The Abused Runaway

Chapter 6

Jake POV

That girl, Sasha, she’s a little weird. Something doesn’t feel right with her, I can’t quite put my finger on it. But between that guy always causing trouble, especially around her, and how she acts about getting home, or getting rides, or really anything in general, something’s just not right. I want to figure out what it is.

Why do I care so much? I barely even know her. I do feel bad about how I reacted with her in the car though. Ugh, she’s just another girl. Then, why does she seem so different? Because she’s a dumbass! Ugh, I’m losing my mind.

I don’t usually get wrapped up with one girl, I like to play the field, so why do I care so much? Once again, I barely know her, but ever since I saw that guy grab her arm like that at the cafe, I felt the need to learn more about her and protect her. Yeah, I f**k around with girls, but I can’t stand a man that puts his hands on a woman. They are some of the lowest pieces of s**t on the list. To me, they are the dirt beneath their shoes.

Sasha POV

When I walk in the door though I see my mother in the kitchen as usual, but I don’t see my father. “Hey sweetheart” my mother greets me without looking away from what she’s cooking. “Hey, where’s dad?” I’m treading lightly, worried about the answer. “Oh he went to go see Damien. You know how he likes that boy. He said that there was something they needed to discuss, and who knows how long they’ll be, you know how those two are.” My stomach drops to the floor, “Yeah I know mom.” “So it looks like it’s just us for dinner. We’ll eat in the living room and watch some t.v.” “Sounds good. I’m going to go put my stuff in my room.” “Ok dear, don’t be too long, dinner’s almost ready.”

My dad treats Damien like a son, like he should treat me. They are pretty close to each other, and I hate it. When Damien and I first got together it was awesome that my dad got along with him so well, but not anymore. I can’t help but think about how their conversation is going and what they’re talking about. All I know is that this won’t end well for me.

I go back upstairs to eat with my mother, we sit and watch the t.v., we don’t talk much, which doesn’t surprise me. When we’re done my mother tells me to just put my plate on the table in the kitchen and she’ll wash it. I go downstairs to my room and get ready for bed. I stay awake for hours waiting for my father to get home, wondering how bad it’s going to be when he gets home. It’s around two in the morning when I hear him get home, from the way the footsteps sound, he’s drunk. I wait to hear him coming down the stairs.

It’s not unusual for him to come home drunk, especially after being out with Damien, what is unusual is that he doesn’t come downstairs. His footsteps go straight to his and my mother's room. I stay awake for another hour to make sure I won’t be woken up by him, when I don’t hear walking up there I drift off to sleep.

Once again, it’s 6 o’clock, I only got three hours of sleep last night, but I get up and do my normal morning routine anyway. As usual I stop by Roberta’s, this time I see Jake at a booth with a few of his friends, I think they're his friends anyway, but I don't think he saw me come in. I sit a few seats down from a tall man and I’m kind of hidden from Jake's eyesight. Pretty soon Jake and the other guys get up from the booth and leave.

I wait a few minutes and then get up and leave myself. One of Jake’s friends is still in the parking lot, leaning against his car, and it’s a nice car, but when he notices me he starts walking towards me. “Want a ride?”

“No thanks, I’d rather walk. Thank you though.” “Alright, No problem.” Then he leaves. That was really weird. Whatever, just ignore it and get to school. The rest of the day goes by as normal, with the smile and nod from Jake at lunch, and I start heading home. I don’t see Jake this time but his car is still here so he must be with a teacher or something.

When I get home, I greet my parents, tell my mom I’m not hungry and that I’m going to do homework and go to bed, and then I go downstairs. I’m surprised that my dad still hasn't done anything to me. I was sure that Damien told him about me talking to Jake and him giving me a ride, but maybe he didn’t. I’m not sure what to think anymore, but instead of driving myself crazy, I do homework while listening to my parents’ footsteps upstairs, and go to bed.

