(I know the title is horrid, and I apologize. Any ideas for a better one would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about how it all started, the vicious cycle of abuse that continued for so long. I can’t remember a lot of it, but I hope that I can. I was lucky. We’re still together, without any of the hell we went through a year ago. Not everyone is that lucky. But still, I wonder if there was something I didn’t learn from the experience, because I still don’t know why it all came to be. I hope to find that out. I need to know...

Warnings, then, are female/female relationship, physical and emotional abuse.

Please read and review.)

It was storming outside, and I had this insane fear that I was going to run off the road. I had these morbid thoughts running through my head, and the one that scared me the most was that all of the bruises from a potential accident would bleed into the ones I had now, never giving them a chance to heal. I couldn’t drive anymore, and I pulled into a park, deserted because of the weather. The rain literally pounded the roof of my car, thunder and lightning in the close proximity where I was sitting. The doors were locked, though I really didn’t expect anyone else to be out here in this weather. I was the only person crazy enough to risk my life to get away from risking my life. I didn’t understand how these things had come to pass, that the love of my life had turned into someone I no longer recognized. I didn’t understand, as I glanced in the mirror, how I could have started it all. None of it made sense to me, and I don’t think it was meant to.

My hand gingerly moved to my neck, feeling the swollen flesh beneath it. There would be some hellish bruises the next day, I knew. This time, I hadn’t deserved them. All I’d done is tried to leave, to get away. My mind was racing, as I desperately tried to figure out why. Why this had started, why it was continuing, why I had let it get this far, why she hadn’t left me, why I hadn’t left her... Why I wasn’t dead yet.

In the beginning, everything seemed so perfect, too perfect maybe, but I didn’t see it that way. All I knew was that for once in my life, I’d had someone who cared for me, and who I’d cared for more than anything. I couldn’t see in my mind how things had progressed, couldn’t see the causes of the pain that I’d begun. It had only been a matter of time before we’d exploded, and I’d felt the time bomb ticking. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. I thought I had time left. Turns out, it wasn’t enough.

I closed my eyes, listening to the rain, trying to slow my thoughts. But all I could do was remember.