The One Who Stayed

WILLOW’S POV

“Let’s just sit down,” I said, keeping my voice as level as possible as I moved toward the couch. “And then you can start explaining things.” I already knew the breadth of his lies, thanks to the Facebook logs, but some desperate, lingering part of my soul still wanted to see if he possessed enough human decency to tell me the truth face-to-face.

He followed me closely, sinking onto the cushions right next to me, his proximity suffocating. “Willow baby, I already told you everything that happened at Jessa’s house,” he said, his hands twitching against his denim jeans. “Do you really need to hear the details again?”

“No,” I replied, turning my head to look him directly in his bloodshot eyes. “I don't need to hear about Jessa. I want to know about the rest of them. I want to know exactly how many women you’ve been sleeping with behind my back.”

His face drained of what little color it possessed, his jaw dropping slightly as the realization hit him that his cover was gone. But the vulnerability lasted only a second before his expression hardened into a defensive, ugly sneer.

“I told you it was only her!” he lied, his voice rising in volume. “I was completely fucked up that night, Willow! I’ve been going through a really dark time this year, alright? I got into some heavy shit earlier this year. Drugs. That’s what I was doing Friday night. I did a bunch of lines of coke, and my mind just went completely blank.

It happens sometimes when you do that much.” He shrugged his shoulders carelessly, as if a cocaine addiction was a routine, trivial excuse for infidelity.

The admission was a physical shock. “You’re… you’re using coke?” I stammered, my architectural mind struggling to process the collapse of his moral framework. “Are you high right now, Nick ?” I didn't even give him the opportunity to manufacture another lie. “I can’t believe what you’ve turned into. And to think I actually came here hoping for the truth.” I stood up quickly, turning away from him, my hands shaking with a combination of rage and profound disgust.

“I logged into your Facebook account this morning, Nick ,” I said, turning back to face him, pointing an accusatory finger at his chest. “I saw every single message. I saw Jen. I saw the other five girls. I saw everything you and Anton have been doing for the last six months. I hope every single one of those hits was worth losing the life we built, because we are finished. Now, get the hell out of my house. I don’t want to be anywhere near you when you’re like this.” I gestured sharply toward the front door.

Nick didn't move toward the exit. Instead, he stood up slowly, his thin, skeletal frame unfolding from the couch until he was towering over me. The contrition was gone completely, replaced by a raw, unadulterated venom that deformed his facial features. For the first time in the twelve years since he had sat next to me on the school bus, a deep, primal terror paralyzed my limbs. I was genuinely afraid of him.

“You don’t get to just decide this is over, Willow,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl. He lunged forward, his fingers clamping around my forearm with a bruising, vice-like pressure, twisting my body back toward him. “You. Are. Mine.”

He roared the final words directly into my face.

“Nick , stop it! You’re hurting me!” I screamed, the pain in my arm sharp and immediate. But it was like speaking to a brick wall; his eyes were wide, glassy, and entirely devoid of human recognition. He was operating in a state of drug-induced psychosis or pure entitlement.

I summoned every ounce of physical strength I possessed and wrenched my arm out of his grasp, stepping backward into the narrow hallway to escape. But he was faster. Before I could take a second step, his hand flew out, catching my shoulder and shoving me violently forward.

My body flew through the air, my face slamming directly into the drywall of the hallway. The impact was horrific; it knocked the breath out of my lungs in a sickening gasp, and my forehead struck the hard surface with a dull thud that sent a blinding explosion of pain through my skull. My head began to throb with a sickening, rhythmic intensity.

Before I could even register the disorientation, he was behind me. He gathered both of my wrists into the iron grip of his single left hand, jerking my arms high above my head and pinning them against the wall, effectively trapping my body against the surface.

“You just need to calm down and remember what we had,” he whispered hoarsely, his hot, alcohol-and-chemical-tinged breath brushing against the sensitive skin of my earlobe. “You need to remember how incredible we are together.”

“Nick , please, stop this,” I begged, the tears breaking through my defenses, spilling onto the drywall. I was entirely helpless, my face pressed against the paint, my arms losing circulation. “Just leave the house. Please.”

“I can't do that, baby,” he murmured, his voice shifting into a terrifying imitation of tenderness. “You’ve been away too long. You’ve forgotten. We were great together.”

A wave of pure, unadulterated panic swept through my consciousness as I felt his free hand move down to the hem of my yellow sundress, the fabric rustling as he began to lift it. I realized with absolute horror what his intentions were. The boy from the bus was gone; this was a predator inside my home.

“Stop it, Nick ! Please, don’t do this to me!” I screamed, twisting my torso violently from side to side, kicking my legs backward in a desperate attempt to break his leverage. He braced his weight harder against my spine, crushing the air from my lungs, but the thrashing gave me a split-second window of opportunity. I managed to free my right leg, lifted my knee, and drove the heel of my shoe down onto the bridge of his foot with every single ounce of desperate strength I had left.

“Shit!” he roared, the pain causing his grip to falter for a fraction of a second.