I dream of punching him in the face. My fingers will tighten around my keys and the metal will smash into his cheek bones. Blood will escape in a hot line just above his stubble. I'll scar his face. He'll never forget me.

"I'll never forget you. There will always be a part of me that loves you."

I spit on the ground, vomiting the word back at him. Ladders of bile in my stomach. Go to hell and take your love with you. I want you dead. I want to see you bleed.

He nods. "Hit me." He fakes at nonchalance. He always gives me what I want. He will give me his pain if I ask.

I want to hit him. It is not enough that we have lied. It is not enough we are fat with guilt. It is not enough that we have dirtied our souls. We must also bloody our fists.

"I was good to you. I gave you what you needed."

I am here and I am not here. I am flexed back muscles and extended claws and sharpened teeth. I am wild. I am the glint of sun reflecting off the fence. I am the wind moving the leaves. I am made of unfinished sentences. I am somewhere else.

He hears me. He will never hear me. He will leave me alone. He will never leave me alone.

I am in my house. He is driving away from my backyard. I can feel myself expanding, bloating, growing larger than this room. I am somewhere else.

He is burning me. I pick the skin off my legs and dig my nails into my face. My lips are chapped. My thighs are red. I gasp each time a hand pulls at the hair closest to my scalp. I realize the hand is mine.

I can tell I am alive because the skin grows back. The red calms down. There's never a shortage of strands between my fingers.

Human cells die and duplicate constantly. They regenerate with such frequency that after approximately seven years a human is completely replaced with new cells. Think about that. Every seven years there is a new person.

How lovely. One day there will be a me that he has never touched.