“Without darkness, nothing grows; without light nothing flowers.”
Three years later, with all her boxes packed, her acceptance letter beside her, she sees the scar. She remembered that the deep gash on her arm had turned green and white, with the outskirts a hideous shade of blue. Her muscles recoiled as she recalled the scene. She hadn’t meant to irritate him and she hadn’t meant to cause such a rift and she only wanted it to end. As she spoke the disastrous words ending their two years his eyes flashed and his arm lashed out, the shiny metal blade piercing her sensitive skin. Her eyes watered as she remembered the pain in his face as he watched the blood pool around him. She remembers the downhill spiral she was captured in for those two years, the acceptance that her life was ruined. She remembers the streets, littered with trash, the less dirty places being her bed for the night. She remembers the lack of food, the lack of warmth. She remembers the happiness of being free from his grasp. She remembers her feeling of independence. She remembers that with that independence she applied to university. She remembers all this, as a contrast to her life now. Jason sleeping beside her, his warm body a comfort to the nightmares she faces. The look on his face when she got her acceptance letter, the look on his face when she said she’d move with him to Chicago.
He stirs, looks at her, smiles and whispers “I love you”.
She smiles back and whispers “you saved me.”
