All Night

A burning room

Toni

She is so cute. She has stickers inside of it and other stuff that she cut out of magazines and glued in. She even has tiny sketches and quotes that she made up by herself... That's cool… I admire her work. It makes me smile because I used to like things like these when I was younger.

She has written a lot on the pages…

Lucille

I make sure that I look good and that my eyes aren't too swollen. I don't want to talk to him with a puffy face and red eyes. I need to look okay at least. I don't want him to know that I died once again without him.

I open the door and when I walk towards him, I see that he has my journal in his hands. He's reading it… I stop and so does my heart…

I start shaking. He is frowning... A million thoughts are running through my burning head. What is he reading? Which page? What does he know? What did he see? Why is he doing this?

“Why?” I ask, with a quiet, shaking voice and snatch it out of his hands with one move. He looks at me, eyes wide open, with a dropped jaw.

I can neither explain the way he looks at me nor how I look at him right now. I'm so angry. My blood is boiling. He had no right to do this to me.

“How could you do this to me?” I am almost yelling. I’m so disappointed... I was so happy, just because he came back but now I'm so angry and upset. I wish he would've stayed away from me for another while.

He stands up and I can already see the vein on his neck. He does not have a right to get angry. I am the one who should do that. “You don't have the right to get angry!” I say, louder than expected.

This is something personal. Something private that nobody should read, except the person who wrote it. Even if I left it on my bed, he shouldn't have just opened and read it. This journal contains all my thoughts, every detail about them and me…

“You bought me that so I could write the things in it that I couldn't talk to anybody about, remember?” I’m almost crying. I can only pray that he didn't read anything important.

I don't know if we’re close enough so I can trust him in any way and even if we would be, I still wouldn't want him to know anything about this or myself.

“Privacy!”

He's not even listening to me. He's only looking at me, with his clenched jaw and that angry glance. He's really angry. This time it’s another version of his madness. Something I haven’t seen before. I'm breathing heavily but he seems calm. Way too calm...

“Who is he?” he asks with a deep and raspy voice. My heart stops beating and I feel like I’m going to faint. I don't answer. I can’t answer. I can’t move or breathe. He can't be serious. He didn't read it. He didn't read it. He didn’t read it.

He can't. It would be too much of a coincidence, if he read exactly that page. How fast does he even read? He looks down at me and comes closer. His wide shoulders are scaring me. The whole room is spinning…

“Lucille who is he?” he asks again but this time with a deeper and raspier voice. He's getting impatient and I’m about to have a heart attack. What am I supposed to do now? I get nervous, when he approaches me like that.

I'm still disappointed and pissed that he just read my deepest thoughts and disrespected my privacy but I'm more scared… I should've never wrote it down. I should've never left it on my bed. I should've kept it to myself, in my f*****g, stupid brain.

“Lucille... I'm going to ask you one f*****g last time. Who is he?” he asks and I feel like the walls are getting closer. This room is burning and I'm in the middle of it. His voice makes me shiver and my mouth goes dry but I manage to swallow.

I'm struggling with concentrating right now. I can't even look at him. The heat in my cheeks is killing me. I feel like I'm going to pass out.

“Did anything happen while I wasn't here?

Or is it me?” he asks. almost whispering. Forget about all the fights I've seen him in. I've never seen him so angry and vulnerable at the same time... He's asking me if it's him. He's questioning himself and giving himself the fault, although he didn't even do anything. He's giving it a possibility that he's the one who made me feel like this. He doesn’t even know why he’s talking about. I can’t stand the fact that he even thinks about it He's asking me if anything happened while he wasn't here.

A lot happened. He cares. He really cares. The things he said. when he was drunk that night weren’t just empty words. He does care, otherwise he wouldn't have said these things, he wouldn't get angry now, he wouldn't ask me about several things. Maybe I can trust him... But what will happen after that?

“Lucille! You're going to tell me everything! You can't hide anything from me! f**k privacy!”

I don't feel so good..

Toni

She lets the journal fall and also herself. I grab her waist and hold her up. My heart stops. She's looking at me but her eyes are empty. I hold my breath because it feels like she's dying in my arms.

She's sweating. I wipe the sweat and the hairs out of her face. What is going on?

My blood is boiling and I could light this whole building on fire but having her like this confuses me and I want to do something...

I don't know if I should be angry because someone made her feel like this and the worst things are coming to my mind or because she didn't tell me anything about it. Obviously it's more serious than I thought and she's not okay…

“Lucille.” I gently slap her face and she blinks a few times. I help her to sit on the bed and open the windows. She needs some air. She needs to breathe. I turn around to her and see how she's slowing getting herself back together. Unfortunately I can't concentrate on how she's feeling right now.

“Get your s**t back together. You're going to talk…” I say, not caring about how rude I am, while she’s feeling so bad. It's not easy. I want to know what she has done or what someone else has done to her. She nods.

