All the Sad Little Things

Chapter 15: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Trigger Warning: Themes of Physical, Mental, and s****l Abuse and Self Harm

Past

Scott grabbed my wrist and lead me to the passenger side door of his car. I tried to slip my wrist out of his hand but his grip became tighter.

“Let me go Scott!” I raised my voice at him as he shoved me into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

“Shut the hell up!” he hissed through his teeth at me. He circled quickly around the front of the car and climbed into the drivers seat and locked the doors. I had seen Scott angry before but the look on his face this time wasn’t anger. It just looked evil. “You’re the one who wants to talk so bad, so talk!” I looked over at the door handle and the automatic lock. “Don’t even think about it unless you want to go inside and do this in front of your daddy and mommy.” Scott’s hand hovered right over my arm like a snake getting ready to strike. I turned to face him and with tears in my eyes I screamed at him.

“Why did you do it?” Scott smirked and shifted his eyes away from me. He couldn’t even look me in the eye.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What exactly did I do?” he chuckled, still not looking at me. My sadness turned to anger and before I knew it I raised my right hand and slapped Scott across the face. For a moment he looked shocked, like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. He lifted his hand to his cheek and then with his fingers felt his lips. He winced in pain and looked at his hand. There was a small amount of blood on his fingers that he had wiped from his upper lip which was bleeding. I must have caught him just right when I slapped him and cracked his lip with the ring on my finger. The shocked look in his eyes quickly turned into anger. I reached for the handle to open the door but Scott was too fast. “I said, what exactly did I do Emma?” He held both of my wrists now in his hands and squeezed as hard as he possibly could. Through my sobs I cried loudly,

“You r***d me!” I jerked my hands away to cover my eyes as I cried uncontrollably. We sat there for what felt like forever. “Why did you do it? What have I ever done to you to deserve what you did to me?” I pulled myself together just enough so I could try and say what I needed to.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re bat s**t crazy.” Scott scoffed and rolled his eyes. I became extremely annoyed with his bold faced lies.

“That’s another thing! As if it isn’t bad enough that you hit and r***d me, now you’re spreading lies that I’m mentally unstable and harming myself!” I yelled. “What happened to you?” I hung my head in disappointment of Scott and myself as I continued to cry. How did I let it get to this?

“What happened to me?” Scott fired back. “You’re the one sitting here yelling and screaming and losing your s**t. You are f*****g mental!” He said it like he actually believed it. I reached back into the very depths of my memory and tried to recall a time that I had been crazy or irrational with Scott. I know we had fought at times but nothing more than a stupid argument here and there. I couldn’t remember. What had I done for him to hate me so much? “I haven’t changed at all. I’ve always been myself and I think you hate that.” I stared at Scott blankly.

“What?” I said, sincerely confused.

“You’re jealous!” he snapped. “You’re just mad that I don’t have to kiss ass and brown nose my way through life like you do. I don’t have to change who I am for people to like or notice me.” He looked at me like he was disgusted by me. “You can’t change or control me like the rest of your perfect cookie cutter life and you f*****g hate it.” I genuinely didn’t know what had just happened. The script had been flipped. Somehow I had become the bad guy.

“Scott, you are telling people at school that I’m cutting myself for attention!” I yelled as I tried to reclaim the situation. “Kelly even heard you! Everyone at school thinks I was out for a week because I tried to hurt myself.” I looked at him and waited for an explanation.

“Then, why were you out last week and why didn’t you say anything to me?” I couldn’t believe him and the audacity he had to sit there and act like he wasn’t the reason I was absent from school.

“Because of what you did to me on prom night!” I screamed. I had enough and Scott was going to hear me speak my truth whether he wanted to or not. “You r***d me after prom and now you are acting like you didn’t do anything wrong! I missed school this past week because the mere thought of you made me sick. I had a panic attack! I had to wear a f*****g heart monitor for days because my heart is all f****d up now.”

“I didn’t f*****g do anything Emma!” Scott yelled back at me again. The car became quiet for a moment. I looked at Scott and could tell he was thinking really hard. He was panicking inside, I could tell. “We were both so drunk the night of prom, we could barely remember what happened afterwards.”

“I was not drunk!” I began to yell when he grabbed my face and hushed me.

“We were drunk and came back to your place and f****d. You were worried mommy and daddy would find out so you came up with this entire story so you wouldn’t get in trouble.” I could see what he was doing now. He was building a false narrative to cover his ass.

“None of that’s true and you know it. Now, let me go before I scream.” Scott took his hand from my face and backed away. He was scared and he knew I could tell he was desperate. “What makes you think I won’t just tell my parents the truth or go to the police?” I asked him. He really did look frightened and I almost felt sorry for him. A part of me hated him for what he had done but there was still a small place in my heart that loved the person he had been before he had changed.

“You won’t say anything because it will mess up your perfect little delusional world you live in.” Scott leaned back over towards me and got right in my face. “No one will believe you. Everyone already thinks you’re a lying little nut job who cries wolf for attention.” He was right. He had already planted that seed in everyone’s ear at school knowing full well anything I said from here on out would be questioned. Everything that had transpired in the last week would only reinforce his story. My mom, dad, and Kelly would think I was a liar and an attention seeker. Scott was right. No one would believe me now.

“You are f*****g sick.” I said as I reached for the lock again. Scott let me unlock the car this time and smiled at me smugly.

“Not as sick as you are baby.” He threw his head back and laughed at his own stupid joke.

“Don’t ever speak to me again.” I said as I pulled the handle to get out of the car. “We are finished!” I slammed the door and made my way up the driveway to my house. Scott backed down the driveway and just as he was about to speed off he rolled his window down and shouted,

“We’re done when I say we’re done.” I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t be free of him for a very long time.

I stepped inside my house and found my mom standing at the top of the steps, looking down at me.

“What on earth was going on out there? I heard someone yelling.” Mom asked as she looked at me curiously. “I saw Scott drive away.”

“We broke up.” is all I could say.