Outside my window the weather refuses to cooperate. The sea undulates calmly against my every demand for a storm to swell and release my agony.
Instead, the brightest of days casts few shadows from a cloudless sky. Without thought, I raise the glass to my lips. The dark liquid pours across them, engulfing my tongue with a bittersweet finish as it runs in a stream down my throat. It does little for the mood or my rising temper, only adding to the melancholy consuming me in ways I no longer try to explain to myself or anyone else. All attempts for those around me to reach me fail because I want them to.
Across the room, the hard click of leather soles on the hardwood floors alerts me to his presence. Even then I do not raise my head; instead I push further inside and take another long drink. His masculine smell surrounds me. Everything in me screams to let down my guard, but I only raise it higher in personal defiance, knowing he owns the keys to my soul if he uses them. If he can find the lock to the walls.
His fingers caress a light trail down my face. For a moment I let my eyes shut, the movement carrying me away from the darkness. Memories of a softer time when I wanted to give in to his demands, a time when the world didn't create the constant lashing of my soul. His thumb reaches my chin, and I pull from his grasp.
"How many days since you found out about the club?" His soft tone pushes the words toward me as if to gauge my reaction.
"Fifteen." I spit the words from my mouth. “Fifteen days since the world found out that I’m an idiot.”
"How do you know the count?”
I debate the answer. Silence hangs in the air, but neither of us move to soften the tension.
With a deep sigh, I finally relent. "Because I mark each one on a makeshift calendar." I shrug to prove it doesn't bother me. "The days all run into one another like an oozing mass with no separation otherwise.”
"Don't you think it is been enough time?"
"Define enough. Enough time that you want to walk out the door because it's no longer easy? Enough because I should suddenly put all this behind me? Enough because the world has gone stark raving mad without me? Enough because..." Anger pours from me, but the emotion isn't the reason I stare out the window. It is another tactic to push him away. With this latest threat, it is obvious anyone close to me is in danger, and I will not have any more blood on my hands.
"The definition of enough, when I originally walked in here, was the impatient cessation of a non-desired set of behaviors, thoughts and speech patterns. However, it is now more of a change to the question—do you believe you've gone down this path to the point in which you wish to change the direction for a more productive one?"
I sit stock still. Nothing in me, outside the shallow rise and fall of my chest, moves in any meaningful way. His words hit a nerve. I want to scream, but all of my emotions short circuit.
"I have no idea how to do it. I'm lost." The words pass my lips without thought. As soon as I hear them around us, I want to take them back.
His fingers cup my chin and pull my face around until my only choices are to look at him or close my eyes away from him. From the edge of my eye, a tear escapes. I want to banish it with the full brunt of my anger and the back of my hand, but the look in his eye holds me captive.
"You aren't lost, my dear.”
"Then I am weak. An intolerable condition to be sure." My words whip back at him.
A soft chuckle rises from his chest, and he closes his eyes and shakes his head. When he settles again, his piercing stare holds me hard in place. "There is nothing weak about you."
"Look at me!" I know I look a mess. “The thoughts in my head run like hamsters on a wheel, and my social skills are nonexistent.”
"I am. Amid everything, you are the strongest, most beautiful woman I know."
I try to shake my head, but his fingers tighten their grasp. "Flattery will get you nowhere."
"It's not flattery, I assure you. When is the last time you exercised?"
The out-of-place question causes my eyebrows to furl in both thought and realization. "I... I... I don't know."
"I see." His fingers let go of my chin. "We are still in a power-based dynamic?"
"I presume so." The reality of the question dawns across the deep, thick mud entrapping my mind.
"As such, you and I are bound by a contractual arrangement. Under said agreement, you are to maintain a fitness regimen and to take care of your body, mind and emotions."
"Have you paid attention to the recent destruction of my life?"
"I witnessed, and fell victim, to some very large missteps of yours. These are true statements. Yet here we are."
"Yes. Here we are. Unless you want out, which I would perfectly understand."
"Do you wish to abide by your contract or end the relationship? One is an easier road than the other, though it may not be the one you think.”
The turn of my statement back on me abrades my raw emotions. Nothing in me is ready for this question. Simplistic, as if it were a wardrobe decision rather than one which could alter both our lives.
"It's time to be strong or to wallow in the darkness which surrounds you, Atlas. What say you?”