by Selina Marie
I break the eye contact, losing this little staring competition, and walk out the gate, heading to the last fucking place I want to go, home.
CHAPTER FOUR
Emilia
My feet are sore, bloody and screaming at me as I drag myself almost seven miles back to Grotleyton, and I thank God it’s pretty mild out and my body isn’t being too badly abused by the elements, considering I’m walking back home in only a baggy T-shirt.
The number of judgemental glares I’ve gotten from snooty passers-by is ridiculous, but not at all surprising. I look like I’m doing the walk of shame—homeless edition. My hair is tangled and still damp because it takes forever to dry, and my feet are shoeless.
Rounding the corner of my street, there are a few men loitering around one of the cars out front, only a few houses down from mine. Hollers and cat-calls ring out when they see me pass by and I have the urge to nut each and every one of them, but also wish I could evaporate. I recognize some of the men; they’re regulars at my kitchen table when Robert, my stepfather, hosts poker night. They never actually play poker. It’s just an excuse to get so fucked up on drugs and alcohol that they can’t see straight. It’s also an excuse for some of them to try their luck with me—which they do, relentlessly.
“Hey, Emilia,” one of them calls out, making my steps falter slightly, my fists clench tight.
“I’d fuck you real good, baby… and I’d let you keep your shoes after.” They burst out in laughter at my expense, and I have to fight everything in me to retaliate. They’re pieces of shit, all of them, but they aren’t worth it.
They want a reaction, and the best I have right now is my finger. I flip them all off behind me as I walk up the path to my front door. I just need to get away.
When I reach the door, gently pushing it open, I’m met with quiet inside of the house, and I send a silent prayer that he’s not home. Stepping inside and gently closing the door behind me, I lock it and rush upstairs to my bedroom.
I’m still cautious as I tip-toe quickly up the staircase and into my room closing my door behind me. I’m always on edge here and it’s exhausting.
Robert rarely comes into my room, not since I had my locks installed. Last night wasn’t the worst it’s been—not overall, but in terms of the near-death part, yeah.
I turn the locks on my bedroom door—there are three—and collapse onto my single bed. I am exhausted, sore, and my body is numb to feeling anything except exertion and confusion over all the events from the past eighteen hours.
All my body craves is sleep. I feel like I’ve not slept at all when in reality I was passed out for most of the night. Fatigue falls over me rapidly but not before the image of crystal clear and icy blue eyes plague my mind. The picture grows even more intense and clear when I close my eyes; it’s as if he has invaded a part of my mind and it’s reluctant to let it go.
Shaking myself out of it, I pull my headphones out of my drawer and plug them into my ears. Music is my solace for most things but especially here. I can drown it all out with the loud, heavy thuds of the bass.
I crank up Breaking Benjamin, turning up the volume until it hurts, and ironically the angry, vengeful and violent songs always calm me, my breath evens out and I can momentarily breathe again.
Minutes later, I’m still waiting for sleep to take me, my eyes sting, and my body aches all over, yet my brain still can’t switch off.
Without warning I’m back in the bathroom replaying what I remember from last night.
The water caressed my skin, the heat almost burning my skin in the best way. I watched the droplets of water trail and dance over my body as I shifted my legs slightly.
Leaning my head back and resting it against the edge I closed my eyes, dreaming of an entirely different life.
My fingers skimmed over my necklace dangling from around my neck, touching the locket which weighed the chain down a little.
I examined it, looking at it properly for the first time. It was my sister’s. I found it in her room after she’d gone missing, and I was searching for anything that might lead me and make me feel closer to her.
It isn’t her usual dainty but extravagant style of jewelery; it’s a little masculine in a way that the locket is slightly too bulky, but that’s just my opinion.
I jumped, dropping the locket, and the water swished over the side of the bath from the sudden movement of my body when Robert hammered his fists on the closed bathroom door.
“Jesus,” I said under my breath.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” I shouted loud enough for him to hear me through the door.
The banging continued and I felt something was wrong. My hairs stood on end even though I was submerged in hot water, as I worried what I could have done now.
It could literally be anything. Last time I got a black eye it was because I didn’t put his beers in the fridge, because god forbid, they aren’t the perfect temperature for when he wants to go drown his liver in alcohol, which is ninety-nine percent of each day, every day.
I wracked my brain trying to think of what I could’ve done that pissed him off so much, my heartbeat getting faster with every pound on the wood of the door separating us.
There was a loud splintering crack as the sound of splitting wood filled the small bathroom. I screamed, covering myself out of instinct knowing I was in danger and vulnerable. I only needed to see the rage in his eyes and the beer-stained shirt to know he had found the alcohol, no problem.
“I heard about your little show you put on for the boys earlier. You think you’re funny embarrassing me like that?” he slurred. Before I could answer him, his fist cracked into the mirror above my head, shards of glass falling down around me dropping into the water scraping and slicing against my skin as I tried to move further away from him.
I screamed again when he grabbed me around the throat.
