Chapter 126 Caged Birds

• The sound of my own retching echoes off the bathroom walls, familiar now after a week of these forced dinners. My fingers grip the cool porcelain as I empty my stomach of everything I managed to swallow under Efrem’s watchful eye. When the heaving finally stops, I reach over to flush and rest my forehead against the toilet’s edge, trying to remember how to breathe.
• Seven nights.
• Seven dinners filled with silence, watching him as he watches me while I perform perfect submission as rage I’m too exhausted to properly feel continues to build.