I Am Your Safe Haven

I couldn't fall asleep after being awake all night. I was still thinking about Brayden. We had a long chat conversation on Facebook. I felt like I could be myself when I was with him. It was strange.

With Nathan, I was afraid to be myself. I had to be the perfect wife with the perfect attitude. I couldn't back talk at all. If I tried to voice my opinion, I would wake up with a black eye.

Something in my gut told me that Brayden would let me voice my opinion. It seemed like he would pop up in my head. When I went to go feed Skittles after our conversation was over, I called her Brayden. It was really strange.

I looked at my wrist. There was a scar from when I got cut by a wine bottle. I tried to shrug off the memory by playing with Skittles.

Skittles meowed at me and I went to my bedroom, following her. She hopped up on my pillow and curled up. I looked at Facebook and seen that Brayden was off so I moved my computer to my nightstand and crawled under the covers. When I heard Skittles snoring, I felt my eye lids get heavy.

*******************************

I picked up the wine bottle and wiped up underneath it. Nathan looked at me and said, "Did I tell you that you could touch my wine?"

"No you didn't but I..." I started by him knocking his chair over.

"Did I authorize you to move it?" he screamed, making me tremble.

"No you didn't," I said. "I just didn't want..."

"WHAT?" he exploded. "DIDN'T WANT ME TO FINISH IT? ARE YOU AFRAID THAT I LOVE MY WINE MORE THAN YOU?"

I didn't say yes because I was scared of what he might do. I took a step away from the table and picked up the dirty dinner plates.

"I didn't say you could walk away from this!" he said, pulling on me.

The plate fell to the floor and shattered. He grabbed my other arm and shook me as he yelled. I tried to pull away, not hearing a word he said.

As soon as he pushed me back, he grabbed the wine bottle and hit my left wrist. I panicked when I seen all of the blood. At that point, Nathan snapped back into reality and started to panic as well.

He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my wrist. "I'm so sorry baby, don't leave me please!" he said, crying. "We will get you to a hospital."

I started feeling faint from the blood loss and then all I heard was a telephone ringing.

*******************

I sat up real fast when I realized my cell phone was ringing. I jumped out of bed and grabbed it from my dresser.

"Hello?" I said.

"Anna, it's Kelly," Kelly said. "I know you probably didn't get much sleep, but I was wondering if you wanted to go shopping."

"Sure sounds like fun," I replied.

"Pick you up in an hour!" she said and hung up.

I sat on my bed and checked my e-mail. I felt my blood go cold when I opened one from the Charleston Police Department. It was from Nathan and it said: I will find you.

I jumped back from my computer and looked at Skittles. "When will these nightmares end?" I asked her.