I CANT ESCAPE HIM

Restraining Order

***

~SOPHIE~

***

For a second, I forget how to breathe.

It hasn’t even been up to 48 hours that sebastian cheated on me. I haven’t even gotten the opportunity to cry over the embarrassment of it all and he’s doing this?

Fucking purposing to blair? With a f*****g airplane?

I move.

Strong hands hold me back.

Chase.

I’ve almost forgot he’s here.

“What are you doing?” I grit. “Let go of me.”

“As much as i’d love to watch a cat fight, I don’t think ken doll over there is worth it.”

“And what do you know about worth? Sebastian has been my man for three years!”

Chase rolls his eyes.“And not a day went by in the psych ward where I wasn’t bombarded with your little letters about how handsome and dreamy and thoughtful he was. I don't know why you ever thought that was a good thing to send to a recovering relative.”

I’m not having it. I lunge forward again, but his grip is iron.

“Chase—“ I exhale with the effort to keep from throat punching him into next week. “Let go of me right now. You don’t have any right to control me!”

“I’m not controlling you you i***t. Do you ever sit to think that he’s just doing this to get a rise out of you? And you’re supposed to be the sane one.”

“And yet you arent.” I deadpan.

A look crosses his eyes. Hurt? I can’t tell. But his jaw tightens. He lets go.

And then, I’m moving. The suddenness of it is mind-boggling as I slam the car door, charging towards the circle.

Pushing through shrieking bodies, I drag Blair back by the ponytail and slam my knuckle straight into her plastic nose.

Gasps ring out.

“Sophie?! What the hell has gotten into you?” Sebastian yells, trying to break us apart. Blair grabs my hair, I grab her neck.

“You! You are what has gotten into me!” I yell.

“Let go of me, b***h!” Blair shrieks. Blood on her teeth.

“Shut your trap boyfriend snatcher!”

“It’s not my fault you’re miserable and nobody wants you!”

“I said shut up!” The surroundings blur. I slam Blair’s head against the asphalt, the rage of the day before coursing through my veins.

Sebastian moves to stop me, but then he’s lifted clean off the ground.

I look up, and my breath hitches.

Chase has left the car and is now in the middle of the fight, slamming his fist continuously into Sebastian’s face with a look of deranged excitement.

I look around.

The entire quad lot has broken out into chaos.

But then Dean Victoria breaks the circle, her face tight with the promise of expulsion.

“Enough! All of you, my office, now!”

~~

Chase gets a two-week suspension warning for fighting on his first day of school. I get the same, doubled for leaving school premises yesterday without notifying the dean.

“Let’s go. Jeez, he looks fine to me,” Delancy whines. Tugging my sleeve.

We’re in front of the infirmary where Sebastian and Blair are currently receiving stitches. Through the tiny glass on the door, I can see Sebastian’s heaving back.

I ignore Delancy and push my way through inside.

Thankfully, Blair is nowhere in sight. Just Sebastian, sitting on the bed, eyes closed.

He looks unrecognizable. There’s a brutal cut above his brow, a wicked gash across his forehead. One eye is swollen shut, and his left arm is in a cast.

The sight breaks my heart.

I rush forward, desperate to hold him, to apologize for Chase’s mindless brutality.

“What are you doing? I really don’t want to see your face right now.”

I stop. “It’s me, Sophie.”

He opens one good eye, and I nearly fall back at the hostility in its depths. “I know it’s you, alright. All the more reason for you to stay away from me.” He hisses, adjusting his posture. “Jesus, Sophie! I don’t even know who you are anymore. What was that? Bringing your tout boyfriend with you to beat me up?”

“I didn’t—”

“Save it. I’m filing a restraining order against you.”

“Sebastian—”

“It’s Laurent Devereaux the third to you.”

The words are a physical blow.

Never in my wildest dreams would I believe the boy I held to my chest when he fell off his horse, the boy who turned red and ran into my closet at the sight of a tarantula, would tell me to call him by his noble name.

I swallow, throat tight. “Laurent the third. We’re in an open relationship, aren’t we? We’ve been together for three years. Why propose to Blair?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?”

