A short story for mature readers.

“A Filipino student overthinks taking her life back from her borderline-abusive boyfriend.”

“Put it down, put it DOWN!”
Samuel screamed, and Camilla dropped her corner of the set onto the soft, damp grass. It didn’t even make a sound, immediately sinking more than an inch into the front lawn. The look he gave her was homicidal, “I said PUT it down, not DROP it!”
“I DID put it down, fucker!”
“Look at what you did! You probably damaged it!”
“It was FREE, Sam! Why are you making such a big deal about this?” She wiped her sticky, chest-length black hair with faded pink tips away from the sweaty, exposed skin of her neck & bosom, “I just don’t GET it.”
“You don’t have to GET it. It’s not FOR you.”
“Yes, but it’s in OUR space. THAT’S what you don’t get.” She pulled a crushed, almost-empty pack of cheap cigarettes out of her jacket pocket with a lighter, and sparked up. Between her & her boyfriend, the laminate wood-paneled television sat wedged in the ground like a cheap student sculpture.
“Give me one of those.” She reluctantly handed him the pack & lighter, and he pocketed them himself in the back of his pants after he lit one, “You know I love you, but fuck.”
“At least it’s not raining anymore.”
He rasped at her.
He thought his behavior was completely justifiable. He wanted to point out all the furniture Camilla had been buying lately from strangers off social, and exactly how many of his items graced each: none. Not a single one of his possessions lined the shelves of what she so adamantly insisted were their recent acquisitions. He never expected them to – since the sum total of her things compared to his was astronomically larger – but with all her talk of “them” & “ours'”, he guessed he thought he wouldn’t have to fight so hard to bring anything he wanted into the house anymore. That’s how he thought he was justified, as Camilla understood him. And she understood him well.

She couldn’t hear him now from the front yard, but she was sure the couple who owned the house could hear him from upstairs: whimpering from behind his duct-taped mouth, slamming each corner of the bedframe against the ground over-and-over. What did he think? No, what did he really think of her? The clear, full moon beamed bright as she opened the damaged, brittle cigarette packaging: there were only three smokes left, and two were mangled from being in Samuel’s back pocket. Those could be his later.
While she smoked, she thought. She couldn’t help herself. She thought about Samuel & her. She thought about what was going to happen when she went back inside. Would she torture him a bit more? Probably not: the thrill was gone now. The tingling she felt was just an aftershock – she’d probably just untie him and put up with his hostile stoicism. She thought about class on Monday – but only for a moment. She really didn’t have to put up with Samuel anymore if she didn’t want to, did she? She felt the onus was on her this time. She took a nice, big drag, that filled her bare, goose-pimpled chest with the chemical relief she so desperately believed she needed, to help her take the next step.
She was inhaling filter. She coughed, and flicked the butt to the curb. She was prepared to light one of the broken ones too, when a light came on in the upstairs curtain wall. She was cold anyway. Of that, she could decide on.