My heart was beating wildly in my chest and loudly in my ear, making all the blood in my veins pump faster and I felt a little lightheaded with fear. No, no, no, this was not supposed to happen this way.

He read my letter out loud, as if to gain more of an understanding of it.

"Dear Sam,

I love you with all my heart and what we had together was wonderful, but what we have now is not love. The man I fell in love with—my first love—was kind, sweet, gentle, and caring. But he is not the man I'm with now. The man I'm with now doesn't really care about me. How many times are you going apologize about the same thing? About hitting me? And how many times do you expect me to take you back? I thought maybe if I started praying to God again like when I was a little girl, when my father used to pray with me, that we would get better and things would get better. But when I would pray the answer would always come back to me, being done again and again. I was just too stupid to accept that it was truth. I was just too blind, naïve, and in denial to see it. It's not the fact that I don't love you anymore, because I will always love you. If not for anything else, I love you and I'm forever grateful to you for giving me my beautiful son. But I have to break this bad habit of life with you. It's not right, and it's killing me to the point that I can't take it anymore. I loved you so much that I was too blind to see past all the pain you were causing me…causing our family…causing our household…causing our lives. I loved you so much I went against my first mind and the right things that I know I should have done, and put myself in this situation I'm in today. I lied to everyone for you…I gave up my friends and family and dreams…I even lied to my mother for you. But when it's all said in done, what have you really done for me? Nothing, but cause me pain, heartache, and grief. When we first fell in love, you told me you would always protect me. But now the question is…how can you protect me from yourself? I love you with my entire heart baby, but I can't live like this anymore. I can't let my baby live like this. I have to want better for myself, and better for my son. I have to change it. I have to leave.

Love, Leah"

He looked up to me with hurt and fire in his eyes. I don't think he was breathing or reacting quite yet…he was still processing. And I was frozen like I was seeing the ghost of Taha Aki.

"Sam…" I whispered, unable to say or do anything else in my fright.

"What is this about?" He asked. "I…I…I…" I stammered, unable to form complete sentences. Hell, I was unable to form complete thoughts.

"What is this about Leah? You're leaving me?" He said, and I sighed hard.

"Sam…you…you weren't supposed…supposed to come home until later…" I stuttered, unsure exactly how my voice was working.

"So you were going to leave while I was gone?"

"I'm sorry." I apologized. Why, I couldn't tell you if I wanted to.

"I thought you loved me Lee-Lee…" He said softly, and my eyes shot quickly up to his. For a second, he looked and sounded like boy I fell in love with my junior year in high school. The boy I gave my virginity to. The boy I was willing to spend the rest of my life with. The man who held me in his strong arms apologizing after hurting me, be it with his hands or his words, late at night in our bed apologizing over and over again telling me how much he loved me. Whispering how much I meant to him. Pledging how he couldn't live without me.

"I do…it's just—"

"Then why are you leaving me!" He yelled, and the sweetness and tenderness was gone.

I jumped back because his mood swing caught me by surprise, and my tears started falling freely now. I was stuttering again.

"I…I can't—"

"I can't believe this shit! I work all day, I provide for you and my son like a good man should provide for his family, and you try and leave me? You try and take my son from me? Huh? Answer me!" He screamed.

I felt my back hit the wall as he yelled; I hadn't even felt my legs moving as I cowered away from him.

"I can't live like this!"

"Live like what?" He screamed, taking a step forward. "Happy? Because that's what I thought we were Leah! I thought we were fucking happy!"

The baby started crying from all the yelling, but he wasn't even paying attention now. He started walking closer to me with every word he spoke.

"How could you do this? Just leave me a fucking note and shit! You think you're leaving? Huh? You're not going fucking anywhere! You're not taking my son fucking anywhere! You're NEVER leaving me, do you fucking understand me?"

"You don't control me Sam!" I yelled, with confidence I'd mustered from Taha Aki knows where. "I can't fucking live like this!"

He was even more pissed because I'd spoken if, if that was even possible. "Bitch, did you just raise your voice while fucking speaking to me? Did you just fucking curse at me too? Leah, have you lost your motherfucking mind? Get up!" He screamed while the wild look in his eye danced. I was scared to find out what that meant. I hadn't even felt myself slide to the ground against the wall.

I shook my head with my eyes closed, wishing me and my baby were anywhere else in the world, except here.

"I said GET UP!"

Slowly I rose to my feet, expecting the absolute worse, and that's when the absolute worse happened. As soon as I stood to my full height against the wall, he punched me directly in the nose. It was broken, I heard and felt it crack. I'm sure the neighbors heard it crack. Funny, because they never heard this before. And even if they did, they pretended that they didn't. I think everyone was truly scared of Sam.

