He was wearing the same pale blue shirt he'd worn on the program. He must have shrugged out of the pin-stripped sports jacket he had donned after the cameras had stopped rolling.

I'd remembered him taller, but perhaps dating Thomas had skewed my perception of height as it had skewed my perception on so many other things. Other things that were undoubtedly more important than height, and yet, in that moment it was all I could dwell on.

Patrick had been taller.

He'd towered over me when we stood next to each other. It was infuriating when we argued, but then again we hadn't ever argued much. There was no arguing with Patrick. There was no bloody point.

He was always right, and I was always ignorant of some universal truth apparently obvious to more intelligent minds. Namely Patrick's. More often than not, he thought me stupid and in need of his enlightened intelligence—and the most pathetic part was, that at some point, I'd come to believe it too.

My stomach roiled in remembrance, and I had to swallow several times until the wave of nausea subsided.

It was my fault.

He treated me poorly sure, but I was the one who had taken it. I let him treat me that way. Trisha—before we stopped speaking—had taken pains to frequently point out what she perceived to be commonalities between patterns of abuse and Patrick's behavior. But it hadn't been abuse. I mean it can't be abuse if you let it happen, can it?

And I did. I chose to pick my battles and avoid arguments. I accepted broken apology after broken apology and heard myself giving in to his ridiculous demands, even if when it meant moving in with him before I thought I was ready and losing contact with my friends.

Patrick never hit me, nor did he ever threaten to. Sure, he had a temper, but who doesn't?

Not Papa.

I closed my eyes momentarily and breathed in through my wet nose.

Not Tom.

My eyes flew open as the two thoughts collided in my mind.

I loved them both dearly, in different ways of course. And they both loved me—again, differently but similarly in the ways that mattered: neither of them pressured me into doing things I didn't feel comfortable doing and, for some reason, they both seemed to endlessly believe in me and my writing.

They never made me feel afraid or stupid or worthless.

And they sure as hell never humiliated me on national television in the name of self-promotion.

My fingers rolled into tight fists as renewed rage thronged through my veins—for the interview, but more acutely for every single time he made me feel the need to cower, to bite my tongue, and to sacrifice my personhood for the betterment of his fragile ego.

Yes, I stayed with Patrick longer than I should have. But I got out.

The night I left, Patrick punched a hole in the wall. I can't remember what got in him so livid—perhaps the skirt I wore had been too short—but I can remember the dawning of realization that the next time Patrick lost his temper, it wouldn't just be the wall needing to be fixed up.

It'd be me.

So that I night I decided to nod along with his apology like I had so many times before. I cleaned up the mess, and when he went off to the pub I sat on the couch and watched the clock for a quarter of an hour. When I was sure he was gone, I gathered up all my things that I could carry in my satchel. It hadn't been much—my wallet and computer, a dress, some toothpaste and a comb—but they were mine.

I was too afraid to take the tube at night—he'd convinced me by that point that the city wasn't safe for a woman alone after dark—so I walked the eighty blocks to Trisha's flat. She hadn't asked any questions and I hadn't offered her any answers.

* * *

His lanky torso leaned across the mahogany counter top so that he could murmur something in the barmaid's ear. She plastered a politely interested smile on her face, but her bored eyes roamed the room until they fell on me.

I can only imagine the sight she saw, but Patrick—never one for much imagination—spun on his stool to face me.

His hand immediately slapped the bar counter in delight as a toothy grin spread from ear to ear. "Darling! Come to congratulate me on my book?"

My hands released their tension as the sound of his voice rang in my ears.

Never in a thousand years did I think I would see him again, yet alone hear his voice. In fact, I'd prayed I'd never have to face him.

I instinctively startled at the screech of the stool pushed backwards as he rose to his feet and sauntered over toward me.

My rims of my vision blurred as the echo of a memory consumed my senses—there was shouting, both his and mine, and then something shattering. The vase, I remembered. The glass vase with the petals etched around the rim.

The vase had been mine, a favorite actually. The throw had been all his.

"What's the matter, pet?" He crowed quietly from above me. "Cat got your tongue?"

"I'm not your pet." I bit out, my eyes clamped shut in effort. "I-I'm not your anything, and I don't appreciate—"

"Come now, darling. Wouldn't want to make a scene, would we?"

