trigger warning: sexual assault up ahead, please skip if you're not comfortable with it x
SHE COULDN'T move. Mouth agape, eyes wide and hair blowing in the wind she watched on, unable to do anything. Her body shook with such tremor that her teeth chattered as well.
The girl looked like a freshman.
Bile rose up her throat as the freshman shook her head and mouthed 'no'. Her back was pressed deeply against the trunk, with so much force Ryan feared she may have bruises later on.
Ryan's feet were planted on the ground. She didn't know what to do. Run? Get someone? Stop it?
It didn't matter anyways, she couldn't move. She was trembling still, dread forming a knot in her stomach.
And yet, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the scene.
Not again. No. No. No. No.
Trepidation engulfed her body whole as Lucas pressed a kiss to the girl's chest. Stop! She wanted to shout. She wanted to march over there and rip him to shreds. But she didn't. She couldn't.
Move, she willed herself as Lucas' hands slithered up the freshman's thigh. She didn't.
Please stop. Make this stop. She pleaded to herself as his hands dipped under the girl's skirt. Tears were streaming out of the freshman's eyes now, and she muffled a scream.
I've never asked you for anything, please God, lord Buddha, anyone â
"Ryan?"
Ryan inhaled sharply, her knees buckling. A hand encircled around her forearm tightly, preventing her from dropping to the ground completely.
Tate's eyes lightened with surprise as he tightened his hold on her arm and lifted her up, helping her regain her balance.
He let her go and the instant his hands left her forearm she buckled again, feeling weightless. God â she didn't have any energy. Tate panicked but instantly tightened his hands around her shoulders.
Ryan found how to breathe again and she did, heavily. She heaved a sob that was burning at the back of her throat.
"Hey, hey, calm down. Breathe, Ryan breathe." He said softly. He was good at calming her down, she'd admit. The circles that were drawn on her shoulder blades when Tate pressed his forefinger down helped her draw even, but ragged breaths at the pace of his drawing.
Ryan shut her eyes tightly and tried to focus more on her breathing, on the slow rhythmic pace those soothing circles burned through her skin through the thick material of her coat, the puffs of airs that fanned her face whenever Tate inhaled, the cold nipping at her skin, creating rising upward goosebumps up her bare legs, anything except â
There was a pit at the back of her stomach, something, she felt something, something coming up and oh God!
In her haste she ran, flinging Tate around with her, inside the main building â ungracefully to boot, with her boots clacking in an ungodly manner â and to her left, locating the nearest washroom.
And she hurled.
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SHE REEKED OF puke. Ryan gulped before she bent down again. Beads of sweat formed at the temple, and dropped down to her hands stationed on her thighs.
She took a deep breath before she carried herself to the sink, her hands dipping under the faucet, clear and cold water dripping down her palms aimlessly.
The blonde rinsed her mouth, washed her face and then repeated again. And again.
By the time she walked out, It'd been about fifteen minutes since she flung herself at it, her cheeks painted scarlet and eyes rimmed with red.
She stopped trembling a while back but there was a certain chill in the way she walked, like she was afraid her knees would give out any second.
At first Ryan didn't notice Tate crouched down on the ground âgaze planted deeply at identifying the cracks and old age of the marble tiles â simply because his blazer hung loosely on his shoulders instead of his arm.
The slow, and carefully traced steps Ryan took made Tate snap his gaze on to her, and she stopped in front of him, her hands laying motionless by her hips.
He stood up, eyebrows scrunched and lips in a straight line. It dipped slightly as he pursed his lips, opened his mouth and closed it again. She didn't tear her gaze away from him, but didn't make any move to talk to him either.
She was ashamed. He'd seen her in such an ugly way, a fearful girl who couldn't control her own emotions.
"Are you feeling better now?" Was the question that left his tongue. She let out a dry laugh.
"Do I look like I feel better?" She said. Tate exhaled and shook his head.
The sound of soft footsteps crescendoed, reaching Ryan's ears and she jerked. It seemed like she was reacting to each and every sound now.
