<span style="color: #FF80FF"> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><div style="text-align: center;">Lea Stevens</div></span></span> </span><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn24/SociallyToxicBeauty/036e0d3a-b28c-47ec-b858-0eaea6c67e4d.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #FF80FF"><div style="text-align: center;">"Jazz"</div></span></span></span><br/><br/><span style="color: #FF80FF">"That's sounds like the same old shit husbands say to their wives in the hospital. You really expect me to be okay with that sort of answer? Promise that you'll try not to hit me? That I just make you so furious sometimes that you have no choice but to hit me?!"</span>Lea was furious at that answer and her eyes were full of angry tears, her cheeks red. Not only was she upset at Carlos' answer, but she was hurt by it, too. She was shocked by his answer, as those were the words men always gave to their wives when Carlos and she would ask her for the fifth time that month if she would like to press charges. She'd be damned if she was that woman, it was a full promise or it was no promise.<br/><br/>Perhaps it was semantics to most people, but for Lea it meant everything. She stood furiously and headed for her room, slamming the door behind her. She went for her bed, kicking her shoes off at the foot of it as she dove under the covers and put the pillow over her head. Angry tears ran down her face while she clutched the blankets tightly to her chest, curling herself into a ball. She hated how she was feeling both physically and emotionally, and she (for the moment) hated Carlos for coming in and shaking her life up so much. She hated him for giving her hope and then snatching it away over and over. She hated him for making her face her past and simultaneously forcing his ideas of a future onto her.<br/><br/>But those ideas had given her some hope that she really did have a future outside of this misery. She couldn't compromise on this argument, though. If she did, he would always think her weak--he would always push his demands on her and smack her around when he did not like her words or attitude. He would push her around for thinking for herself. He would never intend to, but that's how it always started. Most people were wrong about how the timeline for abuse worked, or that the abuser had always been an abuser--they should have seen the signs...<br/><br/>No, Carlos would never want to hit her but if it proves to make her give into what he wanted, he would subconsciously do it more often. She wasn't willing to let that happen to her. Maybe she was being overly sensitive or paranoid, but it was what it was for her at the moment.