Chapter 3 - Jo Thompson

Jo POV

“I won’t be home for dinner,” I hear my housemate Layla say. I raise my head from the couch as Leo holds me tightly against his chest. He is as curious as I am. We both look at Layla, and curiosity takes over. I stand up and walk towards her.

“You’ve got a date?” I ask as I raise my eyebrows, looking at her. All of a sudden, Layla starts laughing, and I look behind me to see my boyfriend pretending to be making out with someone. I can’t help but laugh with her at his pathetic attempt to pretend to have someone making out with him.

“Guys, come on, no, it’s a work dinner,” Layla says, and I can’t help but smirk. Right, work. She brings her coffee to her lips, and I watch as she starts to daydream. Work my ass, and she wants to fuck her boss badly. I go back to sitting with Leo. He wraps his arms around my body pulling me close. I am not working today, but he has to go out and meet some friends.

I hate when he goes out to meet his old friends, he is an addict in recovery, and they are all bad news. I am always scared he will give in to temptation, and he will fall back into drugs and alcohol. He’s been clean for ten years, and I know that all it takes is one time, one sniff, one drop of alcohol, and I will lose him for the drugs again.

A couple of hours later, he walked out of the door and left me with my heart in my hands. I really hate this feeling I have every time he goes out with that crowd. They are bad news, really bad news.

I spend my day doing some work as I work for a security company checking the surveillance cameras. If an alarm goes on in one of the buildings we secure, I turn to the cameras in the building, and then I call the police and the person responsible for the building. It’s quite a boring job but pays well, and it’s not too demanding. It gives me time to study while I work. Sometimes I go days without one alarm going off.

I close my laptop when I hear the door open, and Leo stumbles into the house. I watch as his pupils are dilated and his face is bright pink. When his eyes meet mine, he curses under his breath and tries to reach me. I take a few steps back and walk straight into my room. I knew this was bound to happen. I knew he was going to relapse. I close the door behind me, but he starts slamming his hands against it.

“Babe, open the door,” he says with a slurring. I close my eyes with my back against the door and the tears streaming down my cheeks. How could he do this to me?

“Go away, Leo, go get smashed with your friends,” I say, and he slams his hands again, making me jump. My heart beat really fast until I started hearing him cry. My heart breaks. I know he is suffering right now. He probably only now realizes what he has done, and he will regret all of this in the morning.

I know I should turn my back on him, but I can’t. I love him, he is my boyfriend, and I know he needs me right now. He probably needs me more than ever.

I open the door, and he falls into the room on his face. I kneel next to him, and he is crying, the tears streaming down his cheeks as I help him up and towards the bed. “Stay there,” I say as I walk towards the kitchen to get some water and coffee. He is going to need this. I turn all the lights off and walk back into my room.

His phone starts ringing, and I grab it from his pocket; when I see the name flashing, I press reject. It’s his boss Lauren. As soon as I put his phone down, it dings with a message, and what I see breaks my heart.

Lauren - “I loved seeing you tonight. Did she get pissed you got home late?”

I can’t believe what I am reading. Leo’s eyes meet mine, and the realization hits him in the face. “Babe, I’m sorry, nothing happened,” he whispers, and I pull away from him. My heart is beating fast and broken, and I can’t even think straight.

“How could you?” I shout at him. He stops crying immediately and looks me dead serious in the eyes. He stopped being sorry and became the man I never liked, seriously.

“I told you nothing happened. You are fucking insane”, Leo shouts back, and my door slams open, and Layla is standing there. As if I had seen an angel for my rescue, I wrap my arms around her neck as she starts to speak.

“Okay, guys, it’s late. The neighbors will call the cops in a minute,” she says, and Leo turns around to face us. I can hear Layla’s heart beating fast, and I know she is scared. And she should be Leo; when he is like this, he is aggressive. I know I have endured a few beatings from him, and that was the reason he treated himself. He didn’t want to hurt me anymore until now.

“Come on, let’s go,” Layla says, pulling me out of the room, but Leo’s hand grabs my arm, and I flinch. He is hurting me, and I close my eyes as I try to pull away from him.

“Let go of me,” I cry out loud, and Layla tells him to let me go, but he shakes his head.

“Let her go, Leo,” Layla blurts out, but Leo doesn’t budge. He keeps his hands on me, tight, hurting me. I try to pull away, but he keeps me in place when he speaks to Layla as if I wasn’t even there, and for a moment, I am not. It’s just my body. My soul is leaving my body, and I am locking myself in, so I can’t feel my heart breaking even more.

“You need to mind your fucking business. You need to keep away. She is my fiancé, she is my problem, not yours, and you need to stop meddling in our life,” he shouts at Layla.

“Come on,” Layla says as I manage to get my arm free, but at the same time, Lao smacks Layla in the face making her lose her balance, and she slams against the door. No, Layla. I fall to my knees in front of Layla. Leo starts pacing around as he curses under his breath.

“It’s not my fault. It is all your fault. You should’ve left when I told you to. You need to mind your business.” Leo keeps repeating as he looks at Layla. “I am sorry,” I mouth to Layla as I try to help her up. Her lip is busted and bleeding. With one simple movement, I am out of the room, and Layla closes the door behind us. I don’t know how she did it, but she did it.

Layla pulls me into her room and locks the door as if that would keep Leo out. We start moving the furniture around and blocking the door as Leo starts slamming his hands against the door.

“Grab my phone and call 911”, Layla says as I nod, grab her purse, and start looking for it. Why does she have so much crap in here?

“911, what’s your emergency” I hear the woman on the other side of the line.

“Help, my boyfriend has lost his mind,” is all I have time to say before the door is slashed open, and two guys jump through the hole and grab Layla. I drop the phone as one of them grabs me, and I start screaming.

“Let me go, you animal,” I shout, and all I can see is Leo in the corridor with something in his arm. Were his friends here all along? Why is he drugged already?

“You slut”, the guy says, slamming his fist against my face, and the pain is excruciating. I scream as they throw me on the floor, and all I have time to do is cover my head while they kick me. I close my eyes and allow the pain to take me to the darkness.