“You want a man to look at you and touch you, right?” His other hand gripped around the top of my thigh, and his touch made bile rise in my throat, and his hands were too fucking close.
He was referring to the "boys", who’d spent the night before in our kitchen getting high, coming onto me, telling me I was asking for it by wearing a fucking tank top, who I told to ‘fuck off’. He didn’t care about my answer though because the psycho had already pushed my head under the water. I scratched my fingernails deep into his arms trying to get free, to get a breath.
I pierced deep into his side with my nails, knowing I had drawn blood, and he loosened his grip only slightly, giving me a split second to take a breath of air which was taunting me just above the water’s surface.
I cried at him to stop in the same breath, but I was under again, his hands tighter around my throat cutting off the little oxygen I had just desperately sucked in.
The only thing I felt now was the water burning me from the inside out, my lungs and chest in agony as the pressure on my throat and my body increased.
The pain was excruciating, but the longer I stayed down the more the pain eased and washed away. Then everything went black.
Why did I come back? Because I literally have no other place to go, or that’s what my pride tells me.
There is one other place I could go, but I don’t want to be a burden to my best friend Melody. Maybe there is a part of me so damaged, that I’ve become so dependent on and familiar with the daily abuse that I don’t know what life is without it. And somehow that’s even scarier than the man who sleeps down the hall.
Robert has never touched me intimately, and after last night I pray the unwanted attention from his "buddies" doesn’t change that. The way he grabbed my thigh, way too high up on my leg sends shudders through me, still thinking about it.Honestly, I can handle the violence—the hits I can take, and in a fucked-up way I think I crave them a little. If he ever tried anything with me sexually though, let’s just say he wouldn’t have hands, or a dick left. The knife I keep under my pillow would see to that.
The house remains quiet, a
nd I can breathe for a moment. I try to relax—the word alone is laughable; I haven’t ever been able to relax or feel safe in my own home.
Even before Alexis went missing and my mom left, Robert was still abusive, only verbally and emotionally. But when it was just him and I, it turned physical. It didn’t escape me that all of his rage and anger was only ever aimed at me, as if I had done something wrong.
He treated Alexis like a fucking princess, and I remember he would take her out to the arcade, the fair ground, and to get ice cream, and leave me at home with my mom, who ignored me the entire time.
I plug my headphones into my ears, hitting shuffle on Spotify, replacing the noise inside my head with "Triggered" by Chase Atlantic. Their voices are fucking heaven and it sends me into a mind-numbingly, blissful unconsciousness.
CHAPTER FIVE
Emilia
I wake up shivering, having fallen asleep on top of my cover, still wearing his T-shirt. I’m not sure how long I have been out for, but I can see light breaking through the gap in the cheap, thin material of the curtains.
I feel around for my phone realizing I haven’t checked it since I got back home this morning. To any normal person that would seem unusual and be considered weird, except I’m not normal and I’m not tied to my phone like most girls my age.
Social media doesn’t interest me, but I have the usual Facebook and Instagram pages to please my best friend and appear somewhat "normal" in society.
My body still aches all over, stiff from my muscles having been locked up, tight and tense. My damp hair has now dried into some kind of bird’s nest on my head, and I need a shower really bad.
I press myself between the door and the frame, then stand slightly outside of my bedroom door as I listen for any signs that Robert is home—but again, I hear nothing.
Tiptoeing through the narrow hallway toward the bathroom, I reach the door, which is now in pieces all over the floor. Great, I’m going to have to take the world’s fastest shower. Fortunately the shower isn’t in the direct path of the door, just slightly around the corner on the right, but still—there’s no fucking door.
The evidence of last night is still here. The bath half full with water, now a murky pink-brown shade, tinted from the blood that seeped out of my skin from the cuts of the glass, which still sting a little.
To be honest, I’d forgotten they were there until now, my adrenaline had taken over the pain in my body for the most part. I emptied the bath, waiting for the bloody water to drain away, unfortunately it didn’t take the memories with it.
I look up into the mirrored cabinet to see my face split into a kaleidoscope where the glass had been smashed. My eyes red and a little puffy, I imagine from lack of sleep; the blue of my irises looks even more vivid with the red that outlines them.
I think I have my mother’s eyes, though I would never know for sure because my dad has been a no-show my entire life. Mine are a shade lighter from what I remember of her eyes. She left me shortly after Lexi went missing—said she couldn’t deal with the loss of her angel. Her perfect, favorite child.
Because nothing hurts like your mother abandoning you and pretty much admitting she doesn’t love you as much as your older sister, who also left you. She left me with an abusive alcoholic who only took up the burden of looking after me—yes, I use that term very lightly—because it meant he got money as my guardian that he could flush down the toilet and waste on drugs and alcohol.
Though I still don’t understand how he has enough money to afford the house and everything—especially the Ford Mustang sitting in the driveway, which I suspect is the shiniest object in Grotleyton, and I’m shocked it hasn’t been stolen yet—because he sure as hell doesn’t pull his weight in the community and contribute to society.
