Take Me With You

by Melyssa Winchester

  Take Me With You

  Take Me With You

  By

  Melyssa Winchester

  Copyright © 2014 Melyssa Winchester

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written consent of the Author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names; characters; places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Image Copyright: Grigoriev Ruslan @ Shutterstock

  Cover Image Design: Melyssa Winchester

  This story is dedicated to anyone who has ever been made to feel that they are less. You are not less. In fact, I’m here to tell you that you are more. So much more.

  Each and every one of us has a fire that burns inside us and they can try like hell to put out that flame, but as long as in our minds we know who we’re meant to be, they don’t stand a chance. – Andy Biersack (Black Veil Brides)

  Prologue

  Amelia

  “Char, hold her legs down. If she kicks me again, she’s not the only one I’m gonna kick the shit out of.”

  Charlotte does exactly as I say, gripping on tight to the little retards legs, while Eve makes sure she can’t move her arms in an attempt to get away. The only thing left to do now is what we brought her in here to do to begin with.

  It’s what I should have done to that deaf bitch months ago when I had her in here the same way, but never got the chance to. Well, that won’t be happening again. This little retard was gonna pay and not just for being one of them like the others, but because I never got to do it to the person that deserved it most.

  Cadence Taylor. The deaf bitch that took everything from me. Putting my stupid ex-boyfriend under a spell and changing him until there was nothing left of the guy I fell in love with.

  Yeah, that’s right. I fell in love with Dillon Murphy. Stupidest thing I ever did. He’s no better than any of the other guys here. Only wanting one thing and when they’re done getting their fill, dropping you like you’re a piece of trash. Well, I’ll show him.

  Let him live this down when he hears about it. The horror on his face will be worth it when he learns the reason I’m about to burn this bitch is because of everything he put me through.

  Sliding the pack of smokes from my pocket, I slide one out easily and just like every other time before, I flick the lighter three times, building up to what’s gonna happen next. As the flame raises higher with the final flick of my finger, I bring the cigarette to my lips, sucking in tightly as I watch the end begin to glow.

  It’s time.

  They’re all gonna pay for what they’ve done to me.

  Her cries, they’re louder now. She knows what’s about to happen, just like everyone else does when we drag them in here. Like Isabelle before her, I’m gonna make sure this stays with her long after the burn heals.

  “You all think you’re so special. Untouchable. You’re not. All you are is a pathetic waste of space that shouldn’t exist. You’re weak and disposable, just like this cigarette.”

  The cries that turned into sobs the closer I moved into her body are now screams as she fights against Charlotte and Eve, desperate to get away from me and the damage I’m about to inflict. The louder she gets, the happier it makes me because no one is gonna come save her.

  She’s not worth saving.

  None of us are.

  I should know. For fourteen years I cried out for someone to save me from the monster I lived with and it went ignored. So if I have to live with the torture and the pain, they will too.

  “Ames, you better do it now. I’m losing my hold; she’s moving too much.”

  Gripping my own hand around her arm, I push the heated end down until I can smell the pink flesh burning, a torturous garble of sound falling from her lips the minute it makes contact, causing a laugh to rise in me until it’s so loud it blocks her out entirely.

  Tightening my hold, I count down the seconds in my head, watching as the burn goes deeper into her skin, the look of fear on her face pushing me even further forward. After exactly one minute has passed, the time I always allot for the cigarette to do its job, I pull it back and motion for the other two to release her.

  It’s only when she slumps against the wall, one hand coming across to the other, her eyes locked on what we’ve done that I’m completely at peace. My racing heart, the rush I get from this moment every single time it happens, now beginning to fade and the emptiness rises back to the surface.

  It’s time to threaten her now. Another part I enjoy. It’s not enough putting the fear of god into them by physically hurting them, I’ve gotta take it even further and make sure that they don’t run and tattle like the little babies they are.

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut about this. If I hear that you went and said something, I’ll come back and next time it won’t be a little burn.”

  With Eve gripping onto the girl’s hair the way she is, it reminds me of what happened the last time we were in here like this. When we had Cadence up against the wall, preparing to do the same thing to her and how she fought like hell, even losing some of her hair in the process in order to get away.

  What just happened, it’s all Cadence’s fault.

  The girl nods her head repeatedly, my message getting through loud and clear and it makes me laugh even more. This is the way they’re supposed to react. This girl, the one I don’t even remember the name of, she’s no better than Isabelle Reagan and her reaction is the rush I’m looking for.

  “Clean yourself up and remember, we’re watching you.”

  Turning toward the door, Charlotte and Eve right on my heels, I swing it open, quickly grabbing the Out of Order sign down before making my way into the hall. Turning toward my friends, I smile and as I’m about to turn, head to class the same way as always, I hear it.

