Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

In the morning Skylar didn't want to talk about it. She'd broken down in front of Ian because of a picture he took of her, and that made her feel so damn stupid. It made her feel even worse to think that she couldn't even do a simple thing like take a picture for him without crying. Taking pictures was such a normal thing to do for couples. All she wanted was to be like any other couple and make Ian happy, but she couldn't do that, and she really hated herself for that.

She knew that Ian was nothing like Gregg, but she still couldn't help but go back to the old days when she thought everyone was evil scum. Meds were something that she had been on to help her cope with her feelings; they had helped her. She'd gotten off of them because she didn't want to depend on meds anymore, she thought that she could do it on her own. Apparently, she was wrong.

"I love you," Gregg promised, taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze. When their gazes met, he smiled. She didn't want to act like a cheesy person, but his words made her feel really happy and she just wanted to hear him say those words all day long.

They were in her room, they'd decided to just watch movies at her place after school. It had been a stressful day. She'd almost gotten into a fight with a girl in her chemistry class, but the teacher had stopped it before anything else happened. When Gregg found out he told the girl and her friends off. Even when they'd said he was the loser for going out with the girl that killed Ingrid, he brushed it aside and made a statement by kissing her sweetly on lips in front of everyone.

"I love you," she told him and then gave him a kiss on the lips. She really did love him. He was the only person that didn't blame her for Ingrid's death. The only person to show her some type of affection when not even her own family bothered to. The only person that cared about her.

When Gregg started pulling at her shirt she felt a bit uncomfortable but didn't say anything about it. It was just her top, nothing else. So she kept on kissing him, letting him touch her and make her feel something. It was the only way she could feel like there was a purpose, because he wanted her.

But then he started pulling at her jeans, and that really did make her feel uncomfortable.

"Stop," she pleaded. "I...I can't."

Gregg pulled back enough to give her a good look. He pouted. "Come on, babe."

She didn't like saying no to him, she really didn't. But it was her virtue they were talking about. Skylar had never done it before. She didn't have any experience. Gregg was a senior and he probably had a lot of experience. What if she disappointed him?

"I don't think I'm ready," she explained.

Gregg sighed. "Sky, I love you," he said. "I really love  you. Don't you love me?"

"Of course I do," she promised him, almost panicking.

"Then," he said, "show me that you love me. Prove it to me."

She was having an internal battle with herself. She wasn't ready, she knew that. But Gregg was the only person that cared about her and she didn't want him to feel like she didn't care. She didn't want to risk losing him because she was too afraid of losing her damn virginity. He was worth so much more than that.

Slowly, she nodded. "Okay."

He gave her a big smile and said, "Great, babe. I'll go slow at first."

Gregg had not loved her. He never had. He'd manipulated her into sleeping with him. She'd given him something that she could never get back and she had to live with that for the rest of her life.

Skylar sat on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs as she rested her head on the bathroom door. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she went back to that time in her life. How could she have been so stupid?

Back in her room, Ian was still sleeping. He'd held her tight all night long, keeping her safe in his arms. When she had woken up, she felt embarrassed. How could she have broken down like that in front of him? Why was she losing her self-control?

She did not want Ian to see her like that again, so she just sat in silence wondering what she was going to do with herself. Ian deserved someone much better than her. Someone that could take a picture without crying. He could do so much better than her.

"Ingrid, maybe you shouldn't be drinking so much alcohol," Skylar pointed out, shouting over the loud music.

Ingrid pulled her red hair back into a ponytail and fanned herself with her hand. "It's so f.ucking hot in here!" she shouted.

Skylar rolled her eyes. "Did you not hear what I said?"

Ingrid laughed. "Sky, we're here to party. Let loose, girl!"

Ingrid was a junior and was a really fun person. She was known around the school as a wild girl with a great personality. Everyone loved her. And why she decided to hang out with Skylar, a pretty much unknown sophomore, was a big surprise to everyone.

They were at a party in the outskirts of Chicago. Most of the people at the party were college students. There was a lot of booze...and drugs. Ingrid was a very open-minded person, she did anything. But Skylar had come to realize that Ingrid wasn't the happiest person. Sure, she was pretty, popular, and fun, she just wasn't happy. She had a terrible relationship with her parents who were never even home. Everyone in her family thought she was a s.lut. She was rejected by her family so she found comfort in the company of strangers. Skylar felt bad for her, but she never worked up the courage to ask her directly about her problems.

A tall, lanky college boy approached the two and offered them small, colorful pills. He said, "You'll have a better time."

Ingrid happily took the pill and downed it in one gulp.

Great. Now Ingrid was drunk and high on ecstasy.

"You're not going to take one?" she asked.

Skylar shook her head. "I'll stick to beer."

