Her Savior

I've shot him.

I've killed a man.

I'm a murderer.

Her mind traveled to her dead husband, and how she had killed him.

She was only twenty-three, she had married her abusive husband right out of college.

He was a wealthy man who runs a very successful venture. He was ruthless in his business, people feared and admired him at the same time. She knows nobody would believe her if she came forward with her accusations.

The worst part was that she had been abused even before the marriage. She was in love with him, as also her husband who would confess to her after every time he ridicules and beats her up. 

These instances would happen once and maybe two times every couple of months. But her love for him vanished the day he made her lost their baby. That was the last straw. She was a broken woman, like many other women in an abusive marriage.

The dreadful day came when Benjamin came back home drunk and beat her up badly.

"Bitch! don't tell me what to do!"

She whimpered as he slaps her in the face so hard that she falls, yet he was not satisfied when he continues to kick her while she shields herself with her arms.

That was the time she decided that she have had enough.  She was struggling to walk but she was finally able to get the gun which she has been hiding for months but didn't dare to use it. The gun which she bought with a cash payment couple of days after she had lost their baby.

He was sleeping, sprawled on their marital bed. She did not hesitate when she finally pulled the trigger and put a bullet to his brain. Then moments after that she left the house and walked her wounded self until she couldn't take it anymore and fainted on the sidewalk.

That night she was was brought into a hospital. She was ushered in with a gurney carried by the EMTs, then hurriedly received by the hospital emergency staff.

She was unconscious. Her body was bruised and battered, her clothes were smeared with brownish color of dirt and blood. There were traces of tears mixed with dirt on her cheeks. She looked pale and lifeless.

Doctors and nurses were busy reviving her body. There were shouted instructions, and more procedural was done down at the emergency room before she was hauled up to a recovery room.

"Has the husband brought in for questioning?"

"God. Are you sure this is domestic abuse? She looked so young."

"You know we got these cases several times a  year, and the cops are putting them on the back burner after all their homicide cases...we should do our best with the evidence."

"These women, I don't get why they waited so long, why they stick around..."

The nurses were whispering, talking after they got back assisting the doctors at the emergency room. They were bagging and labeling all of her belongings, tagging them to her possession. Another was scribbling her status on her already thick hospital files.

She was indeed a regular at that exact hospital, she had been seen by many doctors and advised by several counselors. But all couldn't do anything further as she had denied and refused all suggestions after all of those emergency visits.  

But in the past year, she had been coming to the hospital more frequently. And one of the doctors had been checking with other surrounding hospitals. That same doctor found out that she had visited different hospitals within months, sometimes just weeks apart.