"See what you made me do Leah?" He yelled as I fell to the ground holding my face. He kicked me in the stomach.

"Why the fuck do you do this shit? Why do you make me like this? Huh? Do you think I like being this way?"

He pulled me by my hair and slammed my head into the wall. That was the final blow, and I was unconscious.

When I woke up again, I looked at the clock. I was only out for about 20 minutes, which was amazing, considering last time I didn't wake up until the next day.

He was standing over me and squatted down so we were eye level. He spoke in a stern voice.

"Okay…I'm going to give you one chance to explain yourself."

I didn't answer right away, still trying to shake the stars from my vision, and I wasn't responding quickly enough for him.

"Speak!" He yelled, and it made me jump. Tears started falling again as I cried.

"Sam…baby…please don't do anything…I'm sorry…please—"

"Wrong answer." He said with a clenched jaw.

He slapped me, and round two started. Except this time was different. This time, it felt like more of a fight to the death. I'd never pushed him this far before, so I'd never seen him get this angry. He started stomping me in the stomach as he yelled at me.

"I mean…I know you used to try and do little sneaky shit like try and stash money away…buy little plane tickets and shit…but you never went as far as packing up my son and ACTUALLY trying to leave me…bitch are you crazy?" He screamed directly into my ear.

I was hunched over on my side now, spitting up blood.

"Sam…why…" I said through a strained voice, I could feel the blood filling my mouth and throat.

"Because you made me like this! Everything is your fucking fault Leah!" He yelled, kicking me again.

I struggled to get to my feet. "Look at me…look at what you're doing…I am you're fiancé Sam…"

"No you're not! Because if you were you wouldn't be trying to leave me…and…wait! Why am I explaining myself to you?" He asked himself before smacking me down again. "Shut the fuck up! I see I have to teach you some respect!"

He stooped down to grip my throat and brought his mouth to my ear. "And this will be a lesson you will never forget Leah, I can assure you that." He said in an icy tone.

Before he could even demonstrate the power of his words, I punched him in the jaw. I don't know where it came from, or what forced me to do it. I was just tired of this. Tired of getting beat down. He stepped back, completely stunned that I had hit him back. Suddenly, he didn't seem so big and bad anymore. I slowly got to my feet clutching my stomach, and he just watched, still in shock.

"Okay Sam," I said, before spitting out a mouth full of blood. "Here's how it's going down. One of us is not leaving this house conscious. One of us will be leaving this godforsaken shit-hole in that nice box on wheels that reads EMT with the pretty flashing lights and sirens. And when they get in that box, I'm going to tell you--they won't be living for long. And I'm going to tell you right now, I have every intention of keeping the breath in my body. It's almost as strong as the urge to take the breath out of yours." I said with venom.

He looked at me incredulously. "You won't make it to the door!" He spat before charging forward like a bull towards a red cape.

He tackled me driving his shoulder into my stomach—which, by the way, already felt like I'd had a bus driven straight into it—and knocked all the wind out of me that I had left. I kneed him and he stumbled back as I slid to the floor clutching my stomach again.

He crawled over to me and started punching my legs till I kneed him in the groin, and he fell over holding his manhood. He threw up a little, and I laughed.

I shakily stood on my feet, and spit the blood in my mouth on him.

I stood next to his head as he rocked back and forth like a turtle, holding himself and whining like a little girl.

"Okay, I can do this." I said playfully, as I licked my index finger and held it to the air as if to test the wind. I thought back to my championship game on the soccer team my senior year when I made the winning goal. I sidestepped as if to line up my kick right, and then readied myself.

I waited until the time was right, until he rolled his head back over towards my feet, and kicked him in the mouth like I was in the NFL. Secretly I'd always wanted to be, I had a great kick. But girls weren't allowed to play on the football team, so I settled for soccer. Truthfully, everyone knew I was tough enough to hold my own though. At least, back then I was.

His head flew over as blood spewed from his mouth, and I lifted my arms in celebration.

"GOAL!" I screamed in excitement.

I looked down at him and laughed.

"Samuel baby, you should clean yourself up. You're getting blood everywhere." He coughed up a little bit more as if to emphasize my point. I squatted down so he could hear me loud and clear. "I promise you. No more will you haunt my life. I'm done with you, and if I ever see or hear from you again…it'll be the worse mistake you've ever made in your life. No, strike that…the second worst mistake. The first was underestimating me."

I roughly grabbed his jaw so he could look me dead in the eyes, with his bloodshot ones.

"And if you EVER come near my son again, I'll kill you." I roughly through his face before landing a final kick to his stomach and I started limping down the hallway. I felt good, I felt free, and I was starting to feel like myself again.