Away to love

Chapter 1ii

Josh drove a very recent black Ford Mustang. He also owned a black Porsche that had diamond steering. He was obsessed with black , literally all his clothes were black. He could wear black with black for seven days a week; literally forever. He got Nina a hot pink Porsche too, when she turned twenty. He put the finest leather on the car’s interior and also put some diamonds on the car's steering. They had a maid, but she came and left. She would only go to deep clean on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays. Food wasn’t a problem as Nina cooked and the days she did not, she ordered take out. Josh always came back home filled anyway. They had no children and Sweden was old enough to take care of herself. They went on vacations, flew business class from time to time and, during Christmas, they spent their time lodging in luxury chateaus in Europe. Nina herself owned a few designer clothes paired with other quality clothing that was not designer.

She was always well put together and she smelled nice. She never lacked. Bills were put on auto-pay. She never thought about bills or food, or how to pay rent. She was literally being paid weekly just to survive. She had time to herself; time to sleep, time to think and time to do whatever she liked. Not many of her friends had this luxury. One of her friends told her she envied her, and she wished she were in her shoes. Little did she know the shoe was tight and uncomfortable for Nina. The wind blew very severely. It seemed it was going to rain. Nina loved the rain, and she packed up and moved to the corner of the patio rain wouldn’t touch. The effect of the rain would make the flowers

It smells really nicely. Spring was coming in slowly and Nina watched as small droplets of rain fell from the sky. The smell of the dandelions was the most pronounced. ‘Heavenly’, Nina thought.

Nina took up her pen and she reached out to a small pink journal that was beside her. She went for a while. Thinking about what to write. Inside the journal contained naked sketches of the love letters she would write to Josh. And on some pages were some of the letters she received from Josh, stuck with Hannah Montana stickers. Inside too were love notes she received from her friends in high school, love calculators and calendars they used to calculate their crush names to see if they were eligible together .

Nina smiled at the book as she thought about the beautiful memories it held. It was gifted to her by her grandmother from her parents' side, Ellie, when she was seven years old, and she had just started learning how to write. Ellie died when she was 10 years old. On the journal’s first page, it contained the first love note Ellie wrote to her. Since then , she has carried on the tradition by using it to write love notes to her friends, her parents and Sweden. Sad that today, she was using it to reminisce about the good times with Josh instead of jotting it down. Her grandmother, Ellie, also gifted the same journal to Sweden once she turned seven.

“ Summer after high school when we first met, We used to make out in your Mustang to Radiohead. On my 18th birthday, we got matching tattoos. Used to steal your parents’ liquor and climb to the roof. Talk about our future like we had a clue

Never planned that one day, I’d be losing you. Never one without the other, we made a pact. Sometimes, when I miss you, I put those records on, woah.

Someone said you had your tattoo removed. I saw you downtown singing the blues. It’s time to face the music. I’m no longer your muse.I’m another life. I will be your girl. We will keep our promises. Be us against the world. In another life,I will make you stay, so I don’t have to say you were.

The one that got away,” Nina wrote, as the lyrics to Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away "kept replaying in her head.

‘So this is me and Josh now. Once a love that was fierce and unbreakable became boring and bland, before he couldn’t take his hands off me and now, he barely touches me’, Nina thought, her mind far away, daydreaming.

Struggling to get the thoughts away, she tossed and turned, but they wouldn’t go. She could stop thinking this was it . Today was the day she was finally going to be bold enough to tell Josh she had quit. The day she would finally stand up to him and his prude character. The day she was finally going to put an end to it. Tears ran down her eyes as she thought of everything she had been through. This is it! She was going to leave or die trying. This was the man she had devoted her life to. The man she had loved with everything in her. She tried once. They had an argument and she threatened to leave. “You think you can leave me b***h?, he said as he laughed with a sinister smile on his face. “Well try again, you ungrateful soul,” the famous smile which she once loved appeared again, but this time instead of putting butterflies in her stomach, it scared her to death. She kept wondering what had happened to the nice Josh she met. All he did was threaten and talk down on her. He felt without him, she was a nobody. Somehow she feared it was the truth, it seemed she couldn’t live without him. What if she was truly nobody without him? It is a pity that all he did was drive fear into her . She feared what was coming next. With his wild and aggressive nature, what if he stabbed her? He was very capable. This is the day she probably would die and was ready.

Another scene played in her head. “Please don’t hurt me Josh, please I’m sorry for staying out really late. I swear I wasn’t talking to that guy”, she struggled to speak as she broke down in tears wishing the guy she once loved would come back.

“Say you love me Nina! Go on f*****g say it”. He yelled with his hands on her shirt, gripping it and folding the neck of the shirt she wore. She looked at him. She knew she didn’t love him. She did before and at least she pretended to now. This was not the version of the man she fell in love with. This is not the version she loved, but if she didn’t want to be slapped she had to say it.

She shook her head as she tried to hold back tears. She whispered again, “I love you Josh”. She lied, he knew her better than that. He held her and pushed her against the chair that was beside her, and she fell, losing balance.” Liar!! f*****g little lying b***h! I’ll show you what happens to liars you b***h”, Josh screamed as he picked her up again and threw her on the floor. Her fall was accompanied by a very loud slap and back to back punches. She was too weak to speak, to even beg. She knew what was coming next. She begged him with her eyes, but he ignored her.

“You want to know why I’ve persevered with you this long” he asked as he looked ruthlessly straight into Nina’s eyes. He laughed at her face as she struggled to hold herself together. “Because you’re a good girl. I know you’re loyal as hell, and you ain’t going nowhere”, he said as he started ripping her clothes apart.’ Could it be the money?’ Nina thought, because he was not this way when we were broke teenagers. She wondered what he was going to say was the reason for the abuse this time around. Nina watched him shamelessly and angrily ripping her clothes apart. She didn’t try to struggle, she knew that if she did, he was going to tear her to pieces. After a series of abuse and insults like this, he would blame it on the liquor. Sometimes he would love to bomb her for weeks before he goes back to his normal rude self. He would send her flowers, give her money for shopping and send love letters which, of course, were written by his personal assistant and not him. There was a time he beat her so badly that she fell sick. She had to lie to her family that she had an allergic reaction to something that she ate. There was no allergic reaction, it was Josh, he was the allergic reaction. Sweden had come and stayed to tend to her for a week. She made sure of Nina before she left. Nina could not open up to Sweden, she didn’t want her to see her as a weak person. She didn’t want to be seen as a sister that was unable to protect her either if harm came her way. So she hid it as smoothly as she could.