I hadn't expected her to come home early. And now here we were, sitting across from each other at the table, eating dinner in near silence.

  Every clink of cutlery felt too loud. I could tell she was furious—there was no mistaking that—but I didn't understand why, and that uncertainty gnawed at me more than anything.

  She barely touched her steak, just nudging it around her pte, uninterested. The entire time I'd been cooking, she hadn't said a word. No teasing, no comments, not even a thank you when I set the ptes down. The absence of her usual warmth was suffocating.

  I was terrified to say anything. Afraid that the wrong word would make things worse.

  "You sure do have a way of catching the attention of girls, don't you..." she muttered at st, her voice low and sharp.

  I flinched at the sound of it, my fingers tightening around my fork.

  "I–I don't understand why you're mad," I whispered, my voice barely steady. "I don't know what I did, Elena."

  My eyes stayed fixed on my pte. I couldn't bring myself to look at her—if I did, I knew I'd break. The lump in my throat burned, my chest tight as I waited for whatever came next.

  "I just find it funny," she said coldly, "that you let girls talk to you that way. I guess if you didn't dress like a whore..."

  The word hit me like a sp. I flinched, my shoulders curling inward. I wasn't even wearing anything revealing—just a simple blouse and jean shorts—but suddenly I felt exposed anyway, like I'd done something wrong just by existing.

  "I didn't flirt with her," I said quickly, my voice trembling despite my effort to steady it. "I left right away when she started being weird..."

  I stabbed my fork into the steak and left it there. My appetite had vanished completely, my stomach tight and hollow.

  "But you stopped for her, Miguel," she snapped, cutting me off. Her voice rose with every word, sharp and unforgiving. "It's like you love being talked to like that. You shouldn't have given her the attention at all."

  "I—I don't understand why you're so mad," I said, forcing the words out as I took a sip of water, hoping it would calm my nerves. It didn't. "I won't do it again."

  She ughed, short and bitter. "But you will. You love the attention." Her eyes bored into me. "Stupid whore."

  My chest tightened painfully.

  "I saw who drove you here," she continued. "I bet you let her touch you, didn't you?"

  I froze, fingers numb around the gss, my mind scrambling for the right words—any words—that wouldn't make this worse.

  "S-She's just an old friend," I stammered, the words tumbling over each other. "Nothing else. A-and she's a lesbian too—she wouldn't try anything—"

  "Bullshit."

  She cut me off so sharply it felt like the air had been knocked out of my lungs.

  "You're lying to me."

  The accusation made my throat seize up. I shook my head, fighting hard against the tears burning behind my eyes.

  "I-I'm not," I whispered, covering my face as if that could somehow make this stop.

  "Yes. You. Are."

  The certainty in her voice terrified me more than her shouting ever could.

  I stood up on instinct, my body moving before my brain caught up—just trying to put distance between us, trying to breathe. The chair scraped loudly against the floor behind me, followed by quick, heavy footsteps.

  "You don't get to leave when I'm talking to you."

  Her hand closed around my arm and yanked me back. I gasped as she forced me to turn toward her, her grip tight, fingers digging into my skin hard enough that I knew there'd be marks ter.

  "Why are you being like this, Elena?" I choked out, my voice breaking despite myself. "I didn't do anything wrong. I promise."

  A tear slipped free, trailing down my cheek as I stood there shaking, trapped in her grip and desperately hoping—again—that she'd believe me.

  "What I want to know," she said, her voice trembling with fury, "is why you let women touch you and flirt with you, you attention-seeking whore. The only reason you're even here—living with me—is because I fell in love with you. Nobody else would've wanted someone who sold his body."

  The words hit one after another, too fast to dodge, too heavy to process. I barely had time to understand what she'd said—

  Before her hand connected with my face.

  The sound cracked through the room, sharp and final, and everything inside me went eerily quiet.

  For a split second, everything stopped—the room, the noise, even my breath. The world felt like it had tilted off its axis, leaving me frozen where I stood.

  The woman I thought would be my wife someday had hit me.

  The woman I loved had hit me.

  The sweet, kind girl I thought I knew—she had hit me.

  And in that moment, something inside me cracked quietly, irreversibly, as I realized this wasn't an argument anymore.

  It was something else entirely.

  The moment my body caught up with what had just happened, everything I'd been holding back came crashing out of me at once. The pressure in my chest burst, and I sobbed openly. My legs gave out and I colpsed to my knees, hands shaking as I cried into myself.