The next day is the same routine, no Jake at Roberta’s this time though. School’s the same as usual, Chantelle’s back but doesn’t give me much trouble, and Lisa’s still gone. I get the usual nod and smile from Jake, and then after school we start talking again. But this time, the color drains from my face. And I know Jake sees it, “are you feeling alright?” I realize I’ve been staring at my father, who is parked in the same place Damien was parked a few days ago. I could tell he’s beyond furious, and I look back at Jake. “Um, no actually, I’m not feeling very well. I need to go, my dad’s waiting for me. Goodbye.”

I leave before he says anything, and everything feels like it’s in slow motion as I’m walking to the blue SUV, towards my very angry father. I was right about his and Damien’s talk, I shouldn’t have let my guard down the little bit that I did. I’m so f*****g screwed.

“Hey dad” I say nervously, and my voice shakes as I speak. “Get in the f*****g car Sasha. Now.” I would be a fool to argue with him, especially when he’s in this state. “Is this why you broke up with Damien? For some boy who would never give you the time of day!?” “No, of course not. I barely know him.” “Then why the f**k are you talking to him, you know you’re not allowed to talk to other men Sasha!” He’s starting to raise his voice now. I notice Jake is staring and I look towards my dad. “Dad, people are staring.” “I don’t give a f**k who’s staring!” He starts the engine and flips a u-turn. “We’re going to finish this when we get home.”

That’s all he has to say. My heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest. We stay silent the rest of the drive home,and when we pull up the driveway I freeze. “Get inside the house Sasha. Now. Don’t make me tell you again, and don’t make me wait.” I slowly unbuckle my seatbelt, slide out of the car, and follow him inside.

He immediately grabs a belt and starts beating me with it so hard that I can’t hold the screams of pain this time. I use my arms and hands to block my face and head, I slide sideways against the front door to the ground, and curl my knees to my chest. Once he’s satisfied with the belt, he starts to hit me. He punches me with so much force that I fall the rest of the way to the ground.

There, he kicks me hard in the stomach and I look past him and see my mother in the kitchen, continuing to cook, not giving a damn about what he’s doing to me. While I’m trying to catch my breath from the kick, he tells me one of the worst sentences he could have. “You will get back with Damien.”

“I will not!” I shout at him. That earns me another kick. “You will! It’s an order!” “I refuse to ever go back to him!”

Kick. “You will! And you will get on your knees and beg him to take you back. And you will beg for his forgiveness. After all, my future son-in-law deserves to be happy.” I’m beyond pissed now tears start falling from my eyes. “And what about me!? What about your own daughter!?” Kick. “You were a f*****g mistake!” And with that he proceeds to punch and kick me. He does this so much that I start to go numb. I start fading in and out of consciousness when he finally stops. He lifts me up by my throat and pins me to the door, “Get the f**k up and go to your room. You’re a disgrace. Get out of my face.” Then he drops me and I fall to the ground trying to catch my breath, “Dear dinner’s ready!” I hear my mother’s chirpy voice and my father's receding footsteps.

It takes every ounce of strength I have left to drag myself to my room. I managed to get to the tub and fill it up. I immediately see the blood in the water, and even with as much pain as it causes, I manage to clean myself up. Then I just lay there and soak my body in the tub.

I already know I won’t be going to school tomorrow, so I text Lisa to let her know. After I send the text I get out of the tub, and examine myself in the mirror. My body is covered in cuts and bruises. My face is battered and bruised, and I have a pretty bad black eye on the right side of my face.

I then get changed and go to bed.

In the morning I wake up to a text from Damien. “Your dad told me the good news. Can’t wait to see you baby.” My dad told him the good news? How dare he text me at all let alone call me baby, and I can’t believe my dad told him we were getting back together. That’s not going to happen, my father and Damien need to understand that and leave me the hell alone already.

Even though I don’t want to, I reply to him. “I will never be your baby again.” A couple minutes go by and my phone dings with a message. “We’ll see about that sweetheart.”

I put my phone down and decide to get ready and go to school anyways because I definitely don’t want to be here, so I’ll just make an excuse if someone asks about my eye. It’s Thursday, that means the school week is almost over and Lisa texts me that she’ll finally be back to school today. It’s been a long two days without my best friend and I can’t wait to see her today. When I look in the mirror I see a pretty gnarly looking black eye and bruises covering my legs, torso, and arms and a couple smaller ones on my cheeks. These are going to be hard to cover up, and it’s going to be hot today so I don’t want to wear a long sleeve, plus that would probably draw attention as well.