And she did. She took Ingrid's words to heart and drank a lot, not even just beer, she found out that she liked vodka a lot. None of these people were her friends, but they were all encouraging her to get wild. Before she knew it, she was on the lap of some frat boy she didn't even know the name of. A few feet away from her, Ingrid was doing the same thing.

It was after two in the morning when they decided to leave. Both drunk off their asses. Skylar had never had that much to drink. It had been fun at first, but when she puked her guts out on the sidewalk, it wasn't so much fun anymore. Ingrid held her hair back, laughing her head off.

"You okay?" she asked, still laughing a little bit. "You need to learn how to handle your alcohol."

Skylar rolled her eyes and wiped her mouth. "I think I handled myself pretty well."

Ingrid just kept on laughing.

Even after puking, she was still having trouble balancing herself. Maybe going out tonight had been a bad idea.

"Ugh," Ingrid groaned as she rummaged through her bag for her car keys. "Here." She tossed them to Skylar. The keys just fell to the ground because Skylar wasn't in any condition to catch.

"What do you want me to do with them?" she asked.

"You'll drive."

"What?" Skylar was a sixteen-year old. She was barely finishing up her driver's ed course at school. She didn't know how to drive well. "I can't drive."

"Yes, you can," Ingrid said. "I've seen you."

Skylar scoffed. "Yeah. Like, I drive around the school parking lot with an instructor because I can't tell the difference between a break and the accelerator."

Again, Ingrid laughed. "Just drive. You're more sober than I am."

In the end, Skylar drove. She drove slowly and cautiously - well, as much as a drunk person could. Before they made it home, they crashed. The driver of the other vehicle involved had been under the influence of alcohol and some other type of drugs. So the collision hadn't just been Skylar's fault. But it also didn't take away the fact that Ingrid was dead in the passenger seat next to her. The other car had hit the side she was on. Skylar lived with a few stitches on her forehead. And everyone blamed Skylar for Ingrid's death. She blamed herself too.

"Stop crying," she commanded herself, rubbing her eyes ferociously. "Stop crying!"

Why couldn't she just let go of her past? Why couldn't she just move on with her life? Why did she always have to ruin something good? She was doing so well. She was so close to just being a normal girl. But no. No. She couldn't do that. She was weak and dependent. She couldn't fight her own battles.

Skylar hated herself. She really did. She hated herself for not being able to just be happy. For not being able to suppress all the bad memories. For not being able to just be normal and make Ian happy. He didn't want a f.ucked up girl. Why would he want her? She couldn't control her emotions. She couldn't just be happy. Her stupid self always had to go back into her past and she hated herself so much for that. Why couldn't she just live in the present?

"I need my meds," she muttered, getting up from the floor, heading over to the medicine cupboard. "I need my meds."

Gregg had sent her a text in the morning. He'd said he had a surprise for her. That she would find out when she got to school. She was excited. She was desperate to know what the surprise was and got ready happily. All she wanted was to see Gregg.

She didn't say a word during breakfast with her family. Her father mentioned that a guy was coming from California to meet her older sisters. He was a good candidate for her sisters. All her father wanted was for them to marry someone with a good family name and a successful future ahead of them. Apparently that guy was the full package. She didn't really care much about him.

Her mom dropped her off at school a few minutes before school started. "Behave," Mrs. Grant said as she got off the car. Skylar nodded and headed into the school.

As she passed through security, the people already inside looked at her with smirks. Not that she was surprised, everyone looked at her weirdly. No one liked her. Whatever. She didn't care, not really. Even when Ingrid was alive, she didn't care about being friends with others. But she did miss her only friend. At least she had Gregg now.

Today, there was something different. It didn't take Skylar long to realize that. They were laughing at her more than usual, it was usually just glares. What was with all the laughing?

A group of girls passed her, giving her judgmental looks. One of them called out, "S.lut!" and another said, "W.hore!"

"Okay," she muttered to herself as she made her way to her locker. "I guess I'm a w.hore now."

Everyone really was looking at her. While she made her way down the hall, a few guys whistled at her and made some inappropriate comments. They made s.exual jokes about her. That was new.

It wasn't until she was at her locker that she found out why everyone was giving her extra attention that day. Her locker was covered in pictures. Pictures of her. Topless, nonetheless. "Slut," "whore," "tramp," "murderer," "disgusting pig," and so many more words phrases were written in permanent marker.

She stopped breathing. The girl in the pictures really was her. It was her, on her bed, eyes closed. But she was topless. Her breasts exposed for everyone to see. The one that really brought tears to her eyes was one where Gregg was wide awake, a huge smile on his face, and he was holding her in her sleep. Naked. Again.

So that was his surprise. Humiliation.

