The Fat Girls Club

Chapter 8

“What are you doing here?” I ask breathlessly.

“I’m here to see you, babygirl,” he smiles that same chilling smile that makes me want to gag. I look around frantically and still no one has noticed this almost grown man with his hands on me. He notices my panic and with that his grip on me tightens. “Don’t worry I’ll take care of you.”

“Get your hands off me!” I scream when I feel him trying to pull me closer to his body, but my voice is barely audible over the music.

“Keep it down,” he orders through clenched teeth.

“I said, get your hands off of me!” I blindly stomp my foot down as hard as I can, making sure to aim with my heel and I know I’m successful when I hear him yelp and promptly let go of me to cradle his foot. I mentally thank my mom for forcing me to watch a bunch of self-defense YouTube videos when I hit puberty.

“You little-” I don’t hear the rest of his string of curses before I disappear into the crowd. I need to find Zenaida and get her out of here.

I’m pushing through sweaty bodies and shoving into people, their drinks spilling everywhere but I don’t have time to stop and apologize. I find my way back out the front door and immediately pull out my phone. I call Zenaida at least ten times because I decide that this is pointless, there’s no way she could hear her phone with how loud it is in there. I consider calling the police, but I am almost 100% sure that almost no one in that party is above the legal drinking age.

I pace back and forth, not really sure what to do and the action actually makes me feel a bit dizzy, so I sit down in the damp grass for a second, trying to collect my thoughts. The house is too big for me to look for her by myself, I can barely see over most of the people’s heads. A lightbulb goes off in my head when I think of who to call. She picks up on the second ring.

“I need your help finding Zen, I think she might be in trouble,” I speak quickly and loudly into my phone speaker, the music on the other end hurting my ears.

“I think I saw her a few minutes ago by the pool table,” Paisley’s voice shouts over my speaker and I am so thankful for her no questions asked attitude, “I’ll go check on her!”

“Thank you!” I say and the phone clicks off a second later. A small weight has been lifted off my shoulder knowing that if anyone, Paisley would be the most suited to protect her, to protect anyone really. Now I just need to go find them so we can get out of here.

I try to get up, but my feet fail me, and the dizzy spell hits me again. That’s never happened before. I take a few deep breaths trying to convince my own body to cooperate and I’m on my fifth deep breath when someone yanks me up by my wrist.

“Where have you been? We’re leaving,” Kallum states and my fuzzy mind can’t seem to comprehend what’s happening, I’m going home with Kallum? Against my better judgement, a fuzzy feeling gnaws at my insides, making me forget about the disgust that was there moments ago from Landon.

“Did you hear what I said, Landon’s here.” He shakes me by the shoulders a bit, crouching to look at me at eye level. He’s got beautiful eyes, as full of rage as they are. If anything they look more vibrant, more alive than his apparently usual cold stare.

“I know,” I hiccup, still feeling wobbly on my feet.

“What do you mean you know?” He asks, his voice chillingly low.

“He… Uh,” I stutter, unable to meet his intimidating gaze even though I know it’s not intended for me.

“Did he do anything to you? Did he touch you? I’m going to kill him,” He doesn’t wait for my confirmation before he’s stalking in the direction he just came from and back into the house, I’m sure the answer is written clear as day on my face.

My feet start moving faster when I hear a familiar voice scream and when I get to the scene, people have formed a small circle around the commotion. I shove through the last few onlookers to see Zenaida on the ground with glass from what looks to be a shattered coffee table all around her. Her sweater has splatters of red on it and I’m praying that it’s the punch rather than blood.

I’m reaching down to help her up when I see that she is not looking at me at all. Instead her glazed eyes are focused behind me and when I turn to look, all I see is Kallum straddling Landon, with his fists repeatedly smashing into his face.

“Kallum stop!”  I feel like I’m moving in slow motion and screaming under water. He is not letting up on his relentless attack on Landon and as much as I don’t like the guy, someone has to stop Kallum before he does some serious damage.

Zenaida is as shocked as I am, she sits in a puddle of glass with her hands covering her sobbing mouth. I quickly help her get to her feet, careful not to drag her in any way across the dangerous shards at my feet. She looks fine for the most part, except for the horror that is written on her face.

“Touch her again, I dare you!” Kallum growls with his hands firmly planted around the gasping man’s throat. His nose is gushing and Kallum doesn’t look like he has a scratch on him, except on his busted knuckles.

“Kallum get off him!” I try to grab his arm to pull him off Landon, but he doesn’t budge or even pay me mind instead he pulls the man’s face closer to his, holding him by the collar. I wrap my hands around his bulging bicep, and I can almost feel the strength rippling through his muscles.

“And I’ll do it again.” Landon spits on the floor next to Kallum’s feet and smiles a wicked bloody smile. And there’s no stopping Kallum after that, his arm rips away from me and just as he’s about to strike again, I am shoved out of the way by Shaun and Liam.

They each grab one of his arms and it takes the both of them to successfully drag Kallum away and outside the back-patio doors. People create a pathway for the three boys to roughly walk through and I do not want to see the look on Kallum’s face that makes people so quick to back away like that.

Paisley shows up behind me, asking a lot of questions that I can’t bear to focus on right now. I need to see if he’s okay.