Lucille

I don't have another choice. It's out. It's over. I have to tell him everything because if I won't, he won't leave me alone or let me live and if I lie, he'll know. I have to tell him the whole truth. Everything that happened and how I feel.

He keeps standing in front of me... I look at my hands. I clean my throat and feel the cold wind coming through the windows. That helps me a lot. I take a deep breath.

“I… Lied to you. When I said that I never had a boyfriend before or that I'm a virgin.” I admit, clenching my whole body. I never wanted to throw up so much. That's why I never talked about it or thought about telling anybody.

These words are burning my tongue and it hurts. I close my eyes and try to stay calm because otherwise I will throw up or faint again. I also don't want to see how disappointed he looks. It would kill me.

I know one of the things he hates the most, are liars. He'll never trust me if it goes like this.

He stays quiet. That's not good. My hands are shaking...

“I've met him exactly ten months ago… On a party that my friend forced me to go to...” my voice is shaking even more now

“Our football team won a very important game and we were going to party with some college guys but I didn't want to. Romy told me that I would have to go because I'm the cheerleader captain, that everyone would go and that I'm a big part of it. She convinced me. although I'm not a party person/.. I was so bored at the party... That's where I met him…” all these words feel so heavy. So heavy that I can barely talk.

I was sitting on a couch, drinking soda like always, while everyone was dancing or talking...

“He just sat down next to me. I remember it so well, as if it happened yesterday... 'Feeling uncomfortable around older guys huh?' he asked, not even looking at me. I turned around to him. 'Excuse me?' I wasn't sure if he was even talking to me because I knew he was one of the older ones and he was really handsome. He must’ve been popular.” I hate admitting these things so much. I'm sure I'm going to throw up at the end of this.

“'I can see that you don't like being here.' he looked at me and his eyes got me from the first second on. My heart stopped beating and I forgot how to breathe. He had me hooked. 'Seems like it's not your thing.' he said and I pressured my lips and nodded because I didn’t want to talk. 'But not every older college guy is a douchebag who would be a jerk to a girl like you…' he said with a little smile. He's was nineteen at the time…” I continue. Tears roll down my cheeks.

That smile was so familiar to me… I liked that. He was funny. He kept talking and said stuff that made me laugh and forget about how shitty that party actually was for me at the beginning. He just made it better somehow. He was one of the cool guys. Like those in the movies…

“We talked a lot, although I was really shy. It was weird how his attention made me relax and feel comfortable between all these people. I never really let anybody get me but he managed to break the ice too fast…” my voice cracks... I feel disgusting.

“We talked until Romy got drunk and I had to take her back home with me because her parents would’ve killed her, if they would've found out that she drank.” I continue.

“I had to leave. He wanted my number but I didn't give it to him. I just disappeared but the next day I saw him on our football field, with his team…” I remember how scared I was. I thought he was there because of me. For a second I thought he brought his whole team to find me or that he was stalking me but then I realized that it was just for practice... I mean I didn't know him. We talked but he could’ve been a creep or a stalker. Thankfully he wasn't there for me. They were just using our field. When he saw me he winked at me..

“He came up to me when I was alone and made my head spin with that smile. 'Guess fortune wants me to find you, so you can give me your number and we can hang out.” he leaned in… I didn't really think anything of boys like him. 'What do you want from me? Is this a dare or something?' I asked, not being able to hide my smile. I feel so stupid when I think about it now. 'Never. I would love to hang out with a high school girl that's not as childish as the others..' he said, looking at me in that way that I hate...”

I hate myself so much for believing his stupid eyes. I thought he'd actually like me.

“I rolled my eyes and left but three days later, I saw him in the library.” he was wearing fake glasses that made him really attractive and had a pencil squeezed behind his ear. He was reading a book. That made me mad. It scared me. The thought of him following me made me crazy

“I rushed towards him and ripped the book out of his hand. 'Are you a stalker or something? Honestly this is scary.' I was really angry. 'Excuse me? I'm just trying to enjoy some lecture and learn-…' he didn't continue his sentence. Instead he gave up and took his fake glasses off… 'Okay, to be honest, I've been coming here everyday for the past three days now, with the hope of seeing you.' he sounded totally annoyed.” that scared me even more but it also impressed me.

“'I thought clever girls like you are spending most of their time here so I kept waiting.' I was shocked. But impressed… 'You Just won't give up.' I said, knowing he wouldn't. Nobody ever acted like this for me. He shook his head and shrugged. 'Not until you let me at least show you that I can't let go of a rare girl like you…’”

I hate his words. I hate repeating them. I hate everything… 'It would be a shame, to let go of you…'

“I blushed and gave him a chance. I gave him my number and he was so happy about that. He was so cute. Nobody ever did something like this for me… It made me feel special.” it’s not a lie... Everybody always just asked me out and acted cool, while he was actually trying. I couldn't resist him for too long. He was the football captain of his team on his college. He was really handsome and older than me. He was cute and funny and he liked me. In my eyes he was perfect…