“No. Please, enlighten me.”

He sighs, a long-suffering sound.

“You like snakes. You have a f*****g pet spider. You watch horror movies for sport. You literally sit in the dark and dial up your dead mother’s number when you’re stressed out. Last I heard, you have a brother who’s locked in an asylum. You’re weird, Sophie. Every time we go out, you just stand there, analyzing everyone. Its boring. It’s depressing. And to top it off, your dad runs a multiple chain of strip clubs. Goodness! It’s just too much. I come from a respectable family. My parents would never accept you.”

“Blair is fun” he continues, wickedly. “She’s alive. She actually loves lacrosse. She loves pink like every normal girl, and you don’t see her oohing and aahing at every poisonous snake that slithers by. Her dad is a pastor. She’s normal. And I want a normal girl in my life.”

He stares at the floor for a beat.

“The truth is, you scare me, Sophie. Very much. And I don’t want to be with you anymore”

I just stare. Mouth opening and closing. I want to beg but only a strangled noise comes out.

The curtain to our left rips open.

Blair walks in, an ice pack pressed to her—hopefully broken nose. The sight of my handiwork sends a thrill of satisfaction through me.

Until she opens her mouth.

“You’re invited to the wedding, just in case you want to take notes on how to act like a normal person.”

I move, on the verge of committing murder, but a hand grab my shoulder and haul me out of the ward.

Chase.

I shrug out of his hold, angry like never before cursing through my veins. God i want to punch him.

“This is all your fault!” I round on him.

He lifts a dark brow.

“If you hadn’t interveined, Sabastian wouldn’t have broken up with me!”

Chase sights, leaning against the wall. “He was going to hit you sophie.”

“That’s not true. Sebastian can be anything but he doesn’t beat women. You just wanted to make everything worse for me. Well thank you asshole. Now my school life, relationship, it’s all ruined. Are you happy now? This was what you wanted wasn’t it?”

“Sophie—“

I turn to Delancy who’s studying this argument intently. “Let’s go.”

“Who is that?” She asks.

“A friend of the family. From the bad side!”

Delancy doesn’t ask more. As we walk out of the infirmary and into student accommodation.

There are students milling around with cameras, asking stupid questions like this is some twisted crime scene where I killed my husband and shoved our nine children into a blender.

“Keep your head down. Ignore them,” Delancy hisses.

I do.

I’m quiet as she pivots, and we head to her dorm instead. A good idea, because I can’t stomach entering my dorm room that i share ironically, with Blair Myers.

She slams the door. I sink onto her couch.

Delancy turns up the TV, mutes it, and lets the silence stretch.

Sebastian had said so many hurtful things. Insecurities I trusted him with.

I shake my head, anger cursing through my veins. He thinks he’ll have the last laugh? I’ll show him. I’ll make him regret dumping me for blair Myers. Maybe being the goodgirl isnt always the solution after-all.

“I’m ready,” I finally whisper after hours of silence. My voice strangled, yet strangely calm. “Put me up on NoStrings.”

Delancy’s eyes bulge.

She must see the seriousness on my face because she drops the fashion magazine, gets her laptop, and we spend the entire day creating a fake profile on Nostrings—a black app with a neon pink condom dotting the ‘i’.

By nightfall, I’m drowning my sorrows in a bowl of ice cream when my phone pings.

At first, I freeze, thinking it’s that cursed anonymous person, dad or worse, my stupid stepbrother.

But it’s a notification from Nostrings.

‘Craving to be tortured?’ It says simply.

I swipe up.

The profile that just messaged is the definition of red flag, with kinks ranging from b**m (experienced Dom), power imbalance/authority play, brat taming, collar and leash play, punishment and reward, bondage, orgasm control, knife play…

I should swipe left. Delete the app.

But something about those tight, tattooed abs on the profile with the name ‘DominantPsyco’ sends a sharp thrill straight through me.

So I text back.

‘Yes.’

His response is immediate, almost unsettling.

‘Saturday. Brimes Miller Hotel. Do not be late.’

I pocket my phone and bolt into Delancy’s bathroom, before I throw up on her rug.