"Ryan, come on, let's go. You can skip ec's for a day right?" He asked in a whisper, referring to her extra curricular's. He tugged at the sleeve of her coat and she nodded.
Normally she would've tried to brush it off, she would've told him it was nothing to worry about, that it was none of his business. But he hadn't asked about any of it, about what happened. Tate just asked, in all honesty if she wanted a change of scenery.
She trudged along, his hold on her sleeve still intact. She didn't know where they were going but she didn't mind. Anywhere except here.
They passed the campus, and to her chagrin the image of Lucas' hands slithering up that freshman's body burned in her mind. She despaired, just as she walked along the same path she came in, the rhythmic crunch of the leaves only adding to the vivid image surfacing again and again.
And then, memories she had suppressed, flashes of her life that she'd forced herself to forget, numbered days and drunk parties she'd scorned all resurfaced. Her trips to her therapist, to her lawyers all lost their value and meaning once she had walked on this path for the second time today.
She stopped, her legs refusing to move. Her limbs, bones, muscles were rendered useless. She felt like that naive sixteen year old again, thinking she was the life of the party, thinking she was invincible, because her stepmother or her grandmother couldn't touch her.
She was wrong, oh so so wrong.
Grandmama wasn't the epitome of evil, and her stepmother certainly wasn't. They weren't messengers of Satan like she'd thought, they were nowhere near it. Ryan hadn't known what true fear was like.
She was back at this routine again, at the routine she fought so hard to vanquish, all in the blink of an eye. She was back to thinking she was helpless, useless.
An existence that wasn't even supposed to be known at the start; illegitimate.
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SHE MADE IT to Tate's room finally, after minutes and seconds frozen at her feet, shards of her crystallized heart chipping away.
Ryan slumped as soon as the pristine carpet came into her view. She squat down, her breathing ragged.
She made no move to take her coat off. Unlike hers, his was clean and organized. It's been months and yet there were remnants of those ugly moving boxes stacked in her room.
"You should take a seat, on my bed, desk, chair whatever." He said, shrugging his blazer off with a swing of his hand.
She nodded silently and got up, trudging over to whatever was closest; his bed. Her hand went to unzip her boots and she raised her legs out of it and on to the bed. Ryan hugged her knees to her chest and stared ahead.
She watched as Tate dropped his phone and room key off at his desk before moving towards her.
The bed dipped slightly under his weight. "I'm sorry," Ryan said. "That you had to witness that."
"Well I don't really know what 'that' is," He said casually, crossing his arms with a puff out of his lungs. "All I saw was just you, standing in the middle looking like you'd seen a ghost, unmoving. I didn't really think anything of it, just thought you were thinking."
She gulped, he hasn't asked yet. Asked what I was staring at. She thought.
Should she tell him? No. She thought instinctively. Lucas was his best friend, his buddy. He either wouldn't believe it, tell her to stop imagining shit or laugh.
The boy sighed again and ran a hand through his hair frustratedly. "Look, Ryan, I don't want to overstep boundaries, but Iâ I just want to know, if you're okay. And what I should do about it."
Ryan shook her head. "I'm fine, don't worry about it."
"Doesn't seem like something to not worry about. I get that you're used to the whole 'I'm alone, and I have secrets and I won't let anyone know about it' thing," He said, looking her in the eye. "But while lots of people don't mind you keeping your business to yourself, it's fucking annoying to the people who have to witness this and not get an answer."
"I'm not alone. I have friends." She stubbornly replied. It stung, what he said. She knew, she fucking knew she was a burden when it came to stuff like this. Ryan was as fragile as a piece of paper when it came to this.
He snorted. "Yeah but do they know anything about you? I doubt it. You're so obsessed with this image of you being 'strong' and 'dominant' over other people. You're not fooling anyone but you, you know. Being vulnerable to shit doesn't make you weak, it makes you human. Get that into your mind. And once you're done, let's talk."
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Hello :) here's an update, I'm super sorry
for the wait. I really hope you enjoyed,
i love u.
âDin