The almost unconscious Landon is thrown outside by group of boys, one them being Asher Turner. The classic, “do you know who my father is?” is thrown around before they are locking the front door behind them

Paisley is hushing a sobbing Zenaida and my attention snaps back to her shaking form.

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” I ask, inspecting her for any visible injuries and thankfully seeing none too drastic besides a few scraps on her hands.

“No, he didn’t hurt me. He was trying to get me to go home with him but when I said no, he got really mad and when I tried to run away, I tripped and fell into the table,” she breaks out into a sob and Paisley hugs her even tighter and mouths that she is going to drive her home.

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” I check my pockets to make sure my phone and keys are still there, but Paisley stops me, shaking her head.

“It’s okay, go check on the other girls. They might need you,” she reassures, and I’m confused at first but she’s right, I can’t just leave the here especially after what just happened.

“Okay, text me when you get home.” I hug the two girls and watch them, making sure they walk out the back door and safely to Paisley’s car.

“Get a hold of yourself, Taylor!” I hear Shaun hiss once I get outside, his face inches from Kallum’s. “You do not want to be starting s**t at the Turner House!”

Thankfully, the girls are already out of earshot and the only people really outside are me, Kallum, Shaun, and Liam. I’m assuming no one wanted to be around Kallum in this state. I’m not sure I do.

“You don’t tell me what to do and besides, I’m not as scared of you little girlfriend as you are.” Kallum fires right back and Liam has to get in the middle of the two boys before another fight breaks out.

Liam is one of the kids in the fire academy together with Shaun and Kallum and he look incredibly small sandwiched between the two muscular boys. He’s shorter than most of the boys in our grade but he makes up for it by being much bulkier and by the looks of how he’s holding back the two angry boys, much stronger as well.

“Can you two cut it out,” Liam grits out, “we cannot have the Captain finding out about this.”

At the mention of his father, Kallum snaps out of the sort of trance he was in and looks around for any onlookers, but his eyes only find me in the empty backyard. Shaun backs off as well and I’m sure he is more concerned with pissing off Heather more than anything, I would be too.

“You two good now?” Liam asks with an entertained glint in his eyes, “C’mon boys lets go party it out,” he laughs and wraps his arm over both their shoulders but Kallum shrugs it off and the two other boys disappear into the house.

Kallum slowly approaches me as if gaging my reaction to the way he just acted and I’m not sure whether I want to punch him for being so stupid and reckless or hug him because I am so relieved that he’s okay.

“Did he hurt you, Cora?”

“No, I’m fine,” I mutter under my breath, the effects of the drink I had earlier wearing off.

“I’m being serious because if he laid a hand on you, I’m going to-”

“You’re going to what? I know your angry, but you can’t just beat people up whenever you like, Kallum.” I cross my arms over my chest, “Look at me, I’m fine.”

“You could have easily not been fine, Cora. How do you not see that?” He bellows, his hands running through his hair as he paces back and forth in front of me.

“What is wrong with you? I’m not some damsel in distress that constantly needs you to come running to save me very five minutes,” I yell back, getting frustrated at how he’s treating me like some fragile child.

“It sure never looks like it,” he fires back, “looks to me as though you are constantly in trouble, constantly needing someone to come save you.”

“You have to be kidding me? I clearly got myself out of this situation with no help from you. I’m not as incapable of defending myself as you think.”

“So, he did touch you,” he seethes and is already walking back to the house before I can even blink. I grab the back of his shirt and step in front of him not allowing him to advance any further. It makes no sense to me where all of this anger is coming from when he watched me get bullied all those years ago and did absolutely nothing about it.

“That’s not the point! How do you not get it? I’ve have been through much worst in these past three years than some creepy dude trying to feel up on me and I would think that you of all people would have known that!”

“Can you stop playing the pity card. It’s getting old,” he rolls his eyes and folds his arms over his chest. My heart sinks at his statement and every shred of anger that I had against him just vanishes. My insecurities flood my mind.

“That’s what you think of me?” My voice cracks and I don’t even bother try to hide the tears the brim my eyes. “That I want your pity?”

I’m not sure if it’s the drink that I had but suddenly I feel unable to control my emotions and tears that would have been easily suppressed yesterday threaten to escape quite easily. Deep down in my heart I know this is it. This is the conversation or rather confrontation I have been waiting for, for years and now that he’s standing here in front of me, it doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel as though I am fighting with my best friend but rather a man that I have never met before.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe some of us aren’t as big and tough as you are and maybe, just maybe, we need that extra support to get through things?” He opens his mouth to speak but I’m already talking again before he can get a word out. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, that I needed someone, Kallum? Someone to root for me, someone to talk to me, someone to just be there for me.” The last part comes out as a whisper and I’m sure he wouldn’t have heard it if he weren’t just mere inches away from me.

“Cora, wait.” He wraps his hand around my wrist, but I don’t turn around, I’ve humiliated myself enough for one day.

“And maybe you’re right,” I admit with my back still faced to him, “maybe I am in constant need of saving but don’t forget what you did when all of this started. Don’t forget how you stood there and did nothing, and don’t you ever f*****g forget that you left me, Kallum. Remember that before you try and lecture me about being safe.”

He sighs and let’s go of my wrist and I walk into the house with my chin up despite the tears that now flow freely from my eyes.