{23} ✔️

A/N: Trigger warning. Mentions of abuse and homophobia.

Dahlia's POV

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Monday morning absolutely sucked as I fully expected it would. I usually wake up at 6 but this morning I had to wake up at 5 so that I could get to school by 6. My brother and sister were definitely not about to wake up earlier than they absolutely had to for me and I didn't want to bother Billie or let her know that I was even meeting with Kai, so I had to catch the bus. The bus was far more crowded than I'd expected it to be, and the girl I sat next to ended up snoring in my ear and drooling on my shoulder the whole time. That was better than sitting by the loud ass kids in the back though.

When I got to school, almost nobody besides some of the teachers were there, and since there was only about ten cars in the parking lot I figured that even most of them weren't even here yet. I sat on the front steps of the school for about ten minutes before I saw Kai walking toward me.

I quickly stood up, trying to figure out how to act. Should I be nice to her? Does she have something else on me? Another picture? Is she gonna get Billie arrested for assault or something? Should I punch her in the face now that I have the chance? Should I act tough? I have no idea.

"Hey, Dahlia." She grinned as she stood right in front of me. "Nice to see you again."

Even after a whole entire week she still looked rough. Her black eye was still noticeable, her nose looked crooked as shit and there were still signs of a small cut on her lip. Billie really got her good.

"What do you want?" I questioned quietly, looking down at my shoes.

"Your thoughts." She shrugged as I looked back up at her. "It's been a rough week for you, I know. Your naked picture was leaked and now everyone at this school has seen it. Your little girlfriend is suspended so she's not here to help. Your poor mom is scarred because you're gay." She pouted and shook her head. "I feel so bad for her. She really seems to be going through it now that she knows you like pussy instead of dick. I can't imagine—"

"How do you know about my mom?"

"I went to her and my uncle's house to pay them a visit and apologize for my sins." She smiled. "I wanted them to know that I'm a changed woman. This whole situation with you cheating on me and breaking my heart really opened my eyes. I like guys now! At least...That's what they think. That's what everyone's gonna think."

"I didn't fucking cheat on you you psychotic bitch! We weren't together and even if we were, me cheating wouldn't magically turn your ass straight!"

"Duh." She rolled her eyes and playfully pushed my shoulder. I backed away from her quickly, disgusted by the fact that I'd ever let her put her gritty little fingers on me in any way. "But I need people to think I've changed my ways. My family is really religious and I didn't exactly think about that before I posted that picture of you. It felt really great to get revenge! Until my whole fucking family started swarming me with church pamphlets and offering to pay for conversion therapy." She chuckled.

How could she stand here and laugh at that like it's something funny? "That's sick." I spat, shaking my head.

"Yeah," she sighed, stopping her laughter. "It is. I can't just not be gay. Not when a pretty little thing like yourself is out here walking around looking like some gothic Barbie." She grabbed my hip and yanked me into her before placing a kiss on my neck. I gasped and shoved her away before wiping my neck with the sleeve of my shirt. "Are you fucking stupid? I don't want you! You've made my life hell for the past week or so, I want nothing to do with you!"

"That's too fucking bad, Dahlia." She growled. "But I want you and I always get what I want, just like I said. You couldn't just do what I told you; You couldn't just tell Billie to fuck off and then be with me like I told you so I had to punish you and show you that you can't fuck with me. But now, what's done is done, punishments over, and we can start over. I'm giving you another chance." She smiled. "You made me have to post your picture all over Facebook and now my family knows about me which means I have to act like I'm straight. But I'm not. I'm gay. And not only am I gay, I'm horny as fuck." She laughed as she grabbed my wrist and pulled me back into her, her fingernails digging into my skin. I winced as I tried to pull away and she tightened her grip.

"How am I supposed to find some girl to screw if I'm supposed to be acting straight? Easy. I can't! You're the only person I can have sex with without worrying about you blabbing. Cause I know that you're a smart girl and you know better than to tell anyone about any of this." She narrowed her eyes at me and dug her fingers in further, drawing blood. I tried to keep from crying in front of her, but that didn't work. This was all just too much. How in the hell hadn't I known that she was so crazy? How could she do this?

"I'm not gonna be your fucking sex slave because you're too chickenshit to tell your family you're gay." I spat. She shook her head and laughed again. "You and your girlfriend have the same vocabulary, I see...Look, you're gonna do whatever I want you to do, Dahlia, because if you don't I'll be forced to tell the whole school about your mommy issues."

My eyes widened at that. "What do you mean by that?" I whispered.

"Nobody's gonna look at you the same way when they realize you're a freak because your mom locked you in closets when you were younger." She cackled. "Be honest, though. You liked when she brought her boyfriends over, didn't you? You liked when she left the door open so you could see her—hear her—fucking them. Didn't you?"

"How do you know about all of that, Kai?"

"Your mom talks about what she did to you guys a lot. 'I did it out of love. To toughen them up.'" She mocked before rolling her eyes. "That lady is a total basket case and she can't admit for the life of her that she feels guilty about what she did. Whatever, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that if you don't do what I say, I'll have to tell everyone about what happened to you. I don't wanna go through this whole debacle again, babe. Do you?"

I really fucking don't.

I bit my lip before shaking my head and letting out a small sigh. She smiled widely as she squealed and pulled me in for a quick hug. "I knew you'd see it my way! So, listen, I don't like to share so again...I'm gonna need you to get rid of Billie. Make sure she doesn't find out about this conversation, though, okay? Because I can't imagine she'd take it well and I don't need another black eye." She laughed loudly as she continued to squeeze me.

***

"October is gonna be here in two weeks, so make sure you have your Halloween paintings finished by the 1st so we can hang them up around the school. Art guild is gonna be helping out at the library during the second week of October. We're gonna be helping kids carve pumpkins. Sign up on this sheet if you wanna help out with that..." I looked around as all the art guild members stared at me, or mostly

my chest.

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. People had been staring all day and I'd tried to make myself invisible but it hadn't worked. Caden and Cadence had been by my side as much as they could throughout the day, trying to scare people off when they'd come up to me and quiz me about my sexuality or comment on how great or not great they thought my boobs were, but it'd still been tough dealing with people and now neither of them were here to help.

Caden is in art guild, but he had football practice today and couldn't make it to the meeting. Kai also happens to be in art guild. That's great.

Everyone keeps looking between me and her, seeing what will happen. I'm trying to just be normal and pretend nothing happened at all, but it's clearly not working.

I cleared my throat before standing up straighter. "So...You've all seen my tits and you all now know that I'm gay...let's move on."

Everyone was silent for a few moments before they began to nod, laugh, and agree to move on. I let out a small sigh as I began to laugh with them a little. If only I'd just said that in all my classes, maybe my day wouldn't have sucked so much.