The shrill ringtone of my phone pierced through the silence of the house. For the first time since I arrived in Pierowall, I didn't answer Vir's call. Or any of Erik's messages that had flooded my phone since yesterday afternoon. In fact, I had done nothing but lie under the sheets since I showered the night before.

'Come on, you can't stay holed up at home forever,' I scolded myself, rubbing my sore and swollen eyes. But my body refused to cooperate, gripped by an overwhelming sense of fear. A sudden knock on the door made me shudder, shrinking under the sheets with no intention of opening it. The only person I wanted to see was 555 km away, according to the calculations Erik and I had made before he left. Besides, he wouldn't be back until tomorrow, so there was no reason to let anyone else in.

As soon as the phone started ringing again, I knew it was Virginia calling. I would explain everything to her later, once she understood why I couldn't respond for a couple of days. But not today. When my phone rang for the third time, I was fed up. In a fit of frustration, I got out of bed, completely naked, and approached my phone to turn it off without even bothering to see who was calling. I didn't want to talk to anyone, I didn't want to know anything about the world until Oliver and I were separated by at least 3000 km again.

Sometime between nine-thirty and noon, my body reminded me that this strike had to have exceptions, like going to the bathroom and putting on some clothes because I was cold, as well as drinking water and eating if I didn't want Erik to come home and find me like something out of a horror story, like the seal from the children's tale I had been reading. So I got up in complete silence, closed all the curtains, grabbed some supplies, my laptop, and retreated to bed where I stayed all day under the pretext of having to work to keep myself fed and living on that island. Although the idea of ​​escaping to another, more remote and distant one was starting to be something that lingered in my mind.

I struggled to focus on the manuscript in front of me, a story about a girl seeking healing after losing her fiancé, but every sound in the house made me hold my breath, fearing to hear his voice again.

As the light began to fade, someone knocked on the front door. Anne, asking if I was there. I didn't respond, preferring her to think I wasn't home. But she wouldn't give up easily like Vir. She knocked on the door several times over a few hours until I finally got tired and got out of bed with the intention of lying to her and saying I was sick. I didn't bother to fix my appearance. Surely that way my lie would be more believable.

But when I opened the door without looking first, I came face to face with what I had been avoiding for the past 24 hours.

"Finally, I found you." he said, pushing the door, not giving me time to react. He entered the house, and I stood there like an idiot, looking outside, hoping to see the blonde, who wasn't there.

"What are you doing here, go away." I said with a fragile voice, trying not to tremble.

"I'm not in a hurry. So, this is the hole where you hide. Adorable and pathetic, just like you." he said, approaching the curtain of the dining room window, which overlooked the bay.

"Please Oliver… leave." I pleaded

"Nine months without seeing each other and this is how you receive me? Darling, I've missed you so much. Haven't you missed me?" He came closer to me, and I moved away from him, taking a few steps back. Oliver pushed the door, and I could see in his smile that malice that he had inside and that I had always tried to ignore.

"Where's your girlfriend?" he took another step back.

"Resting, we've spent all morning outside enjoying the island and hoping to bump into you but of course, you were here, hiding." he clicked his tongue.

My back hit the wall, preventing me from retreating further. I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my mouth, and the closer he got to me, the more I wanted to merge with the wall, with no success.

"What do you want?" I asked trying not to break down in tears, feeling my legs trembling as he ran the back of his hand across my face, barely touching my skin.

"You, always. Andrea, you can come back, I forgive you. Look, I know sometimes you're impulsive and capricious, but come on, darling… we can deal with this, like we have dealt with all the screw-ups you've had over the years." he tucked one of my hair strands behind my ear, and I felt myself getting smaller and smaller.

"And your girlfriend?" I asked, hoping he would forget about me.

"Oh, Lucia is just... entertainment," he shrugged. "She's good in bed, but she doesn't satisfy me like you do. She doesn't take care of me in the same way, she's just a girl who doesn't know what she wants... look, we can do something." he took me by the chin and forced me to look into his eyes. "I'll sleep with her, but every night I'll come back to be with you. That's true love," he said, leaning in and making me feel disgusted again as I felt his breath on my face.

"No," I said He tightened his grip on my chin, forcing me to look at him again against my will.

"No what?" He demanded, with obvious annoyance in his voice. "You're just a jealous and selfish bitch, Andrea. Fine, I'll break up with her and it'll be just you and me again. After all, you suck it better." He let go of me with a sigh of resignation and took a step back.

"Leave", I begged him, once again.

"Are you kicking me out?" he asked, frowning.

"Oliver, go", I repeated firmly.

I could see the vein in his neck throbbing, he was getting angry, but I'd rather he finally carried out his threats than stay by his side. He took a step closer to me, grabbed my arm, and pulled my body quite aggressively.

"We need to talk." he said, wanting me to sit with him on the sofa. Would Anne or Angus hear me if I shouted? Would they have time to come?

"Let go of me, Oliver." I pulled my arm away, and without thinking, I wanted to lock myself in the room, there I had my phone, I could call Virginia, I could…

I didn't have time to reach it before feeling Oliver grabbing me by the hair and pushing me onto the bed, making me stumble and fall against the bedside tables. I hit them and felt a stab of pain in my knee, where I had hit harder.

"Andrea, so many years learning manners just for you to forget them in a few months, you disappoint me so much. I thought you had already understood what your role was." He clicked his tongue, closing the door behind him.

Then, I understood, I understood why I was so afraid, I understood why I had gone so far. He was a monster and I hadn't been able to see it because I felt unable to escape. Hundreds of images buried in my memory hit me harder than all the times he had done it. His first shout a few days after we started dating, because a waiter smiled at me. His first push after being a few minutes late because I had been talking to Virginia and the first time that, according to him, I pushed him to the limit so much that he slapped me unintentionally.

After each storm, there were always a few days of calm, where he was the best boyfriend in the world, where there were flowers, gifts, dinners, and trips. Where the 'I love you's' and hugs distorted the fear I had so much that it became a normalized cycle in our daily life that I had forgotten about all the horrors I had gone through, as if by taking off the engagement ring and leaving that house, everything had been hidden away in some corner of my memory, and it wasn't until that moment that I had reopened Pandora's box.

"LEAVE!" I shouted trying to get up before feeling that familiar burning heat against my face.

"How dare you shout at me? Stupid ungrateful, I've come all the way to this damn island to find you and this is how you repay me." He pushed me onto the bed, disapprovingly.

I knew it wasn't going to be a quick or gentle punishment, but this time I wasn't going to give in, or apologize, or promise it wouldn't happen again. I was going to rebel even if it was the last thing I did. Oliver's weight on me made the bed sink slightly, I pushed him off my chest trying to get him off me with no success. He was bigger and heavier than me and the more I tried to push him, the more he hurt my wrists.

"Who made you into such an ungrateful whore? Who are you screwing?" he asked, as if it were my fault once again.

"Let go of me," I growled trying to use my legs to help me, with no success. His hand wrapped around my neck and squeezed, drastically reducing the amount of air able to enter my lungs.

"Apologize, repent, and after the punishment, I'll let you go back home," he said.

My hands grabbed his wrists, trying to get him to loosen the pressure on my throat. My temples started to throb and I was getting dizzy. Slowly my vision began to darken, the pressure squeezing my throat spread throughout my head. I didn't care about ending this pain, what really hurt was that his face would be the last thing I saw, and his voice the last thing I heard.