  Elena didn't move to help. She just stood there, watching—judging—even now.

  "Let that be a lesson," she said coldly, "for being a whore and a terrible boyfriend."

  Her words cut deeper than the sp had.

  Then she stepped closer, her tone shifting into something that made my stomach churn. "Now get up. I need to take the rest of my anger out on your dick."

  Bile rose in my throat. After everything she'd said—after what she'd done—she still thought she could use me like that.

  "No," I whispered, then louder, firmer. "Let me go. I need space."

  I wrenched myself free and didn't wait for her response. I grabbed the door, yanked it open, and fled into the hallway. I took the stairs two at a time, lungs burning as I ran, desperate for air, for distance, for anything that wasn't her.

  I didn't look back.

  I didn't listen to her shouting after me.

  All that mattered was getting out of that building.

  I ran and ran until I didn't know how far I'd gone anymore. My legs burned, my chest ached, but I kept moving until my body finally forced me to slow. People passed me—voices called out, someone asked if I was okay—but I ignored them all.

  I couldn't answer. I couldn't even look at them.

  The cold night air seeped into my skin, biting through my clothes, raising goosebumps along my arms. I started to shiver, but I barely noticed. Something far worse than the cold had already settled deep inside me.

  What happened to the Elena I knew?

  The Elena who used to hold my face gently.

  The one who never raised her voice at me.

  The one who never—never—hit me.

  My thoughts spiraled, looping endlessly. Why did I talk to those girls? Why couldn't I have just ignored them? Why didn't I walk faster, keep my head down, disappear?

  This is my fault, isn't it?

  The guilt wrapped around my chest, tightening with every breath. I tried to make sense of it, tried to find the moment where I must have done something wrong—because there had to be one. Things didn't just fall apart like this without a reason. Not unless I caused it.

  I was so lost in my head that I didn't even realize where my feet had taken me.

  When I finally looked up, the street was empty. No cars passed. No voices lingered. Just me, standing under the dull glow of shop lights bleeding onto the sidewalk, the windows dark or closing for the night. The world felt distant, like I was watching it through thick gss.

  I drifted toward a narrow alleyway and stopped there, my strength finally giving out. I slumped forward, shoulders sagging, head hanging low.

  Just like before.

  Just like the old times.

  Alone.

  With nothing but my thoughts for company.

  I stared at the ground, breathing shallowly, and all I could think was why. Was she just having a bad day at work? Was she stressed? Tired? Angry at something else and I just happened to be there?

  I wanted so badly for there to be an expnation that didn't mean the woman I loved had changed into someone I didn't recognize.

  "I'm so... lost," I muttered under my breath, my voice barely a whisper in the suffocating silence of the night.

  The alley reeked of stale urine and rotting trash, the flickering streetlight at the entrance casting long, jagged shadows across the damp brick walls.

  "Well, well, well..." a voice slithered from the darkness to my left. My head snapped toward the sound, heart pounding as I saw a woman emerging from the gloom.

  Her gaunt face was sunken, eyes gssy and wild, with cracked lips curled into a predatory smirk. Behind her, two heavier women lumbered forward, their breathing bored, sweat glistening on their sallow skin, their clothes tattered and stained.

  I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline spiking, intent on bolting for the alley's exit. But before I could move, another figure stepped into the dim light of my end—a fourth woman, just as rough-looking, her stringy hair pstered to her face, a manic glint in her bloodshot eyes.

  I was trapped, cornered like prey, my pulse hammering in my ears.

  "I ain't had a man in a long damn time," the first woman rasped, her voice dripping with a sick kind of hunger as she crept closer, her bony fingers twitching at her sides.

  "Neither have my girls here. Don't you worry, sugar... we ain't gonna bite. Not too hard, anyway." Her cackle echoed off the walls, joined by low, guttural chuckles from the others as they closed in, their footsteps dragging on the grimy pavement.

  Panic cwed at my chest, my eyes darting for any escape, but there was none. I opened my mouth to shout, to plead, but before a sound could escape, one of the heavier women lunged forward, quicker than I expected.

  I felt a sharp, burning prick in my arm—a needle, jabbed deep and pulled out just as fast. My vision swam almost instantly, the alley tilting sideways as my knees buckled.

  Their distorted faces loomed over me, leering, as the world dissolved into bck.

  ____

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