"This is all your fault!"
Adaline cowered in her chair, lowering her head to conceal her tears as Joseph yelled at her. She stared at her hands, bright red crescents appearing as she dug her nails into her palms. 'How is this my fault? How?'
"Why do you cry for everything? Do you know how selfish it is for you to cry when I'm the one that is suffering right now?" Joe shot up from his chair. Adaline reaches for his hand, trying to comfort him, only to be pushed away.
'How did we get here? How can I help him? I just want him to stop hurting. I'm sorry for crying. I won't cry if I can just make you smile.' Her thoughts rush through her mind as she looks at her boyfriend helplessly.
They were waiting for the vet to come in with news. Joseph's mom had accidentally run over his dog and he and Adaline rushed poor Asuna to the emergency clinic. It was 2 am, Adaline's parents were furious that she was out so late, but after begging, they let her go to the clinic. She'd do anything for him. They have only been together for 7 months, but she was completely in love.
"I wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for you! If you hadn't distracted me with your crying, I would have remembered to tie up Asuna before my mom came home!"
Joseph's harsh words snapped Adaline back to reality. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes, only to be met with a hate-filled stare. Her blood ran cold.
"Joseph, it wasn't my fault. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I only cried because you called me fat, but I couldn't have known that it would distract you and cause little Asuna to get hurt. Forgive me!"
"Shut up."
The silence that followed felt eternal until the vet finally came back in.
"Sir, have you come to a decision? As we discussed, unfortunately, Asuna will need to be put down. She is badly injured, would require several expensive surgeries, and if she does recover, she will never be able to use her hind legs again. I understand it is difficult, but the humane thing to do would be to let her rest in peace." The vet looked at the couple. He'd had to tell many owners bad news, and had expected crying, but he did not expect to see this. The girl...she had been begging the owner for forgiveness. 'From my understanding, she wasn't the one who hurt the dog...so why...?' The guy didn't seem to care about her at all. She kept trying to grab his hand and he kept throwing her hand away. 'Something's not right here...'
"Sir?" He tried to divert the guy's attention back to the pressing matter at hand. Joseph stared at the poor vet with anger and hatred in his eyes. "Just do it." As soon as he said the words, the first tears of the night fell out. Adaline saw this and it broke her heart. She wished she could protect him from everything right now, but she knew he hated her at the moment. All she could do was sit quietly and hold in her tears. 'I'll be strong for the both of us. I promise. Asuna, I loved you too and I'm so sorry you had to go this way. Goodbye my little buddy.'
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A month had passed since Joseph had to put Asuna down, but both he and Adaline still felt the loss. Joseph would call her in the middle of her classes to cry and blame her for her death.
"If you didn't make me lonely, I wouldn't have had to get a dog! I wouldn't have loved her! She wouldn't have died! I loved her more than I could ever love you!"
Adaline's heart died more every time she heard him say this. The weeks passed. She skipped classes to take him food, take care of him, love him. None of this mattered to Joseph. All he saw was someone that caused him to feel pain and sadness. Finally, Adaline felt their relationship had died. She desperately wanted this relationship to last. She had fought so hard to convince her parents to let her keep seeing him. They always told her he mistreated her, but it was only sometimes, when she deserved it. 'If I don't provoke him, he won't get mad.' She really wanted to believe this.
She was at his house and something didn't feel right. She felt it would be her last chance to feel close to him. Adaline tried to let herself be happy around him, kissing him, letting him do what he wanted to her. She loved him. Finally, it was too much for her and a tear slipped out. She froze and he threw her off of him, leaving her sitting at the edge of his bed, holding the blanket to cover her exposed body. She'd finally had enough.
"Do you even love me?" She asked, desperately wanted to hear a certain answer.
"No. I never have."
Those words. They were like breaking glass in her ears. The sharp pain in her chest made it hard for her to breathe. She fought back the hot tears that threatened to spill over.
"Ok." He knew what those words would do to her. He knew those words would finally break her. He succeeded. She quickly dressed and ran out of his house, stopping right outside the front door on the porch, hoping he would come out to apologize. She saw his figure approach the door....he turned off the lights. The dam broke and a flood of tears came down over her face. She cried until her eyes hurt. On her drive home, she considered just driving off the expressway. 'How easy would it be to do it?' She thought of her twin brother at home, her mom, her dad, her little pug. The thought of abandoning them hurt so much she immediately pushed the thought out of her mind. She got home and ran to her parents.
"Mija, what happened? What's wrong?" Her mom frantically looked her over for bruising or cuts. She had a feeling it had something to do with Joseph.
"Joseph said he never loved me! I broke up with him!"
The look in her dad's eyes at the moment was murderous. He looked around the room for his rifle. "Daddy, no. He's not worth it." She threw herself into her mother's arms and cried while her dad gave her a long, angry speech about how he had warned her about him. She hated Joseph so much. 'I wish I'd never met him!'