Chapter 1 It was my own husband
Emily's POV
“I love the smell of your fear,” my husband whispered.
Both of us were swimming in my own blood, every part of my skin screaming for freedom, freedom from the pain he was inflicting on my body.
“Please,” I begged.
He yanked my head back by pulling my hair, and my eyes blurred, my nausea increased, and the thunder in my heart became even louder. I just wanted to die.
Then the knife pressed hard against my stomach. I was pregnant.
I couldn't hold in the pain, so I held the blade with my hand, only for the knife to slip out of his hand.
My heart hammered violently as I grabbed the knife. My body trembled.
“Give me the knife,” he threatened.
If I gave it to him, he'd keep hurting me, so I held back, only for him to tighten his hands around my neck.
The wounds on my neck stung, and my body began to feel light as he strangled me.
I could feel my head expanding and my whole body drifting into nothingness.
I had always hoped for death, and here it was and... I raised the knife in my hand and buried it in the side of his stomach.
“AHH-” I screamed after he let me go and stabbed him in the neck.
He didn't want to let me go, so I stabbed him again.
Then the realization hit me that I didn't choose death and I HAD KILLED MY HUSBAND.
Last night, when Eugene, my husband, was taking his bath, I was preparing the bed for sleep when his phone beeped.
I dared not touch his phone or inform him that he had a call or message.
For three years, I had never touched his phone or known what he was ever up to.
But he had taken my phone, seized it, broken it, and even allowed me to stay for months without a cell phone, locking me up inside this same apartment.
However, this time, as I walked past the beeping phone, I saw messages coming in.
[Tomorrow evening at 6:30 p.m. Trii Hotel.] That was what I could catch a glimpse of before he walked out of the bathroom to smack me hard on my buttocks.
I never liked it because of how it made me feel, but I had no power to say anything, so I just went around the bed after it was made and waited for him, as I couldn't sleep until he was in bed.
I was walking into our apartment as I recalled last night's incident. I placed my hand on my stomach, which had expanded due to my pregnancy. I was seven months in.
But I had no joy at the thought of birthing or raising any child for Eugene, most especially when I had just learned that he was sleeping with our closest neighbour, whom he had tortured me over because I wanted to be her friend.
I never knew that they were having an affair, and sometimes they did everything in her apartment.
Those times I thought she was with her boyfriend, causing her to giggle and laugh, it was never another man. It was my own husband.
Standing by the Triii Hotel, I had watched him hand a bouquet of flowers to her as he met with her in the hotel's parking lot, but here I was suffering with him and praying that he'd change someday, but he only got worse day by day, night by night.
The same neighbour whom he was cheating on me with acted as if she could save me and even encouraged me to tell her everything.
If only I had known that she was trying to get information about me so that she'd deliver it to Eugene.
That explained why he would enter the house, and before I welcomed him, he'd have thrown a slipper at me.
“Is something the matter?” I would ask him while trembling.
He wouldn't say anything. He'd walk up to me like a fierce lion and hit me dangerously across the face. I'd lose my stance.
Every time he hit and tortured me, I could feel my life drifting away before my eyes, and I would thank God that I was finally going to be free from my misfortunes.
But my next moment wasn't a place in the afterlife. It was our bedroom and the sunlight penetrating through the window.
“I am a fool!” Then Eugene would fall on his knees and cry bitterly.
“How do I tell you that I love you after I have done this?”
He hit himself across the face and even hit his head against the wall as if he wanted to die.
I couldn't watch my husband do all this to himself, so I would stand up and embrace him.
“I know, I know how much you love me,” I would say.
“Thank you, my baby,” he would say as he carried me and kissed every part of me.
And even when he placed me on the bed for us to make love, I would tremble because he loved to force me more than seek my willingness.
The pain that flushed through my whole body when he went inside me was unexplainable. I would grip the bedsheet so tightly and grit my teeth so that I could endure it.
And all he did was keep pouncing on me, pressing me down with every bit of strength in him.
“It hurts, Eugene.”
“That's how it is supposed to be,” he would say.
But the pain was worse than menstrual cramps. I never had cramps, but he somehow messed up my cycle and nature.
For days, my vagina would throb in pain, and I would wince every time. Even then, he'd still hit me and go inside me.
But when would all this end?
When would I be free?
I did not even know what freedom looked like anymore.
Would I be able to move freely on the street without fearing the approach of any man?
Would I be able to eat what I felt like eating?
Would I enjoy making love?
Would I know what true love meant?
What was this freedom I sought? I couldn't even imagine or daydream about it.
I wished desperately for death but… every day marked the beginning of my misfortunes, and it would never stop.
