Mercy.

With a small clank my keys hit the kitchen table, I tossed my coat, scarf and hat onto the chair and tugged my boots off as quickly as possible. My fingers were slightly numb even though I wore nice warm, thick gloves and my nose was as red as Rudolphs nose. With a grunt I pulled my hair from the pony tail it rested in a ruffled it out, to be honest it was the best feeling aside from removing my bra.

Once i was slightly unorganized and somewhat more comfortable, I pressed play on my voicemail while walking into the kitchen to make some hot cocoa.

"It's mom, I'm calling to make sure you're alive and haven't frozen to death in this storm. God knows you can't always pay those bills with that crap job, dinner this weekend. Miss you, call me."

My lips touched the cup as I sipped the Luke warm cocoa while rolling my eyes, my mother always had something snide to say no matter how good things were.

"I need you to come in tomorrow on your day off, Penny called out."

Not even home five minutes and my boss was making my life a living hell, slowly I placed the cup on the table and waited for the next message. My shoulder hunched as I leaned against the sink with my arms crossed, nothing worse could be said.

"Hey, its me. I know its been a while and we left on bad terms, I wanted to talk, I'm in town-"

My finger pressed down hard on the delete button, so hard that the tip of my finger was red. I could feel the tightness in my chest starting just from his voice, taking a deep breathe I removed my finger from the button and took a step back while letting my arms hang at my side.

Mike, I had left him after things had gotten bad, the abuse was to much for me to handle. Emotional and physical, he was controlling and just down right crazy. If I didn't escape when I did, I probably would have ended up in the hospital or worse, dead.

"Bastard." I whisper as I quickly redressed myself so I could head to the nearest bar and drown my sorrows.