I AM A WHORE water is wet, film at ten
---
Nathan slammed the door, fuming. The two of them had fought before, but... never like this.
"Don't you dare talk to anyone like that!" her lover had shouted. "Get out of my house."
The threat in her eyes had been so clear that Nathan hadn't even stopped to grab her things as she left -- sure, she liked arguments, just not when Max was this angry. Things got broken when Max was like this.
She leaned against the side of the house, willing herself to calm down... and then slammed her hand against the siding and swore loudly. Fuck. Max had Nathan's keys.
"I don't need her," Nathan told herself. "This happens all the time. We fight, I leave... but I always come back. We'll make up again, someday."
Do you want to make up with her? a voice in her head said. She's so rough with you. You should find someone better.
"I know I should!" Nathan hugged herself tightly. "But it's not the same with someone else."
That's how it should be. Max is awful to you. You should have left before now. She's controlling and abusive. You don't get along well.
"Maybe that's true." Nathan sighed. "But I love her. I shouldn't, but I do."
She'd tired of explaining the bruises to her friends, saying she'd walked into doors, slammed her hand in a drawer, whatever -- she was tired of covering up the pain with a content smile, of pretending things between Max and her were OK.
Sometimes they were OK, though... sometimes they got along fine, and sometimes Nathan remembered why she'd started dating Max in the first place.
But more and more lately all there was between them was discomfort, angst, and hatred.
Nathan sighed again, wiped tears away from her eyes, hugged herself tightly. "OK, Voice," she admitted. "This time... I'm leaving for good."
There were safe places for her, after all -- friends who would let her sleep on their couches while she got her life back in order. She'd find a way. She always did -- wasn't that what made her Nathan?
...could she be Nathan without her Max, though?
Maybe, said the voice. Maybe not.
"Let's see."
She glanced back at the lights of the house she'd grown to know so well -- one last time to memorize the way it looked against the night -- then turned and walked away.