A RUDE AWAKENING

‎The quiet was worse than the shouting. It crawled up the back of my neck and stayed there.

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"Just leave, Ava." My voice came out flat, worn down to nothing. "You already got everything you wanted."

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"Not everything." She was already reaching into her bag when she said it, smiling when she pulled out the scissors, still smiling when she drove them into the back of my hand.

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I screamed. The sound tore out of me before I could stop it, and the room went white at the edges, my stomach lurching like the floor had dropped a foot beneath me. Blood welled up fast, spilling over my knuckles, dripping in fat red drops onto the tile.

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Ava crouched, almost gentle, and dragged two fingers through the blood pooling near my hand. She painted it across the inside of her thigh in one smooth stroke. Then she dropped to the floor, curled around her stomach, and dialed.

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"Caleb." Her voice cracked beautifully on the second syllable. "Please, help. Veronica, she's trying to kill me."

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I pressed my good hand over the wound, blood seeping warm between my fingers, and stared at her like she was a stranger speaking a language I used to know.

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"What is wrong with you?"

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"Who do you think he's going to believe?" She didn't even lower her voice for that.

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"The pathetic wife, or me?" The door slammed open before I could answer.

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"Ava, what happened?" Caleb was at her side before the door finished swinging, on his knees, both hands on her face.

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"I-I was just leaving my appointment." She hiccupped between words, tears already streaking her cheeks on cue. "I ran into Veronica in the hall, and I felt so bad that she was here all alone, so I came in to see her, and she-she pushed me."

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He turned his head toward me, slow. A muscle worked in his jaw, once, twice, and didn't stop. He crossed the room and closed his hand around my injured arm. Pain shot white through my vision.

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"Let go." I twisted against his grip and it didn't loosen, not even a fraction.

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"Caleb, let go, you're hurting me."

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"What do you get out of hurting an innocent woman and her baby?" His voice had gone low. Lower than shouting. Worse than shouting.

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"Innocent?" A laugh tore out of me, ugly and short.

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"There is nothing innocent about either of them, and you know it."

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His palm connected with my cheek before I finished the sentence.The floor met me a second later. My ears rang, a high thin whine swallowing every other sound in the room, and somewhere through it I caught the edge of Ava's smile.

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"You never learn." He fisted a hand in my hair and hauled me up.I clawed at his wrist with my good hand, my knees scraping against the tile as he dragged me the few feet to where Ava lay propped against the bed. He threw me down at her feet.

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"Apologize."I looked up at Ava's face, swollen with false tears, and at Caleb's, carved out of something I no longer recognized, and felt the last soft place in my chest crack again, smaller this time, quieter, a sound like a dish breaking in another room.

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"I won't."Ava sniffled, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth.

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"Caleb, she doesn't have to." Her voice wobbled with manufactured grace. "She's your wife. I understand why she'd be jealous, with how much time you spend with me instead of her." A small hiccup.

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"If I'd known she was this vengeful, I would have warned you not to marry her."

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"If I'd known," Caleb said, looking down at me like something tracked in on the bottom of his shoe, "I never would have."

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He crouched and gripped my jaw, forcing my face up to his."Apologize."

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"I won't," I said again, and meant it more the second time. He drew his hand back to hit me again, and Ava screamed.

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"Caleb, the baby!"He dropped me without a second glance and scooped her up, one arm under her knees, the other behind her back, carrying her like glass.

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She looked back at me over his shoulder, broken and bleeding on the floor exactly the way she wanted me, and smiled.

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A nurse rushing past slowed when she saw me, already moving to kneel at my side, but Caleb's voice cut across the room before she got there.

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"I need every nurse and doctor on this floor attending to her. Now."

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"But, sir." The nurse glanced at me, at the blood still spreading beneath my hand.

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"She's bleeding, she needs-"He didn't even turn around fully to say it.

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"She doesn't matter." The nurse's eyes found mine for half a second, something like an apology in them, before she turned and followed him out.

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For the second time that week, I was left in pieces on a floor that didn't care whether I got up. The edges of the room had started to blur, the ceiling tilting somewhere it shouldn't have been able to go, when a voice cut through the static.

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"Veronica. Wake up." A hand, warm, tapped my cheek twice.I tried to focus on the shape above me and got nothing but color and light, smeared together like a photograph taken while running.

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"Help me," I whispered, and let the dark take the rest.