Justifying my actions and wishing I was dead

I can't pretend that I hadn't done anything wrong. I knew what I was doing.

But I couldn't stop it.

Even my boyfriend's family tried to give me an out. His stepmother pulled me aside on multiple occasions to question where bruises and marks had come from.

"I have low iron," I'd say with a laugh.

It wasn't a lie, but my lack of iron was definitely not the source of my various purple-and-yellow-patterned arms and legs.

Another evening, his withdrawals were really bad. We were invited to go out for dinner and grab drinks after. I didn't want to go out, but his dad was going to be there, so he couldn't be that bad ... right?

He wasn't going to drink, so naturally, he took advantage of every single offer extended his way. I was petrified. I had no idea what was in his system and wouldn't learn that for several years. The combination of alcohol and drugs in his system always caused him to fuel whatever internal anger he'd been harboring onto me. The bar we went to was dark, which I'm still grateful of. Whenever he was like this, he'd do that yell-singing and thrust himself into me. People were dancing and laughing and having a good time, and there he was, screaming at the top of his lungs, biting my ear and neck so hard he left marks. I would try to pivot and tuck my head into my arm, but he'd pinch or bite harder. I could hold back my tears, but I would involuntarily shake. The monster was back.

His father questioned him a few times when he noticed me, but he would always insist that I was just being dramatic. My eyes, however, would always reveal the truth.

After the fourth drink, people started to file out and I convinced him to follow suit. As we walked back to my car, which was parked beneath a bridge in Worcester, he started to get handsy. He was forceful. He'd force his hand into my pants, grabbing my panties to one side and jab his fingers inside of me so hard. As we continued to walk, I tried to draw attention up to my voice by saying sweet and silly things versus where his hands were. I was mortified. And it hurt. He wouldn't have it though.

He pulled me in, gripping the back of my head, to kiss me with teeth. A tear plunged from my right eye. I was so afraid that someone would see. I didn't want anyone to know that I was the kind of woman that would allow anyone to kiss her like this. I wiped it away as quickly as I could because I knew that tears always made things worse.

As I pulled away, I laughed, saying, "Oh, babe, don't worry, we're almost to the car," and shifted my body forward, ushering him. From behind, he grabbed both of my breasts, squeezing them hard. As I let out a yell, I tried to twist my body away from traffic and the general view of passersby. He reached into my scoop-neck top and pulled it down, revealing my right breast. Mortified doesn't begin to describe the feeling I felt.

Why would he do this? What did I do wrong now? I wish he would just really hurt me and get it over with.

I wouldn't tell my friend the specifics of these moments the next day. I couldn't. I didn't want him to think that I thought it was okay to treat me like this. But I would justify any kiss my friend wanted to give me. I let it happen. I kissed him back. I wasn't terrible. I was loved. We were intimate in a way that I had never been with anyone. We weren't people that were "cheaters." Cheaters were people that were deceptive. They were filled with lust. We never had sex, so it wasn't that bad ... at least that's what I would tell myself.

My boyfriend would hurt me, emotionally and physically, sometimes to the point where I thought I would die. I was jumpy. Another time shortly thereafter, he was in a good mood — playful even. His playful nature, looking back, still scares me. This one evening, he climbed on top of my mid-section while I was laying in bed. He had a knife. I shook and began to scream involuntarily. As he pinned my shoulders to the bed, a shriek darted out of the corner of my mouth. He just stared at my shoulders with this deadpan look. His brown eyes didn't have that glint that first attracted me to him; they were dilated. He pressed the knife's serrated edge against my shoulder blade and started to apply pressure, just enough to leave a small mark. As I began to wail, he laughed.

"Baby," he said, growing icier by the minute. "You're being dramatic. What the fuck."

I swallowed and held my breath. He leaned over to his nightstand and grabbed a lighter. I continued to hold my breath as he sparked the lighter. Tears poured from my eyes as spurts of breath were dribbling out. I tried to contort my body, but he'd apply more pressure to my shoulders. As the flame neared my hair, I let out a howl so loud it startled him. He was furious with me.

"God damn Emily," he said. "You are so fucking dramatic. God!"

I managed to get my shoulder out from underneath and moved to the other side of the bed, folded my shoulders into my knees and cried uncontrollably. I was loud. I couldn't restrain myself. I shook all over. He was so irritated with me. He chucked his lighter toward his nightstand and it bounced off the wall, knocking over his chapstick and other items before falling to the floor. He left the room shaking his head and punched a wall in the kitchen.

Shaking, I thought about my phone that was under my bed. I kept it there because he didn't like it when people would call or text me when I was home. If I could get there to call someone, maybe I could get out. But who would I call? It's so late.

I wished I was dead.

Could this ever get any worse?

Little did I know, it would. Things were about to get tremendously worse when my friend's wife found his love letters to me.