  “Ms. Evans; you need to come with me. Right now!”

  The final nail in my coffin. I’ve been caught and this time, there’s no way out.

  Chapter One

  Eric

  Seven years.

  Two thousand, five hundred and fifty five days.

  That’s how long it’s been since I sat in the doctor’s office, my mom’s hand in mine, listening as the guy droned on about exactly what it is that’s wrong with me.

  Five years.

  One thousand, seven hundred and twenty days.

  How long I’ve been seeing Dr. Thompson because of what I learned that day seven years ago. I’ve been coming to him since I was twelve and still nothing is resolved. I’m forced to come here every week because according to my mom, I need it.

  One.

  The amount of times I brought up wanting to die and that’s all it took to put me in this office talking about my day, my friends and everything else under the sun because feeling like I wanna die isn’t a normal response.

  There’s nothing about me that’s normal. My diagnosis seven years ago proves that, but with all the movies I’ve seen, kids I’ve overheard walking the halls of my high school every day, it seems to me that wanting to die is as normal a teenage response as it gets.

  Making good on wanting to die though, that’s where it’s not so normal and that’s the reason I’m still having to come here.

  Last fall when Dillon, Tim and Kayden decided to choose me to attack, that’s when everything happened. The beating they gave me in the washroom, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get past it and about a week after it happened, I raided my mom’s medicine cabinet, found the painkillers she used whe
n she pulled her back out a few months before and I took a bunch of them.

  Everything changed after that and despite my every attempt at showing the world that I’m not my diagnosis and the taunts, name calling and the bullying don’t get to me, it’s obvious that it does and it’s all because of what’s wrong with me.

  Asperger’s Syndrome.

  Affectionately called Assburger’s by the idiots I go to school with. Add to that the obvious stutter I have when I speak, especially when I’m scared or nervous and I’m a walking target. I’ve always been one.

  Asperger’s, just like Autism and even other disabilities like being deaf or blind has many different facets to it. The way it’s defined for one person, may not be the exact way it is for another one. It’s different for everyone that experiences it.

  To hear my mom tell it, it started when I was really young, but she was in denial so she didn’t take her concerns about me to the doctor until just after my tenth birthday.

  I didn’t speak when other kids my age did. I eventually said enough words so that my mom wasn’t too concerned, but not before she decided to teach me sign language in order to communicate with me.

  I didn’t socialize like other people either. I still don’t. I have two friends and one of them is only because he comes as part of a package deal. If it wasn’t for my friendship with Isabelle Reagan, I’ve got no doubt that me and Kayden Walker wouldn’t even speak to each other, no matter how much he’s changed over the last year.

  My idea of a good time is spending time locked in my room alone. Give me a game system that I can fiddle around on or a sketch book and I’m perfect. I’ve been that way since I was six, but my mom, she just thought I was antisocial, so it all went under the radar. I’ve always preferred to be on my own and no matter how many doctor’s my mom takes me to see, it’s never going to change.

  This is me. I’m a complete freak of nature, or like the guys on the football team like to call me, defective waste of space.

  That’s actually one of the tamer names. There’s also retard, the go to word for the jerks at Wexfield High. They think because I stick to myself, my mind wandering, lost in the clouds all the time, it means I’m stupid, slow or wrong. The truth is, they’re the ones that are wrong, but no matter how much I try and remember that, whenever I’m there and they’ve got me slammed up against a locker, it all falls apart.

  It’s only made worse because I’ve got a sister and there’s nothing at all wrong with her. She doesn’t have to see a psychiatrist three days a week because she wants to die, escape from the hell that her life has become. She doesn’t have to fear going to school every day. She’s got more friends in her grade three class then I’ve ever had in the last seventeen years.

  Summer is the kid that every parent wants and I’m the one that my parents got stuck with.

  It’s another belief of mine that puts me in this chair now, locked in a staring contest with a guy paid to listen to me rattle on about all of my issues. On today’s agenda; my disappointment over what happened on prom night.

  It doesn’t matter that it’s been two months since that night, it’s apparently still relevant.

  “In our last session, you spoke openly of your feelings for Cadence and you admitted that the way things turned out destroyed you. I thought we could go back to that place if you’re willing and explore what it means.”

  Here’s what it means. I stepped out of my comfort zone when my teacher’s daughter showed up in my class and fell for her while she was off falling for one of the biggest assholes on the planet. That’s it. End of story.

  “It really doesn’t matter what my feelings were or are for Cadence. She’s back at school and dating Dillon.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  Is he kidding me right now? How does he think it makes me feel? Even a girl that can’t hear wants nothing to do with me. Obviously I’m gonna feel like shit over it. What are my parents paying this guy for anyway?