She clawed at the pictures, letting them tumble down to the floor. Then she made her way to the cafeteria, where she knew he would be, probably surrounded by his little friends.

And he was there. A stupid smile on his face which just grew bigger when he saw her.

"Babe!" he exclaimed. "Come here and sit on my lap!" His friends laughed. She didn't.

"That was your big surprise?" she demanded. "Humiliating me? How the f.uck did you take those pictures in the first place?"

He chuckled. "Uh, when you were asleep. After you let me stick my d.ick inside of you." Gregg made it sound as if it were the simplest in the world. And maybe to him it was.

Skylar was hurt. The guy she had thought she loved, given her virginity to, and confided in the most had betrayed her. He'd used her for his own personal pleasure. He'd never really taken her seriously. He'd used her vulnerability to get close to her and knock her down just like that.

"Why?" she demanded. "You said you loved me..."

He laughed, as did his friends. "Girls like you can't be loved by anyone. You killed Ingrid and let yourself be taken to bed just like that. You're the type of girl one has fun with. But you're not a long-term type."

How could she have been so stupid? Gregg was right. Everyone hated her for killing Ingrid. No one would ever love her because she wasn't worthy of being loved. Maybe this was karma coming back to her, payback for Ingrid's death. Because of her stupidity, Ingrid was dead, and she couldn't be happy after that. A girl like her didn't deserve to be happy...

"It should have been you," Gregg added. "Not Ingrid."

She couldn't agree more.

She rummaged through her medicine cabinet, but her meds were nowhere to be found. When she finally found the bottle behind her makeup case, she damned herself to hell. It was empty! The f.ucking bottle was empty!

Hearing the ruckus coming from the bathroom, Ian got up from the bed. He made his way to the bathroom door and listened. And he heard her sobbing. No. No. No. Why was she crying? Was she still upset from last night?

He knocked on the door. "Skylar, are you okay?"

No answer.

"Skylar, baby, please talk to me," he pleaded. He tried to open the door but it was locked. "Open up, please."

Skylar felt ten times worse hearing Ian's words. No. The last thing she wanted was for him to worry. She didn't him to see her like that. Not like that. Not when she was so broken.

"My meds," she whispered. She needed her meds because they were the only thing that kept her normal. The only thing that prevented these type of attacks. She needed her f.ucking meds.

Ian was frustrated. She wasn't opening the door and that angering him. She was hurting and he wanted to help her, she just wasn't letting him. So he did the only rational thing he could do, he attacked the door with his full body weight in hopes of knocking it down.

"Get away from the door, Skylar," he warned her. And then he lunged towards it again.

She fell to the floor once again, the empty bottle of pills in her hands. The tears didn't stop. There was no point in trying to contain them. Ian would see her. He would probably want to leave her. She wouldn't judge him. Why would he want a train wreck for a girlfriend? He could do so much better.

And finally the door busted open. Ian didn't waste any time and got down on the floor with her, taking her into his arms.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "What's wrong, baby? What's wrong? Please tell me." The desperation in his voice was obvious.

"My meds," she whimpered. "I need my meds."

He looked at the bottle in her hands and shook his head. "You're so much stronger than this. You don't need pills to be happy, Skylar."

Skylar cried even more. "I'm so tired of this, Ian." She buried her head in his chest. "I just want to be good to you. But I can't even take a f.ucking picture because I'm not right in the head. I can't control my emotions and I hate myself for that. I just want to be a good girl friend because I love you, and I don't want you to leave me."

Honestly, Ian felt like crying. Why his beautiful girl so sad? He just wanted to know what was causing her all this pain? Why did she think she wasn't good enough for him? He was the luckiest man in the world with her by his side.

"I'm never going to leave you," he promised her. "I love  you too much for that."

"I want my meds," she repeated. "It's the only thing that can make me function normally." Skylar had thought that she could go on without them. Turned out she couldn't. Now she was paying the consequences for her actions.

"Okay, okay," Ian said. "I'll go get you your meds, baby." If her meds were the only thing that could calm her down enough to allow her to talk to him, then so be it.

He took her to bed and tucked her in, making sure that she was calm enough. Then he hurried to the nearest pharmacy to get her medication. The whole time he was worrying that she would do something stupid in his absence. But when he got back to her apartment, she was still in bed, looking peaceful.

"I have your meds," he said. "Here."

Skylar took the bottle of pills and popped one in. She felt calmer knowing that soon the pills would kick in and she wouldn't be acting like a such a train wreck. Ian knew that it wasn't the lack of pills, it was just her demons catching up to her, but he would let her take the pills if they made her feel better.

"I want you to talk to me," he said.

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

"I want you to tell me everything," he said. "Why did you try to kill yourself that night, Skylar?"