"Fucking whore!"

Shock widened my eyes. I barely had time to flinch as Zach's hand whipped across my face, imprinting his power into my skin in a slap so unexpected, I failed to scream as I fell in a miserable heap on the ground of the back ally.

Pain exploded through my face as my nose scraped against the pavement, producing unintended tears to burn my eyes as every muscle in my body seized up in blinding, white hot pain. Gravel embedded in between the parts of my cheek where skin had been ripped to shreds seconds prior.

As I lifted myself up from the unforgiving ground, my hands shaking terribly as I did so, a spot of blood dripped from my wounds to join the dirt and grime on the asphalt. Of all emotions known to the human brain, none of them could describe what I was feeling as I watched my own crimson blood fall and splash across the ground.

An unintended yelp sputtered past my lips as I felt his hand wrap around my upper arm and I was yanked upwards like I was nothing more than a rag doll.

The face of the one I had loved- still loved- for over a year now came into my hazed vision.

"Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again! You fucking got that, Leah?" Zach screamed in my face, spit spewing from his mouth and hitting my fresh cuts.

"Yes!" I cried out, desperate for this moment to end.

I continued to stare up into the raging eyes that I had fallen so madly in love with as he looked down on me with nothing but hatred and disgust. In the silence of our locked gazes, I begged him to tell me why he was doing this, what had changed, how it had come to this. Though mostly, I pleaded with him to let me go. My lips remained shut but my eyes begged him as obvious desperation rolled down my cheeks in pathetic drops. Please let me go. Please...

Just let me go.

And then he did. Without another word he tossed me back down onto the ground, my hands scrambling to catch my fall as he did.

I watched him walk away , half petrified that he would come back and half hoping he would turn around and apologize. He did neither. Zach walked until he reached the back ally entrance into the restaurant where we were celebrating my high school graduation. Without even a glance spared my way, he yanked the door open and disappeared inside.

That was the first time Zachary Holloway ever hit me.

Zach and I had been dating just over a year at that point and we were out with our friends and families celebrating our graduation from high school.

Not Zach's graduation since he was two years older than me and was already in his sophomore year of college when we met, making our relationship somewhat forbidden and all the more enticing.

I'd never forget the first time I met Zach and how in an instant, I felt that pang of emotions swarm in my chest that told me he would be someone important in my life. I wasn't sure how I knew- I just knew.

I lived in a reasonably small town in Georgia named Senoia. It was the sort of town where most families knew one another, kids still played in their yards with their neighbors, and everything from the smell of the breeze on a cool fall night to the dark blanket of night illuminated with thousands of stars above was peaceful.

Nothing bad ever happened in our tiny town. So, when I had a chance meeting at the local movie theater one Friday night with the most handsome man I'd ever seen in person, I never considered anything less than wonderful would come from this perfect stranger.

It's curious how painfully wrong someone's first impressions can be.

Just before Zach took me out of the back of the restaurant on that day, I had been chatting with our server, who was a charming guy who was trying out his flirting skills on me while I was ordering dessert. It was perfectly harmless and I was so giddy from just graduating that I didn't think to shut down his advances. I wouldn't even go as far as to say I flirted back but in Zach's eyes, I had disrespected him and our entire relationship in front of our friends and my father.

He was embarrassed and snapped to put it lightly.

Afterwards he apologized profusely, begged me to tell everyone I had fallen and promised me he would never do it again.

Taking in the facts that I had just graduated and Zach and I had just leased an apartment together, planning on living with each other while I stayed in town for a year until he finished college, I wasn't ready to admit defeat just yet.

I told him yes. I told him I accepted his apology and knew that it was just a onetime thing.

Surprise, surprise... it wasn't just a onetime thing.

He had gotten smarter about where he would hit me though since conjuring up a story of how I slipped in the bathroom and managed to hit the sink on the way down and scrap my face on the bathroom's flooring was certainly only a one time occurrence.

He became strategic about the times he would hit me too. For instance, if he knew I had something coming up where I would have to wear a dress, he would stay away from the arms and legs. My stomach was his most frequented beating ground. That was the easiest place for me to cover up the bruises and he knew that.

