I lay quietly in the darkness, hoping that tonight I'd be left alone. That he wouldn't touch me like he had so many nights before. Laying on my side I breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. Perhaps feigning sleep would work this time.

"Lara, come here. I want you." His voice resonated through my head. I continued laying there, silently praying he'd think I was asleep.

I felt a hand grip my arm and jerk me onto my back. So much for pretending to be asleep. I cracked an eye. "Mmmph?"

"I said I wanted you. Now." His hands were insistant, tugging, pulling, yanking my nightclothes off until I was naked. I lay there motionless, letting him do what he wanted. His face suddenly appeared above mine and he smiled at me. "Not going to fight me tonight, little one?"

I closed my eyes and turned my face away. A hand forced my face back upward. "Look at me, Lara. I've told you I'm not one to be denied. If you'd only see that I'm the only one for you, things would run so much more smoothly."

I felt his lips on mine and then a stinging slap sending my head jerking to the side like a doll's. My eyes snapped open for a moment and then I shut them tight again.

I felt him begin to move a little lower, and I began reciting the Lord's Prayer in my head.

Our father...

He gripped my arms tighter and tighter until I cried out from the pain.

Who art in heaven...

I felt his knee move between my legs, forcing them apart.

Hallowed be Thy name..

One thrust and he was inside me, violating me, taking all I was, and shredding it into nothingness.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.

And then, I was falling, falling into nothing

---

I awoke the next morning and he was gone. He always was. No matter when I woke, he was never there. I sat up cautiously, testing the use of my limbs, seeing what muscles he'd bruised during the night. Moving gingerly, I headed to the bathroom to shower and get his prints off of me, as much as I could anyways. The bruises always stayed for weeks before fading. I flicked on the light and I grimaced at the sight of myself. My dark brown hair was a rats nest and bruises covered most of my upper body. I had two hand prints on arms where he had grabbed me earlier. A huge bruise had bloomed on the left side of my face making it look like I'd gotten involved with a paint fight and lost. I shut the door and locked it. Not that it would keep him out but I felt a margin safer all the same.

Turning on the shower, I sank down on the floor and cried. This was the only time I ever allowed myself to give into it and cry. He would always be gone for a few hours and I cherished those precious moments when I was alone. I could let it go and get all the pent up, hurt, anger, and fear out before he came back.

The tears slowed and I looked at my reflection in the mirror once more.

"What have I become? What happened to the girl I used to be?," I whispered to myself. I turned away and climbed into the shower. And began to remember.

---

I used to have a family once. I used to laugh and smile without hestitation. I used to have a life. A life without hurt. A life without fear.

If you had told me two years ago, that I would be a prisoner of the man I called my husband, I would have scoffed at you. Because then, I wasn't married but I was dating a wonderful man named Kelly and we were planning on getting married. I never thought that he had a bad side to him, a dark side. But I was wrong.

It started about a month after we were married. He would come home and not speak at all for the rest of the night. I tried to talk to him but soon learned that if I tried to pry what was wrong out of him, I'd get my face slapped. So I stopped asking. Then one night, he came home and I was making dinner. I turned and saw a fist come hurtling toward my head.

I woke up and he was on top of me, tearing at my clothes like some wild beast. I screamed at him to stop but he only slapped a hand over my mouth and continued what he was doing. That was the first time he raped me. It continued, night after night, for almost two months. Making love turned into a struggle to keep my body from being beaten to the point of exhaustion. Then one night, he stopped. He walked in after work and it was like nothing had ever happened. He was the Kelly I'd known and fallen in love with all over again. At first I thought it had been just a phase that he'd had to go through, that it wouldn't happen again. He promised me it wouldn't. But it did.

It comes and it goes in cycles now. I'm living in constant fear of it. The tiniest thing can set a cycle off and I never know when it will stop. I tried to get a divorce from him once but he put me in the hospital and even the police couldn't do anything to stop him. They tried to arrest him and he kidnapped me and fled.

So now, here I am, in Wilmington, Montana, far away from anyone I love and trust. I stay at home because he's told me that's my job. I do what he says, when he says it.

I used to have family once. I used to laugh and smile without hestitation. I used to have a life. A life without hurt. A life without fear. It's time I took my life back.