…Will you stay?
“Ella!” Sadie shouts as she stumbles towards me and I laugh, catching her before we both fall backwards into the pool. Laughing as we emerge, breaking the water’s surface, and we swim over to the side. Pulling ourselves out of the pool and instantly pulling off my soaking wet shirt and pants. There are some cheers behind us as I flip them off, moving over to the table and taking another shot.
“You look cold.” I hear a male voice, not really sure who, scratch that, I don’t really care who, saying into my ear and I just nod. “Should we go warm you up?”
“Yes.” I mumble, as the remaining alcohol consumes my body.
Waking up early in the morning I hear the sounds next to me of the body breathing. I don’t even look over to see who it is this time.
It’s just another face. Sitting up, trying to force the room to stop spinning as I look for my clothes. Only finding my bra and panties, I frown.
Right, pool, they were wet. I stripped down in the backyard.
Grabbing my clothes that I came upstairs with last night, then glancing over. Realizing that it’s Jen’s brother who I woke up in bed with.I’m sure that will not come back to bite me in the ass later. Grabbing one of his shirts, I make my way down the hallway until I peer into a room that has its door ajar and see Sadie laying in the bed.
Tiptoeing inside, I shake her until her eyes shoot open.
“We should go.” I whisper to her before her eyes widen even bigger. She takes in my shirt as she wiggles her eyebrows. “Fuck off.” I tell her as she laughs. “Get up.” She and I both nearly stumble down the staircase until we get out the backdoor. Finding my clothes on the lawn, I rush over and pick it up. It’s not quite dawn yet as I hold up the clothes and find them still wet. Groaning out, Sadie laughs before I quietly push her back out front to my car. My entire body freezes as I see a Porsche drive by the house. I thought he was out of town. It’s the only reason I came to Jen’s party last night.
“El, what’s wrong?” Sadie is looking at me, confused.
“Huh, nothing?”
“Are you sure?”
“Huh? Yeah.”
“El, something happened? I can see it in you.” She pauses as I look over at her. “Shit. Ella.”
“No, nothing happened.” I reassure her as I move the car out of the drive and down the street.
Dropping Sadie off, she pauses as she looks in at me. “Ella, I don’t know what happened, but I know something did. You’re acting different.”
“I’m fine.” I nod to her before she shakes her head and then shuts the door before I drive the remaining way back home. Opening the door, Dad’s bike isn’t out front, so I walk in nonchalantly, grabbing some water and then walking back to my bed, collapsing on it and falling asleep.
The last 6 weeks have been a blur. Since that night, I haven’t been able to sleep.
I’ve been drinking more.
I’ve been finding pills to help me sleep.
But nothing is really working because still in the middle of the night I wake up in a cold sweat and crying,
“El, get up. Get ready, we’re leaving soon.” Dad shouts as he knocks on the door, “Pack an overnight bag.”
“What? Where are we going?”
“It’s Ash’s 30th.” He tells me, and I sigh. I forgot it was the first. I’ve honestly forgotten what month that I was in. I’m just thankful that I have had decent grades up till now because I haven’t really turned in much to do with schoolwork since. My grades have slipped from As to Ds and sadly, I don’t even care. What’s the fucking point, anyway?
“Okay,” I mumble to dad, before I push myself out of the bed. I’m almost positive that dad doesn’t even realize that anything is wrong with me. It’s not that I haven’t changed… no, I’m almost positive that I have. It’s just he has never been around much to know how I was before, so how would he be able to tell if I’ve changed at all. Also, the little that he knows, I feel like I haven’t changed. Or maybe I have. I don’t really know or care much about hiding anything, except for what happened anymore.
Slowly, I push myself off of the bed as I walk towards my closet, grabbing a couple of things to wear tomorrow and a toothbrush. Then walking back into the living room, waiting for dad to come in.
“You ready, kiddo?” He asks me.
“Yeah,” I nod to him as I toss my book bag over my shoulder, pulling on my headphones and following him out the door to the truck. He glances over at me as I get in, but he asks nothing else. In fact, he simply turns in the seat and starts up the car.
I don’t really want to drive out to Sonston’s End today and if it was for anyone else, I wouldn’t go. But Ash is almost more like family than my dad is. Maybe I can confide in him what happened. But would he even believe me? Do I want to even attempt to put that sort of shit on him right now? He is still recovering.
