Now."
"Or what?" I shot back, holding the syringe as far away from our bodies as I could stretch. "You'll hit me? Choke me?" I squirted every drop of poison onto the floor and screamed, "Rape me?" Tears filled my eyes as I finally confronted him with my pain. "It wouldn’t be anything you haven't done to me already!"
"Liar!" Jordan choked out before shoving me roughly away. "I would never do that to you!"
"How would you know?" I screamed. "When you're drunk and high twenty-four goddamn seven!" I tossed the needle on the floor and glared up at the stranger in front of me. "I told you no," I told him, trembling from head to toe. "I begged you to stop!" He flinched from my words, but just like him that night, I didn’t stop. "You forced yourself inside my body without my permission that night and you took away my choice!"
Shaking his head, he backed away from me like I had just scalded him.
And I had.
With the truth.
"I'm pregnant!" I screamed, tears flowing freely down my face. "And if, by some misfortunate chance, this baby is yours, I want you to know that you will never get a chance to do to him what you've done to yourself…" my voice broke off and I inhaled a choked breath before adding, "what you've done to me."
Sinking down on the edge of the bed, he looked up at me like he was just seeing me. "Hope –"
"I'm leaving, Jordan," I yelled hoarsely, completely broken from all of it. My entire body shook from head to toe as I hurried out of the room and down the staircase.
"Hope!" Jordan called out as he chased me down the stairs. "Hope – please wait!" His hand came around my wrist once more and I blew up.
"Get your fucking hands off me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, yanking free from his hold. Throwing open the front door, I swung around and hissed, "And If you even think about following through on your threats, I'll report you for what you did to me."
Rain was pelting down heavily outside, but I knew I would rather drown in the downpour than spend one more second inside that house
I was done.
Completely fucking done.
With my heart hammering in my chest, I inhaled a deep breath and ran into the downpour.