Chapter 32
I drop the phone onto the cradle just as Johan starts pounding on the door. "You fucking pussy," he yells. "You're no better than before; you're still a fucking weakling."
I take a deep, shuddering breath and stand up. This is my fight. I need to make Johan see that I'm different. Calmly, I unlock the door and pull it open. "I am not weak," I state, surprisingly composed considering the knots in my stomach.
"Bullshit," Johan smirks and raises a fist. "I can break you before you have a chance to breathe."
I grab his wrist and spin him around, wrenching his arm up behind his back. He growls in protest as my other arm goes around his neck, and I use all of my weight to shove him against the wall, my mouth only centimeters from his ear.
"You're fucking going to pay for this, you little bitch," he threatens, attempting to struggle out of my grasp.
"No, I won't," my voice is low, but steady, gravely serious. "I don't want to hear another word out of you. I'm not weak, Johan, not now. I was weak, when I was with you, when I was letting you break me. I thought I needed you to make me better. But I didn't, you only made things worse. I never needed you. I don't need your punishment. I don't need your discipline. Never again, Johan. People know. Your career is over. They've been watching you for months. I stopped you. I broke you. How fucking weak am I now?"
He struggles harder, cursing and screaming that I'm a bitch and a pussy and a liar, but I hold my grasp, shoving him harder into the wall, banging his head against it, making him groan and wince. "It's over," I growl softly, "I won."
A heartbeat later, an officer bursts into the room, gun raised. I loosen my arms and release Johan, and notice a trickle of blood seeping from a cut above his eye--a cut from me throwing him against the wall. It's probably sick, but it feels a bit like revenge, knowing I hurt him, even if only a little. They don't ask me anything until Johan is again against the wall, this time in handcuffs, with another officer reading his rights. A moment later, Curtis appears, with Steve and Kirk a step behind.
I end up on the bed, slumping against Curtis, his arms tight around me, with Kirk on the other side of me, his hand rubbing up and down my back. I can hear Steve talking ot the police, but its muffled, as if its happening on some other plane.
"It's over," I murmur softly into Curtis' neck, and his arms tighten.
"It is, finally. You stopped him," he whipsers. "I am so proud of you, Andrew..."
I'm crying, sobbing, though it feels mostly like I just need to get rid of the emotion, and that's the only way my body can think of. After so many month of being scared, I feel drained, so exhausted I want to curl up on Curtis' lap and sleep for a few days. But it's a triumphant exhaustion, one that feels infinitely satisfying.
Once I stop trembling, Kirk finds some ice and tends to my cuts and bruises. He and Curtis fuss over my split lip, and at some point I'm told that my nose is broken. After tending to the injuries as best they can, the police ask me for a statement. I tell the story, surprising myself when I get through it without even a single tear. I watch them put Johan in a squad car, staring after the taillights until they disappear at the end of the street.
It isn't until I'm alone with Curtis that I let myself cry again. I sniffle softly, cradled in Curtis' arms, letting out the months of tension, the hurt and pain that I'd been bottling up since that first time Johan hit me. It is a release, a way to let go of everything I've been through, to clear it all away.
Because I've made it though.
Curled up with Curtis, tears streaming down my face, my lip cut and my body shaking, I feel stronger than I ever have.
