Chapter 3

I walked towards the stove, my steps measured. A pot was simmering on low heat. I reached for the ladle to stir it.

"Don't touch that!"

Liam' s voice was sharp. He lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. His grip was too tight. The sudden movement made me lose my balance, and my other hand knocked against the pot. Hot liquid sloshed over the side, scalding my arm.

"Ah!" I cried out, pulling back. A red blotch was already forming on my skin.

Liam let go of me instantly. His face went pale with panic. But his panic wasn't for me.

"The soup," he muttered, looking at the small puddle on the floor.

Then he looked at his hand, the one that had grabbed me. He stared at it as if it were a foreign object.

"I hurt you," he whispered. And then he did what he always did.

He raised his hand and smashed it against the tile wall. Once. Twice. The sound of bone hitting ceramic was sickening.

"Liam, stop it," I said, my voice void of emotion. I didn't move to help him. I didn't flinch. I just watched.

This was his routine. His twisted form of apology. He would mess up, I would get hurt, and he would hurt himself more. It was a sick competition of pain, designed to make me feel guilty, to force me to comfort him, to make his self-inflicted wound the focus.

In the beginning, I used to rush to him, crying, begging him to stop. I would clean his bloody knuckles and tell him it was okay.

Now, I just felt numb. His pain didn't move me anymore. It was just another act in his endless play.

The front door opened, and our cleaning lady, Maria, walked in. She saw the scene-me holding my burned arm, Liam leaning against the wall with a bleeding hand, the spilled soup on the floor.

"Oh my God, Mr. Liam! What happened?" she rushed over to him.

Then she saw the pot on the stove. "Oh, is this the beef soup for Ms. Chloe? You told me she was coming to pick it up. You know it's her favorite."

The world went quiet.

I looked from Maria' s worried face to Liam' s stricken one. Then I walked back to the pot. I lifted the lid and looked inside.

Beef. Carrots. Potatoes. And floating on the top, tiny, chopped peanuts.

He knew. He knew I was severely allergic to peanuts. One time, years ago, a restaurant had cross-contaminated my food, and I had ended up in the emergency room, struggling to breathe. He had held my hand the entire night, swearing he would never let anything like that happen to me again. He promised to always protect me.

He had made his ex-girlfriend's favorite soup, a soup that could kill me, in our kitchen. In our home.

I looked at him. He was avoiding my eyes, staring at his bleeding hand.

"It's not what you think, Ava," he said, his voice low. "Chloe was just... she asked for it. I forgot about the peanuts. It was a mistake."

He finally looked at me, his eyes pleading.

"It's just some soup. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?"