I'll never remember how I got here or how I survived. There I was lying crumpled on the floor, unable to move. The bruises and abuse painstakingly obvious, I wanted to cry out but knew no one would come. I was alone, battered and abused and covered in my own blood. He had come here to kill me, exact his revenge, I had humiliated him all those years ago and now he was going to finish what he had started. However, first I should explain how I came to be here.
I suppose it all started when I was twenty. I had been naive and my first real boyfriend, Draco had been too good to be true. He had been kind, loving and gentle at first. If only I had known then what I discovered a year later. At first he was just possessive and refused to allow me to contact my friends or family, and then if I disobeyed there were the multiple beatings. It all came to blows when he discovered that I had feelings for my best friend and had sought to do something about them. That had resulted in several broken ribs and a multiple lacerations to my face. It wasn't until I ultimately went to end it all that things began to get hazy.
"You can't leave me!" He roared, "You are nothing without me."
He picked up a vase and hurled it at my head, narrowly missing and hitting the wall to my left.
"You're weak and pathetic."
This time he picked up a mug and threw it straight towards me with precision. I fell to the ground, dazed and bleeding. I desperately tried to pick myself up but he beat me to it, stood over me and shouted a tirade of insults as his foot met with my stomach.
"You"
"Stupid"
"Bitch"
He grabbed my hair and flung me into the far wall to my right. My body hit the wall with a devastating crunch. I cannot remember if he continued with his abuse or if he fled and left me to die. I remember coming round several hours later to find James, my best friend cradling me in his arms telling me to wake up and that the ambulance was on its way. It was all a blur after that, I could vaguely recall what the doctors had said about my injuries and how I spent several nights that I could actually recall in hospital recovering. I later found out I had been in there for nearly a month
I discovered afterwards that James had found gotten home to find me lying in a pool of my own blood. We had just moved in together, it was supposed to be a fresh start. Damien was never to find me; our plan to disappear had failed. James never spoke of that night after that, he did not want to relive how he had found me, convinced that I was dead until he had heard me whimper in pain. He explained to me that I'd suffered a severe concussion, a broken cheekbone, my arm had been broken in two places and I had a lot of internal damage.
Ten years on we had vowed to put in behind us, focus on a normal life. Draco had been jailed for 15 years and I could move on with my life, or so I thought.
Turns out that good behaviour meant Draco was released after 10 years and managed to track me down far too easily. I'd moved twice in that time, in a vain attempt to forget my past but still he found me. I never had a chance to block the door as no sooner was it opened he had flung it open, smashing the photograph on the wall. He was almost calm as he thundered towards me, a look of evil flashed in his eyes. He stopped however, spotting a photograph on the mantelpiece. The photograph of my wedding day, the day James and I married. I will never forget the look of pure hatred and jealousy when he picked that photo up and threw it at the wall.
I had no way of escaping, he was blocking my only exit of the front door, I tried to run for the back door but he was too quick. He pinned me down with ease and I soon realised I was in dangerous territory being in the kitchen. Instead his fist connected with my face and chest. A sickening crack as I felt my sternum break under the force, this made me gasp for breath. He continued to use the full force of his body to inflict pain until he had enough with the current location and dragged me back into the sitting room. A vase smashed over my head, and I felt blood trickle down my face and down my neck.
He did not say a throughout any of his beatings, not until the very end when he said the last words I was convinced I would ever hear.
"Did you ever think you could escape me? I control if you live or die. You lived once and tonight you die."
His steel capped boot connected with the side of my skull and I collapsed on the floor. I saw through bleary eyes his silhouette walk out of the front door as if nothing had happened, closing it behind him, sealing my fate. I knew James was not due back for several days and I knew in my heart that there would be no one to come so I prayed.
This is how I came to lie crumpled on the floor, desperate to cry out for help. I knew that tonight was going to be the day I died.
My name is Isabelle and tonight domestic violence took my life.