That's why, as I got ready for my audition later in the day, I was glad that I had mentioned it to Zach or else I might be wearing the sickly green, long sleeved frock in the back of my closet to the audition today.

Casting directors tend to frown upon bruise covered actresses at their auditions.

I ran my fingers through my freshly curled hair still warm from the curling iron and sighed at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

I'd come to loathe looking at myself in the mirror. Not because I wasn't pleased with the way I looked. No, I knew I was relatively pretty, with the curves in all the right places and naturally wavy hair that girls in high school used to envy.

It was my eyes that I hated.

They were dull. Lifeless. Nothing compared to what they used to be. They used to shine with such joy and my smile... I was once told that my smile could compare to no others in the way it could light up a room.

I didn't smile anymore either.

Zach had taken all of that away from me, piece by piece he chipped away at the outgoing, care free, feisty girl I used to be until all that was left was a perfect shell of who he wanted. His perfect girlfriend, who talked when talked to, laughed when prompted, and kept her mouth shut.

Most would say I'm an idiot for staying with him as long as I have. In the earlier days when the cruel remarks and occasional slap were no longer just occasional, I thought about leaving. I really did. Yet, behind every dysfunctional relationship, there's one common factor that comes into play that makes it worth it.

Love.

I loved him and he needed me and I needed him. Without him, I would never find anyone else. No one else would ever want me because I'm 'damaged goods' as he puts it.

And he was right.

"Someone's looking beautiful today."

I heard Zach's voice before I saw him and my body tensed preemptively for his touch as it always did since the beatings became more of a regular punishment.

Soft fingers caressed over the exposed skin on my shoulder and a handsome face appeared next to mine in the mirror.

My eyes jumped over to his sapphire ones, taking in his full gray suited attire. His light brown hair was slicked back for work, but still styled in a way that made him look professional and sexy. Zach's lips were quirked up into an arrogant yet loving smile that only he could quite pull off.

"You're so tense, baby," Zach said in a low voice as he brought his body up against mine, pushing the strap of my fitted, dark blue audition dress to the side and off my shoulder.

"And you're wearing that dress I like." His fingers pulled my hair around to my back so he could plant a few kisses on the side of my neck. My skin prickled in panic and a swirling fear slowly crept into my mind as his lips continued to work over my skin, grazing across the back of my neck, trying to elicit a reaction from me.

It did nothing for me though. But of course, I had to pretend like it did.

"Zach." I forced a giggle as I maneuvered myself away from him. "I have to finish getting ready or I'll be late."

"Fine," he grumbled and he moved away. My body relaxed on its own accord as he walked farther and farther out of the bathroom and into our adjoining bedroom.

"What is it that you're auditioning for this time?" he called from the bedroom.

"A play called Closer," I answered back as I put the finishing touches on my lipstick.

"Sounds riveting."

I chose to ignore Zach's sarcastic remark as I smoothed my hands over my fitted blue dress that clung to my curves elegantly and stopped at my knees, showing off my figure just enough but not enough to be considered indecent; which is precisely why I chose it for this audition.

The role I was pining for and had been dreaming about since I saw the casting notice was that of Alice who just so happened to be a nightclub dancer at one point n the play.

A jolt of surprise shot through my body as Zach popped his head back into the bathroom, his stunning, sapphire eyes finding dull, brown ones in the mirror.

"I'm leaving you money on the Kitchen table so you can go out after your thing and get some groceries. Remember, home by seven. Don't be late."

With that threat floating through the air, he left the room, leaving me to release the breath of air I always seemed to be holding when he was in arms reach.

I knew our relationship was odd compared to most but it worked for us.

He informed me time and time again of how he could have any girl he wanted. And I knew it was true. I witnessed firsthand how woman looked at him as we walked down the street. He was an attractive man and everyone could see it. I knew how lucky I was to have him even in spite of how he treated me sometimes.

It was better than being alone.

With that final thought, I gave myself one last little pep talk in the mirror and headed out of the bathroom. I grabbed my purse, headshot and resume and was out of the door in less than a minute.

Heading to the audition, I presumed it would go as normally as any other audition I had ever been on.

Little did I know what fate had in store for waiting for me at my audition.