The first crack of the plastic startles me, my pulse quickening as he holds the remote control in front of me, staring unblinking into my eyes. His fingers dig into the sides of the small rectangular device, pressing it until it begins to give way, bending under the relentless force of his grip. His knuckles whiten, and the remote disintegrates in his hand. I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. He justcrushedit. Crumpled it almost as easily as if it was a piece of paper.
He’s strong, and the remote is no match for him.
It feels like this isn’t about the remote, though. It’s like he’s reminding me of how strong he is, how much more powerful he is than me.
My jaw drops, and I’m unable to hide the flicker of fear in my expression. My voice comes out distant, thin. “Why did you do that?”
He smirks, his eyes glinting with cruel satisfaction. “Because you’re a fucking bitch…and because I can.” The words land heavy, sharp-edged, accompanied by a look of twisted amusement that tells me heenjoysthis.
“Why am I a bitch this time?” I quirk a brow, glad the remote wasn’t me or my cat.
His face contorts with disgust, transforming him from a cute but angry surfer boy into something more sinister. Definitely not cute. Definitely not a surfer. Definitely not a boy. Angry, rageful, aging man. “Because you insisted on watching this fucking stupid show.”
The smirk lingers as he stands there with the broken remote in his hand, knowing he’s left me to deal with the inconvenience, the cost. The fact that I’ll have to replace something else that he chose to destroy on a whim, all because I wanted to watch something he didn’t. Just because he chose to have a mini tantrum, because he could. His tantrum has now become my problem, just the way he likes it.
I’ve never been around someone who just… breaks other people’s things all the time. And who seems to get some pure, vindictive joy over seeing something belonging to their supposed soulmate being destroyed. Of wasting the money they worked so hard to make.
And when he gets mad and destructive, he never damages his own stuff. Heloseshis own things with regularity. He’s gone through countless pairs of flip-flops and shoes and phones that he leaves behind here or there, usually while he’s drinking.
But in his fits of rage, he doesn’t seem to break his own possessions. No, it’smythings he targets. The items I’ve saved for, the things that mean something to me. Or just trivial things that still need to be replaced for day-to-day convenience—remotes, chef’s knives, chopping boards. They’re his chosen victims when he’s in a mood, like they’re tokens he can obliterate just so show he can.
It’s curious that his lack of self-control, his violent impulses that he’s unable to harness, are… quite selective.
Later,I go to text Paulo just to say hey, and I notice nearly all the contacts in my phone are missing.
“Babe? Did you do something to my phone?” I call out to him in the bathroom.
“What do you mean?” he asks, trying to act casual, but I hear a note of guilt in his voice.
“All my contacts are gone.”
“Oh, yeah. I deleted them all,” he says, nonchalantly, returning to the living room, scrolling through something on his own phone, a smirk on his face.
I furrow my brow. “Why the hell would you do that?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You hurt my feelings and I was mad at you.”
I scrunch up my face, squeezing my eyes shut. How the hell does he so casually use the same excuse over and over again to justify the most bizarre behavior? “Timmy, you can’t just go into my phone and delete things. That’s really fucked up.”
“Well, you also made me get a new phone number, so I thought it was only fair for you to have all your contacts deleted.” His gaze meets mine, a curious gleam in his eye.
I’m furious. “Timmy, how could you? I didn’t make you do anything. Getting a new phone number was completely your idea, your suggestion. I never asked you to do that. You said yourself that you wanted to break contact with bad influences—sure, I appreciate that you did it, which I’ve told you already, numerous times. But now you’ve gone into my phone and deleted information on all my friends, so I can’t just text them. That’s just…” I can’t find the words.
“Oh well, you’ll survive,” he shrugs. “Besides, you don’t need them, anyway. You have me now.”
A few hours later,I jolt awake, a scream caught in my throat. My heart is pounding, my skin damp with sweat, the terror of the nightmare still clinging to me.
Because in that dream, which felt incredibly real, it wasn’t our sleek black remote that he crushed with his rage. It was my sleekblack cat, Sabre. I see him there, his eyes wide with fear, pinned in the grip of those same cruel hands.
And in my subconscious, I can see the same cruel smirk twist his mouth, the same eyes glinting with the pleasure of hurting me, of stripping me of something I love.
And I realize it’s within him to do that to Sabre.
To me.
And I am terrified.
The thought paralyzes me. My heart races, and I lie in bed, staring into the dark, haunted by the realization.