Chapter 1: Buried
I thought I had survived him.
The last man who touched me like I was breakable—then broke me anyway.
I thought I had buried her.
The girl who begged.
Who screamed.
Who lost everything.
But you don't walk away from monsters and stay whole.
You just learn how to wear the ruin.
So why now?
Why him?
⸻
⚠️ Trigger Warning
This novel contains themes that may be distressing to some readers, including:
• Emotional and physical abuse
• Sexual assault
• Miscarriage
• Psychological trauma
• Violence
• Dark romantic elements
Reader discretion is advised. This story is raw, emotional, and deeply character-driven. Healing doesn't come easily — and some scars don't fade.
Chapter 1 : Buried
[Loraine]
It always started the same.
A drink. A smile. A clever remark.
I learned how to tell my story without revealing anything. I smiled when I needed to, laughed on cue, and left before things got real.
Love — that was a word I’ve buried. That word belonged to him.
The one who taught me how trust could be weaponised. How promises rot over time. How a smile could hide a blade. Since him, dating had become theatre — full of chemistry with no fire, contact with no connection.
Nothing lingered.
And I was fine with that.
~ 5 years ago~
“Please… Please, please!! Don’t—”
My voice cracked mid-sob, shattered by panic. I clung to his sleeves like a lifeline, like if I held on tightly enough, he’d remember how to love me. Like I could still save what was already gone.
But he looked down at me with disgust.
“If you’d actually cared aboutus, you would’ve listened to me,” he said coldly, tugging his arms away like my touch was poison. “But you let that man look at you like that… and yousmiled. Don’t pretend you didn’t know what you were doing.”
My heart cracked open at those words. Not because they surprised me, but because they didn’t.
He didn’t love me. He loved controlling me.
And the worst part?
Some part of me still begged. Still hoped.
He turned, walking past me like I was nothing more than background noise. I lunged for him again, my voice a strangled cry, and he shoved me.
Harder this time.
My body jerked back. I stumbled. Fell.
The impact of my knees slamming into the hardwood stole my breath. My palms scraped the floor, skin splitting on contact. I curled inward, pain shooting up my arms as shame pooled behind my eyes.
“I was smiling because I was being polite,” I whispered to the floor, to myself, to the version of me that still believed kindness mattered. “I didn’t even speak to him—”
He turned around so fast I flinched.
“Don’t lie to me.”
His voice was low, lethal — the kind of tone that always came before something worse.
“I saw the way you looked at him. Like I wasn’t even standing right there.”
“I wasn’t—” My voice cracked. “I wasn’t looking at anyone—”
CRACK.
The sound hit before the pain did.
Then my head snapped sideways, and fire exploded across my cheek. My mouth filled with blood. I tasted iron, thick and hot, and a sob tore from my throat — high, broken.
My cheek throbbed. My ears rang. My soul recoiled.
“I told you what would happen if you disrespected me again.”He said it so calmly. Like it was a rule I had broken, not a line he had crossed.
“You think some random man’s attention is worththis?” He gestured between us. “You think a little eye contact is worth destroying everything I’ve given you?”
My voice was barely audible. “You haven’t given me anything…”
That was when he really snapped.
He grabbed my wrist, yanking me off the ground so violently my shoulder popped. I cried out, the pain sharp and immediate.
“What did you just say?” he hissed, his grip bruising.
“I…” My lips trembled, the taste of blood thick on my tongue. “Y-you took… everything.”
I could barely breathe through the ache in my chest. The words trembled on my lips like the last bit of fight I had left.
“You—y-you broke me…”
His expression darkened — not rage, but something colder.
Without warning, his hand shot out and wrapped around my throat.
I gasped, the sudden pressure cutting off my breath. My hands clawed at his wrist, but he didn’t flinch.
“You wouldn’t be so broken,” he hissed, his face inches from mine, “if you had just learned tolisten.”
Tears spilled from my eyes. My lungs screamed.
He leaned in closer, voice low and cruel.
“Donotdisrespect me again, Loraine.”
You’d think he was done.
He wasn’t. That was just the beginning.
He stepped over me like I was in his way. I curled in on myself, arms wrapped around my stomach as I tried to breathe, as if I could protect the parts of me that still felt human.
But then I felt his shadow over me again — his fingers curling around my arm, yanking me up like I was weightless.
“I said, don’t disrespect me,” he said through gritted teeth. “Answer me! Acknowledge me!”
I whimpered, tried to twist free. “P-please,” I gasped, “just stop—”
He didn’t.
He dragged me to the bed like I wasn’t a person, like I wasn’this. He pushed me down face-first into the mattress, and my voice broke — loud at first, then muffled into the sheets.