  “How do you think it makes me feel, Doc? My friends, they’re all pairing off and I’m just the guy on the sidelines.”

  “Eric; the step you took in reacting at all to Cadence; it’s significant. Do you know there are many with your diagnosis that never step out the way you did? The way it appears to you, as a loss of some kind, it isn’t.”

  Easy for him to say. He’s not the one that put himself out there and got rejected.

  “What does talking about any of this solve?”

  That’s another one of my issues. I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. I say what I think more often then I should because I don’t have the filter that everyone else does. Common sense dictates that some things are better left as thoughts, but for me, that never happens. I always just let it fall out, no matter how inappropriate.

  Like right now. Challenging him this way, it’s just gonna make this entire session drag on even more and I knew that before the words even came out, but because I don’t have the stop button in my brain, out it came.

  “I thought it would be obvious to you with how long you’ve been coming to see me.”

  “Let’s pretend that it’s not. What does it solve?”

  “It’s giving you a voice, Eric.”

  That makes no sense. I’ve already got a voice. I can talk just fine. What does he think I’ve been doing for the last ten years?

  “I’ve already got one of those.”

  “I do not mean in the literal way. What I mean is, if you did not come here and open up, everything you’ve said would remain as thoughts in your head. They would fester, growing until they are impossible to ignore. We would be right back where we were last fall.”

  Gee thanks for the reminder, Doc.

  “Now tell me; how do you really feel about your friends pairing off?”

  “I hate it. It makes me wish I never had friends at all. If I was alone all the time then I wouldn’t feel the way I do now.”

  “And how do you feel now?”

  “Like a defective freak.”

  I hate admitting this, but it’s true. When I’m alone I don’t feel lonely like most people do. I’m content with the silence, not having anyone around me. My parents, they try to get me to be different, interact with them more, but it’s all so draining. I prefer the silence to the effort it takes to be something I’m just not.

  It’s even worse at school. I’m amazed I even have the friends I do because I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing when I’m around people most of the time. With Isabelle pairing off with Kayden and Cadence doing the same with Dillon, it’s like I’m on my own again, but not in the way I’m comfortable with.

  I feel the loneliness, the emptiness that comes with being on my own and I hate every second of it. It’s so heavy that it physically hurts me and I wish that things could just go back to the way they were before I even moved to this stupid town.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “You wanted me to admit that?”

  “No, Eric. I didn’t want you to admit that. You are far from defective. You admitting what you did though, it’s another step in the right direction. You are opening up and that’s what this,” he says motioning around the office. “Is all about.”

  I’m glad he can see it that way because all I can see is what a gigantic waste of time all of this is. It doesn’t matter how many times a week I come here, it’s not going to change a damn thing.

  I’m always going to be different.

  Amelia

  Well it can’t get much worse than this.

  When I turned around in the hallway two days ago, coming face to face with Daniels, I could smell another suspension coming or worse, the same punishment my ex-boyfriend Dillon got when Daniels threw him into the retard class. I definitely didn’t expect what did happen.

  After making me wait around in the office for an hour while he called my mom and god knows who else, he finally showed his hand and it was a pretty big one. Not only did my mom come barreling through the
door, her face a mask of disappointment with traces of anger mixed in, so did two police officers.

  With me turning eighteen a month before and the zero tolerance policy in effect, my punishment was going to come in the form of the law and not just the school board like every other time.

  They were going to attempt to scare me straight.

  It worked on my mom. She was definitely scared by the time she got to the police station, but it definitely didn’t work on me. What they don’t realize is that with everything I’ve been through, there’s nothing in the world that they could do that would scare me.

  What could have easily ended with me spending the night in jail, turned itself around with my mom working her magic and getting me out of there without a mark on my permanent record.

  The only thing we couldn’t escape from was the other call Daniels made. Calling Child Protective Services. It was a shitty move, but one I had to give him credit for. I might have gotten off with a slap on the wrist from the cops after my mom promised to handle me personally, but now she also had CPS to help her.

  At first, because of my age, I assumed they couldn’t get involved, but as it turns out, because I’m still under her roof and dependent on her, it means they can.

  It’s because of them that we’re here now. The first step in my so-called rehabilitation is seeing a court appointed shrink three days a week. According to the CPS worker, since no other avenue has worked in the past, they were going to do whatever it took to force it.

  Dr. Thompson.

  The man that’s gonna fix me. Make me a productive member of society and most important; the guy that’s gonna make me stop destroying the people I go to school with.

  Good luck with that.

  “Can’t you just lie and tell her that you brought me?”

  “No Amelia, I can’t do that and even if I could, I wouldn’t. You may believe that what you’re doing isn’t a big deal, but it’s a very big deal and it ends now.”