I do the best that I can to cover up my bruises with makeup, you can barely see the bruises on my arms but my black eye is a different story…

I can’t afford the really good makeup that covers everything, so my black eye is still partially showing through my foundation. Granted it’s not looking nearly as bad as it was, but enough that questions would be asked. I need to start thinking of my cover story.

When I finish getting ready I grab a pair of sunglasses that will hide my black eye from off my dresser as I walk out of my bedroom door. I’m trying to hurry out the door so that my parents don’t see my black eye, I know they won’t let me go to school if they do. I’ll deal with the consequences later, I’m just focused on getting to Roberta’s and then to school.

I tell Roberta that I have a headache when she asks about my sunglasses and order my usual. Today I got a triple chocolate muffin with my coffee. I notice Jake sitting at a booth with some of his friends and I hope he didn’t notice me. In 1st hour I sat on the right side of him to try to hide my black eye from him since I can’t wear the sunglasses in class.

“Hey! I thought you weren’t coming today?” Lisa says with a smile. “Yeah I changed my mind” When I look to her, her smile quickly falls. “Omg Sasha, what happened to your eye!” Lisa practically shouts at me when I see her at lunch. I try to quickly shush her so she doesn’t bring more attention to me. I know a few people noticed in the halls. Some looked surprised, some looked at me with pity, some winced at it thinking about how much it must hurt, they don’t even know the full extent to it, and others, like Chantelle’s group, looked at me like I deserved it. I wonder what they’d think if they only knew. I look around the lunch room and see a few faces looking at us, but I turn back to Lisa. “Nothing, it’s no big deal. I just slipped and hit my dresser when I was changing last night.” She looks at me, I see unease and uncertainty in her eyes, “are you sure?” “Positive. Let’s just go outside.”

We start walking and as we pass Jake’s table I know he sees my eye, and he looks pissed. Why does he even care? I shake off the thought and keep walking with Lisa. We sit in our usual spot and eat our lunch, I notice that Lisa keeps looking at my eye. “It’s fine Lisa, it doesn’t even hurt.”

“I’m sorry. It looks like it does though” she looks at me with some pity. “Don’t. You know I hate being looked at like that” she snaps out of it at that. “Yes I know because you’re no weak b***h” she winks at me and I can’t help but laugh. From then on we were back to joking around and laughing with each other.

After school I tried to get out fast so I didn’t see Jake, but he ended up finding me in the halls. He stepped in front of me causing me to stop walking. “Who did that to you?” he looks angry, but why? He doesn’t even know me. “No one. I fell into my dresser while changing last night. Not that it’s any of your business.” I step around him and continue to speed walk out of the school but he starts walking with me on my right side.

“That’s bullshit and we both know it. Was it that guy? I’ll find that son of a b***h Sasha. Just give me the word.” That shocks me, “No don’t do that” I say worriedly, “it wasn’t him.” “So it was somebody though” “What? No. I told you I did it to myself. Just drop it. Why do you care anyways?”

“I just want to help you, if you need it.” He looks sincere, “Thanks, but I don’t need your help. I really have to go now.” “Can we be friends Sasha?” This also shocks me, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I think about what would happen if my father and Damien found out. Not only about what would happen to me, but to Jake as well. “Is it because of your boyfriend?” We’re almost outside now and I’m not sure who, if anyone, is going to be out there and I’d rather not take that chance. So, I stop and face him again.

“He’s not my boyfriend. Look, you seem like a nice guy, but you should really stay away from me.” And with that, I walk out of the building and start my walk home. I don't see my father or Damien outside, hopefully I don’t see either of them on the way, though I’m not sure which one would be worse.

I get home and go downstairs right away, I don’t feel like socializing with my parents, what a surprise, so I just sit at my desk and start on my homework. When my mother calls down that it’s time for dinner I tell her that I’m not hungry, then I take a shower and head to bed. I’m ready for this day to be over.

As I drift to sleep I can’t stop my mind from wandering to thoughts of dark hair and gorgeous green eyes.