"If she were mine…that smile on her face would not be a fake one" he thought, sipping his whisky in the dead of the night, watching her next to her husband. Joe couldn't help but notice how far away they seemed, despite standing next to each other in the balcony. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her fair skin had red patches from his blows. Her beautiful eyes nested in hollow dark sockets. There were fading brown bruises on her hands. "If she were mine…I would never have enough of kissing her cheeks, looking into her eyes and holding her hands."

The husband carried two cups of drinks with him, coffee perhaps. "Didn't he know by now that she likes tea more?" With a wounded hand, she slowly took one from him, moving it to her lips. She hid the withering pain that came with the hot drink brushing against her bruised lips. “If she were mine…I would never stop kissing her lips” Joe sighed.

"I'm sorry" Joe heard the husband apologise.

"It's ok" she said meekly, but Joe could hear her screaming within, that it was not ok. It was just not ok!

"Do you still love me?" the husband asked, holding her by her waist, ignoring the shiver it sent down her spine.

"I do!" she said, unable to look into his eyes.

"Prove it to me then" he said, loosening his grip.

"How?" she asked, dreading his next order. Joe couldn't help but wonder why she put up with him.

"Scream it out from here" he said.

"Now?" she asked, baffled.

"Yes! Now!" Is there a problem? his eyes accrued with rage.

"How can someone be so rude to a wonderful woman like her? If she were mine…I would be the one screaming out to the world how much I loved her, and how lucky I am to have her" Joe thought, pitying her. He clutched his glass of whiskey harder, anymore and it would break in his hands, but Joe didn't care. The broken glass could not incite more pain than he did on her every day.

"No problem..." she mumbled, walking towards the edge of the balcony, leaving her cup behind. Standing at the edge of the railing, she turned her head to the sky. The cold midnight breeze brushed against her tears that fell off her cheeks. Humiliated, yet silent, she prepared to scream out a blatant lie to the winds, that she loved him. Joe wanted to walk away, unable to see him putting her through more humiliation, but he could never have enough of seeing her pretty face.

"If she were mine…her eyes would gleam with joy, not tears. The hair that he pulled, I'd put daisies in them. I'd kiss all the pain away from the cheeks that he so ruthlessly slapped.”

A sudden loud shriek pulled Joe back into the moment!

"Scared you, didn't I" the husband laughed after almost pushing her off the balcony.

Sweating profusely in fear, having come face to face with death, for the first time in two years, Joe saw a storm in her eyes! With burning rage that out shadowed the husband's, her hands shivered again, this time of anger. She mustered all the strength she had buried inside for years and looked straight into his sadist eyes. "Thud!" came a deafening voice as she slapped him right across the face. She looked like an epitome of raging fire with years of pain having been finally eased. "How dare you…" he screamed, ready to hit her, but before he could, she raised her bruised hand again and slapped him harder.

"Enough!" she screamed her lungs out! "Enough! Touch me one more time you sloth and I will murder you right here, right now!" she screamed looking straight into his eyes. It was the first time she looked into his eyes fearlessly.

A sudden silence enthralled as the husband and wife both stood in shock. Had she known before how strong she truly was, the disastrous marriage would have ended long ago. Storming her way into the house, she packed her bags and drove away before he could make sense of what happened.

"If she were mine…again…I would treat her like the princess she is" Joe wiped away a tear, remembering the night he and his wife had both come into their senses. He knew he didn't deserve a second chance. He had been a monster who took her silence way too much for granted, but no amount of guilt or realisation could bring her back to him again. All that accompanied him every night at the balcony now, were a drink to forget the guilt, haunting loneliness and dreams of how life would have been "If she were mine…again..."