There it is. The noise. The noise I dread every day. A car motor shutting down, right outside my front door.

With a deep sigh, I put the remaining dishes into their respective kitchen cupboards. The last cereal bowl refuses to get in line and seems determined to stand out from the crowd. With shaking hands, I prod and push it, just as I hear the front door key turning in the lock.

"You could have had the locks changed!" I admonish myself silently, while I am looking at the recently healed scar on my arm. "Or better yet, you could have packed your stuff and run away, you idiot!" The scar is the result of a run-in with the dining room table. What can I say? I'm clumsy like that. Especially when I'm being hurled through the air by an enraged monster.

Try as I might, I can't stop these thoughts from flooding my brain. Now I can feel water welling in my eyes. Fantastic. Great timing.

"Honey, I'm home!" The monster's sweet syrupy voice feels like sandpaper in my ears.

I hold onto the kitchen worktop tightly, refusing to turn around before I've managed to get my eyes under control, knowing I'll pay for this transgression later either way. "Hi, baby, dinner is on the table. I just put it there. It's still piping hot." My own voice wobbles slightly, but I hope that I've put enough cheer into it to fool the monster. Well, hope lives on eternally! But sometimes eternity is rather short-lived.

The monster has come up behind me. "Turn around!" His voice drips suspicion and anger.

I turn instantly. Well, my brain turns; my body freezes. An internal battle ensues that will never find a winner or a loser because a large hand grabs my right arm and yanks me around roughly.

"What kind of a welcome is that?" I focus on his voice, trying to draw comfort from its familiar timbre, while blocking out the agony his fists provide.

Five years! Five years of bruised flesh, fractured limbs and eternal terror. Five years of isolation, self-hatred and hopelessness.

None of my former friends are still in my life. Of course, they aren't! They tried to help, at the beginning. But they could never understand why I wouldn't leave him. And I can't blame them. I used to be outgoing, self-assured, fun to be with. How did he manage to destroy me so completely in such a short time? I have no answer to that question. I just know that I've been going round and round in circles for five years. Time to change direction.

He is choking me now, his meaty fists digging hard into my throat. My vision blurs, but strangely the fog in my brain clears for the first time in five years. My fingers close around the bread knife lying behind me on the kitchen worktop.

No, this is not the road I wanted to go down. Ever. But there are only two paths left for me now, the path of least resistance straight into a little wooden box, or the bloody path to change.

I swing the knife and plunge it into his heart.