My eyes fluttered open and quickly landed on the barmaid, unabashedly staring along with the rest of her mid-morning customers. I swallowed painfully as my eyes dropped to the floor and I shook my head, no.

Patrick stepped to the side and with a rather audacious air of gallantry, gestured toward a side door. I followed his direction and focused on all of my self-control on not jump as I felt his hand press against my lower back. Where the heat of his touch seeped through my blouse, it felt as if my skin was crawling with fire aunts. I did my best not grimace.

Don't give him the satisfaction, I instructed myself.

The side door led to a narrow alley shared by the pub and it's neighbor, which—judging by the stench of the nearby dumpsters—served fish.

As I cleared the last cement step, I turned sharply causing his hand to fall to the side. "As I was saying, I don't appreciate you taking interviews—"

"Oh so you're the only one who can speak to the press now, is it?"

"N-no, but—"

"Last time I checked," he battered on as he took two large strides in my direction. I stumbled backwards. "You were a member of the press—that is till you traded in your credentials to become some good for nothing socialite."

I ground my molars, but said nothing.

"Honestly, pet, how do you find any meaning in your life going from one pathetic charity function to the next day in and day out?"

"How I find meaning in my life—and any subject regarding my life in general for that matter—have absolutely nothing to do with you," I seethed.

Patrick narrowed his eyes before jutting his chin in my direction. "He make you do this? Make you give up your job and dress up like a little doll to parade you out and around? Not that that job of yours was taking you anywhere regardless..."

I took a deep, steadying breath before starting. "I didn't come here to discuss him or my job. I simply—"

In an instant, Patrick closed the space between us reminding me just how tall he was.

Or perhaps, how tall he wished to be perceived.

"I never would have made you give up your work. I knew how important it was to you. If you were with me, you'd never have to sacrifice a thing."

I was aware of his hang languidly reaching down to brush a lock of my hair behind my ear before trailing down the edge of my jaw. What I was not aware of was the bought of hysterical laughter boiling in my abdomen. Suddenly, it burst out of me in a near cackle.

"Are you bloody insane?"

Patrick blinked, apparently my moment of insanity startling him out of his well-trained nonchalant demeanor.

"I gave up everything for you: my flat, my friends, m-my writing—"

He scoffed and his indifferent visage fell into place once more. "You never wrote, not seriously. You were always just playing at it."

"I was not!" I balked.

"Were to! If you'd been serious, you wouldn't have given it up so easily!"

"My father died!" I bellowed, the words both aching and soothing at the same time.

Patrick waved a dismissive hand. "And a real writer would have channeled the loss into his work."

"A real writer?" I cackled once again. "Like the kind that goes on television and trash talks his ex in the hopes of garnering some publicity for his trope-filled novel?"

It was only an instant, but I still caught it. Patrick's eyes flicked behind me and for a quarter of a moment I recognized the familiar glean of mischief and desire his eyes had so often reflected during our relationship when he was gazing at other women.

"Oh I'm sorry," I quipped as I leaned into his gaze. " Is there someone else you'd rather be speaking to at the moment?"

I turned to see for myself, but as I did my face was yanked back and my neck painfully along with it. His lips—and a few of his teeth—slammed into mine.

I froze, too stunned to do anything but stand there limply in his hold. His invading tongue woke me from my stupor. With a grunt, I pushed against his chest with all my might but to no avail. I battered his chest and then, in desperation, jammed my knee into him. Unfortunately, the move was as effective as the shoving with his outer thighs sustaining the majority of the blows.

Sheer terror flooded my system as its fight or flight instincts thrashed—and flailed—against Patrick's forceful hold.

Fight or flight.

I'd already tried flight the night I walked to Trisha's...

The decision made, I unlocked my jaw in submission to his demand. His tonge surged forward and I forced myself to count.

One...

Two...

Three.

My mouth swallowed Patrick's screams, and it was his thrashing about that finally reminded me to release the flesh of his tongue from my canines.

He fell back, but then suddenly jerked his body towards me once more. "You good for nothing whore!"

My hand, already clenched in a fist, swung freely and made direct contact with his jaw. I stumbled, but surprisingly remained upright. Patrick, on the other hand, crumbled to the filth-stained cement.

I hesitated, wobbling on my feet as I clutched my already throbbing hand in the other. I realized, standing there, that he wasn't so tall after all.