It doesn’t matter though, I don’t care, I learned not to care a long time ago. I rely on myself and nobody else now. I might have had to learn the hard way, but I soon grew up from being a vulnerable, timid little girl to a strong, indestructible woman.
After emptying the shards of glass from the bottom of the bath and tossing them in the trash, I turn on the water letting it heat up, surprised we haven’t run out of hot water. Stepping into the shower under the spray, the heat warms my body and stings my cuts just a little, but the burn feels good. I am beginning to feel my self again, washing my hair and body feels good, and I feel a little more human now that my muscles have been thawed.
I grab my towel from the tiny cupboard in the corner, wrap it around my body quickly, and make my way back to my bedroom. After dressing in my own clothes and brushing my hair out I grab my phone. I have some notifications from people I know at school posting selfies of living their very normal lives at university, partying, having fun, just generally living.
I didn’t go to college. After Lexi went missing, I was so distraught, my head a mess and so full of confusion and pain, I couldn’t think straight let alone complete all of the work I needed to do to get into a good university. I take classes at the community college three days a week though, and that seems to work for me, for now.
I’m studying criminal justice believe it or not. Ever since my sister went missing and I witnessed first-hand how useless the authorities here in Grotleyton and Penderal Bay have been, it gave me the drive to study criminal law so I could eventually become a lawyer and do everything I can to provide the innocent justice and put the corrupt and cruel behind bars.
I know it’s not that simple, and in a lot of cases the people who I would be fighting for might be guilty, but I choose to wear my rose-tinted glasses when it comes to that because sometimes ignorance is bliss. Stupid, I know, but it’s where I’m at, it’s how desperate I am. I believe in justice and want it for my sister because something is off, and I can taste the bitterness on my tongue.
Checking through my messages, I see there is a message from Melody, my best friend and literal guardian angel. Though she’s a total badass, you wouldn’t know that by looking at her. Mel and I met each other when we were little and have been joined at the hip since. She’s the fucking best and pretty much my only friend, and that is totally by choice. I try to avoid people at all costs, and she gets that. Fortunately for us, she is about the only person I can tolerate and vice versa with me.
After Lexi went missing, I lost the few so-called friends I had, and when I told Melody about what had happened to my sister, she didn’t push, she didn’t show pity. She just accepted it, accepted me as this different version of myself because it had changed me, and I’ll never be that girl again.
If Melody is one thing, she is loyal down to a fault, always has been since we were kids. You would never look at us and believe we were best friends or even acquaintances solely based on the fact that I’m poor as fuck and she is rich as shit.
I skim her message; she’s going off about some girl who is being a bitch in her dance class where she attends a dance academy in the city. I quickly reply.
My fingers hit send and I notice an unopened text. There’s no name, so it must be a number I don’t have saved. I open the message.
Unknown: I want my shirt back.
Apart from the confusion swimming around in my head, all I can hear is how Damien from Mean Girls wanted his pink shirt back.
It doesn’t take me long to figure out that this is the guy from last night. It’s not like I go around stealing shirts on the regular, so the list is narrowed down to just one.
Those eyes. His eyes were ingrained into my head, and just thinking about the sharp angles of his face and the outline of his hard body makes my body tingle, my hairs to stand on end.
What the actual fuck is happening to me? I do not react to boys like this, well men. He definitely was not a boy.
I type out a message back, I am not about to play games with this asshole. I haven’t forgotten how he refused to be of any help—minus the saving my life part. He may have made my body react like some pent-up cat in heat, but I still am not an idiot that I will just give in.
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Emilia: I want answers.
Unknown: What answers do you want?
Emilia: How do you have my number?
My fingers lift to fiddle with my sister’s locket, which I do when I get a little anxious, and I won’t lie, my stomach is in the process of tying up some serious knots waiting for his reply.
Grabbing at my neck, I feel nothing but my skin—it is missing—my only piece of her I have left. My mom had packed up her entire room, literally everything, and took it with her when she left.
Where the hell is my locket? I never take it off and I almost feel guilty it took me this long to notice its absence, but I’ve kind of had an eventful twenty-four hours.
I know I was wearing it before everything with Robert happened, but I don’t remember having it since. Not since him. Since he saved me, although I’m not sure calling it "saving" is correct; he didn't act at all like some hero.
Normal people would welcome the attention and crave the thanks just to feed their ego, but not him. Apart from pointing out my lack of manners in failing to thank him and asking for his shirt back, he has been radio silent.
Something that closely resembles anger burrows under my skin. My temper can go from zero to rage in a second, and unfortunately for him, I’m fucking pissed.
I don’t wait for a response. What kind of motherfucker steals from someone after they have just saved their life?!
Emilia: Where is my necklace?! What the hell is wrong with you? I know I was wearing it before!
Unknown: Can’t say I know princess. You should probably see a doctor. Sounds like you’re confused.
I scrunch up my covers in my fists. I’m not fucking confused, in fact I am very focused on the mental image of choking him to death, and it’s crystal clear. I’m positive he has it, he has to.
