The Adopted Voight

Broken On The Floor

Adeline Rae

"You survived the abuse. You're going to survive the recovery.

Walking through the cold streets of Chicago, allowed the chaos in my head to quieten, and I walked back to the house I shared with Greg in a numb haze.

The front door wasn't locked, and Greg's motorcycle was parked haphazardly outside. I took a deep breath of the cold air as I braced myself for the pain and anger that was to come.

I opened the door and put my backpack down, hope rising inside me when I saw that Greg was passed out on the couch, a half drunk beer bottle clutched in his hand.

I quietly removed my shoes, and was slowly walking up the stairs when a high pitched infant cry, disrupted the silence and caused me to step on the creaky stair. The noise of the baby crying, and the creakiness of the stairs caused Greg to wake up instantly, the beer bottle in his hand smashing on the floor, as he dropped it when standing up.

"You bitch! Ruining everything just like your whore of a mother", Greg yelled, approaching me with a thunderous expression. I tried to back away but tripped on the stairs, the fear inside me clouding every other sense. I quickly got up, taking a defensive stance and trying to back away again. "You ungrateful little slut, you thought you could escape huh, tryin' to get me in trouble with the cops. You're going to pay for that" , Greg yelled, pulling me by the hair, causing pain to explode in my scalp.

"Please stop, I didn't say anything, I didn't call them, please it hurts", I cried.

"She wouldn't have listened even if you told her anything, bitch. She was too charmed by me, and lucky for me, she likes her guys rough, just like the whore she is, she wasn't even a good lay," Greg spat in my ear, confirming my earlier suspicion that something had happened between Greg and Julia. I was about to cry again when Greg slammed my face into the wall, causing intense pain to explode on my face, my eyes going blurry and a ringing inside my head to start.

Before I could even recover, Greg slammed my face back into the wall twice making my eyes go completely blurry, and my head to feel dizzy. My head and face hurt so bad. "Stop, please", I whispered in a broken voice, somehow this time the pain felt worse, Greg seemed more violent, unhinged and that made my fear so much worse. Greg let go of his hold on my hair, his arms clutching my upper arm, and turning me to face him, my back hitting the wall. My scalp burned along with my face and I tried to dislodge his grip but the pain and dizziness made it hard for me to properly fight back.

Before I could figure out a way to dislodge the meaty hand gripping my arm in a bruising hold, Greg drew his fist back and punched me right in the face, his knuckles connecting mercilessly with my nose. The dizziness was causing my reaction time to be delayed. Normally, I would've been able to dodge that punch.

Blood streamed down from my nose, which had now become the major source of my pain. Tears streamed down my bruised face, some hitting my nose and irritating it even more. Everything hurt. Why had I even come back? I knew Greg would be angry but he never hit me this hard. This time it felt like he was trying to kill me.

The amount of blood pouring down from my nose concerned me but the pain in my head was too much to concentrate on anything properly.

"You bitch, you got your filthy blood on my shirt", Greg yelled with an enraged roar that caused my head to hurt worse. Greg immediately let go of my arm, trying to clean his shirt, and I tried to stand up and when it became obvious I couldn't, I tried to crawl away but because of the dizziness and the overwhelming fear to escape, escape the pain and Greg, I didn't notice the smashed glass from when Greg had broken the beer bottle earlier and so the glass shards pierced my palms and knees, causing a yelp of pain to involuntarily escape from me.