The air was thick, and the pressure on my back made it impossible to lift my head.
Then his hand shoved me down harder, flattening my face into the mattress.
The weight. The control. Thesilencing.
I couldn’t breathe.
I felt his other hand clawing at my blouse — yanking, tearing, exposing skin like it offended him. Threads popped. The fabric split. My linen blouse was ripped apart in seconds, leaving me gasping beneath him, every inch of me shaking.
I remember the metallicclinkof his belt unbuckling — that hollow sound echoing louder than my heartbeat.
Then the sting — sharp, raw — as the leather met skin. Not once. Not twice. Just enough to punish. Enough to remind me I was his to discipline.
I gasped, but I didn’t scream anymore.
I just…froze.
So, so still.
My body locked up, as if stillness could make me invisible. As if not moving might make him change his mind.
But it didn’t.
I felt every second of it.
Felt him take what he thought he owned.
And in those moments — those long, endless minutes — I left.
Not physically. Not yet.
Butmentally.
I left that room.
Left my body.
Because what do you do when the person you trusted most becomes the one who takes everything from you?
When it was over, he just got dressed, like this was routine. Like this wasnormal.
“You made me do that,” he said finally, almost tired. “You pushed me there. Just so you know, you disgust me.”
No, I didn’t.
He just liked watching me suffer.
He liked the way Ishudderedbeneath his hands, the way I went still under his weight.
He liked the control.
He liked the silence afterward — the proof that he could break me, again and again, and I’d stay.
I lay there, bleeding, unmoving, staring at the cracks in the ceiling until the room stopped spinning.
~Now~
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, the glass fogged over with steam. My fingers dragged through the condensation, clearing it just enough to see myself.
My reflection stared back — older, colder, and harder than the girl I used to be.
Her eyes looked the same — almost — except the light behind them was gone. Replaced by walls. Steel-plated and unmoving.
I’d built them myself. Brick by brick. Scar by scar.
I let my eyes drop, tracing the outline of my body. The curve of my shoulder. The stretch of my hip. The faint, faded scars still living along my ribs… and lower. Like whispers left behind by his rage.
He always made sure the scars were in places no one would see.
He was careful like that. Precise.
But the real ones, thedeepestones — weren’t carved into flesh.
They were buried beneath my skin. Etched into reflex.
They were in the way I flinched at sudden hands.
The way I stiffened at affection.
The way I pulled away from kindness — like it was a lie waiting to unfold.
Those were the marks that never healed.
The ones no mirror could show — but I carried with me, always.
This body…
It wasn’t just mine anymore.
It was a battlefield.
A quiet war I had survived.
And some mornings, survival didn’t feel like a victory.
It just felt like breathing through the wreckage.
The sound of my ringtone shattered the silence, dragging me back. I shifted my eyes to the screen that had lit up.
Derick
I sighed, as I picked up the phone and walked out of the bathroom.
“Lori-“ His voice was soft but unsteady, like panic was crawling up his throat and he didn’t know how to contain it.
I knew that tone.
I’d heard it before — not from him, but from the past.
Men don’t panic when they lose you. They panic when they lose access.
“You have 5 minutes,” I said coldly, unwrapping my hair from the towel I’d twisted it in.
“Lori, why did you disappear? I was worried!” There was a tremor in his voice, a crack that tried to sound sincere but didn’t quite land. I’d heard this performance before.
“Derick, didn’t we had an agreement?” I scoffed, turning on the loudspeaker as I placed my phone down and my vanity. “Are you going back on your words now?”
“Yes, we did. I know. But you can’t tell me you didn’t feel anything!” He let out a breath, shaky and exaggerated. “The spark I felt… the way we fucked—” His voice broke on that last word, laced with disbelief — like he was reliving it, like he expected it to mean something.
“No. No I did not.” My voice flat.
And it was true.
I hadn’t felt a thing.
Because I hadn’t let myself.
Just like I always did — I let him in just far enough to take the edge off.
Then I shut the door again.
“So this whole week really meant nothing at all… that’s fucked up Lori…” His voice dipped.
Not really, I thought.
“You made me believe we had something Lori, please… give me another week! I’ll change your mind…” There it was — the softness in his plea.
Too soft.
The kind of softness that thought it could trick a broken woman into hoping again.
But I wasn’t hoping.
I was done hoping.
“Alright. Time’s up. See you never,” I said, and hung up.
The line went dead.
Just like the part of me that used to care.
Click.
Silence again.
Except this time… it felt good. A little victory. A small reclaiming.
But even that didn’t last.
Because when I looked in the mirror again, I didn’t just see power.
I saw loneliness.
And that… was harder to swallow.
