Chapter Text
Winter slipped into Spring, and Spring slipped into Summer, and before Lexi knew it she was finishing up her senior year of high school.
It had been four months since that uncomfortable New Years Eve Party – she and Fezco stealing glances at one another across a crowded room as they both pressed themselves against other people – and she had finally started living her life again.
She and Sam had started dating one another in the beginning of March, and it was officially the longest relationship Lexi had ever been in. Technically it was the only relationship she’d ever been in. She and Fezco had never actually been official, a fact that he had made abundantly clear, a reality that she had to keep reminding herself of.
It still stung sometimes when she thought about him — about all the time they’d spent together, about all of the pieces of herself she’d given him — but she had been trying to do less of that lately.
She had deleted his number from her phone the night of the New Years Party, re-reading months’ worth of conversations one last time before she wiped them all from her phone, and then she had promptly cried herself to sleep.
She had stared at her phone for what must have been an hour that night, scrolling through all of their old conversations, tears streaming down her face as she read the words on the screen. She’d wasted so much of her time with him, had poured her heart out to some boy who she thought had maybe loved her back only to be met with indifference and rejection.
She was so fucking angry at him, so hurt that everything they’d cultivated between them – endless text threads, late night phone calls, countless nights spent together – had meant absolutely nothing to him. She had meant nothing to him.
She couldn’t bring herself to delete the pictures though, as few as they were. Instead of wiping them from her phone forever, she placed them in a separate folder, one she had labeled: Do Not Open Under Any Circumstances!
Sure Lexi. That’ll definitely work.
She’d wondered if he’d done the same, if he’d wiped all evidence of her from his phone, deleted every word and photo that proved that she’d been in his life at all. She wondered if it had been difficult for him, removing her from his phone the same way he’d removed her from his life.
After wiping most any trace of Fezco from her phone, Lexi had curled up in her bed, his hoodie draped over her body, and she’d cried herself to sleep.
She was weak. So fucking weak. She couldn’t even bring herself to get rid of the sweater he’d given to her months ago, couldn’t bear to part with the handful of photos she’d managed to get of him. Him laughing in the breezeway, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Him driving his car, her in the passenger's seat, the neon lights of the city storefronts bleeding into the car and washing him in pinks and oranges and blues. The one solitary photo she had of the both of them, Fez reclined on the sofa in his living room, Lexi’s back pressed to his chest as she laid between his legs.
It seemed stupid now, juvenile and naive and painfully embarrassing how quickly and deeply she’d fallen in love with him, and it hurt so fucking much to know he didn’t feel the same.
Things with Sam had started out innocently enough. He was nice, and she thought that he was the smart choice, the reliable choice, even if he didn’t make her feel like she had fireworks going off inside of her every time she saw him.
He spent time with her, asked her out on dates that he’d pick her up for, sent her text messages throughout the day just because he felt like it. He’d bring her flowers nearly every time they saw one another, always with a note attached to them telling her how beautiful she was or how much he liked her. It all seemed a little much at first, overwhelming in a way Fezco’s attention never had been, and she wondered if there was something wrong with her for not fully enjoying the gifts and the attention. Her sister had told her that it was a good sign, that it meant Sam liked her, that it meant that he was only thinking about her, and that must mean there were no other girls he was interested in, and even though Lexi smiled and nodded her agreement, she couldn't fully ignore the twisting feeling in her stomach that this all didn’t feel quite right. She wondered how much of that had to do with her gut instincts, and how much of it had to do with how different this relationship was from the one she had with Fez.
Sam had even met her mother who was, unsurprisingly, thrilled about it all. Sam was handsome, Suze had said as much the first time she’d met him, a glass of wine in her hand as she sat across from him in their small living room. She’d interrogated him as well, of course, in her own unique just-the other-side-of-tipsy way, and she’d made it abundantly clear to Lexi that she was ‘so happy her baby was finally dating someone.’ Whatever the fuck that meant.
Suze had also implored her to be careful, to use protection, and to not get pregnant. That warning had made Lexi roll her eyes. It had also made something painful and sad settle deep in her belly. If only her mother knew. If only she knew that her daughter wasn’t as inexperienced as she thought she was. If only she’d known about the boy across town who she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about, or the pregnancy scare they’d had last year.
A negative test hidden at the bottom of a garbage can.
Lexi made a valiant effort to not let her broken heart consume what little time she had left of her senior year, trying her best to take advantage of the final fleeting weeks of her high school career. She went to nearly every party her classmates threw during the remaining weekends in June, trying her best to enjoy herself. She deserved that much, didn’t she? To go to parties with her friends, to spend time with a boy who actually liked her. She tried to remind herself of that every time she’d catch sight of Fezco at one of the parties, her stomach dropping when she’d see him pressed up against some beautiful girl, her heart aching when she found herself imagining that girl was her.
Unsurprisingly, Cassie and Maddy were thrilled by the shift in Lexi’s social life, giddily offering themselves up to help get her ready for each party they went to. Lexi indulged them, sitting passively as her sister and friend dressed her up and covered her face in makeup three nights out of every week while they all got a little too drunk and stoned in her bedroom. Lexi had even started to enjoy it. She was beginning to feel like an equal to Cassie and her friends, and less like the annoying little sister who was always in their way.
She wondered how much of that had to do with Sam and their budding relationship, how instead of being viewed as some amorphous virgin, she was being welcomed into the fold. It felt like some kind of strange hazing required to enter the world of the women who had surrounded her for most of her life, and she wasn’t sure that she liked it very much, didn’t think that the reality really lived up to the hype of it all.
Sam was at nearly every party Lexi went to in those last few weeks of school. He would hold her hand when they were near one another, or drape an arm around her shoulders as they’d drink and laugh and talk. They’d usually find a quiet place to disappear to at whatever party they’d found themselves at – an empty gazebo, a bench tucked underneath some trees, a sofa in the corner of some forgotten room. That last one bothered her more than she knew it should, but it felt like she was letting someone into some secret part of her heart, and she wondered how an inanimate object could somehow feel sacrosanct when to anyone else it was just a couch.
He also kissed her, a lot, uncaring of who saw them or what they thought. That had been a revelation for Lexi – being with someone who wanted to be with her, someone who wanted other people to know that she was with him. It made something soft and sweet pool low in her belly, and she thought of all the times she’d snuck around with Fez, so fucking naive in the beginning, not understanding that his reluctance to hold her hand or kiss her in front of other people was a direct result of the fact that he didn’t actually want to be with her.
She knew that Sam was better for her, that he was nicer to her than Fez had ever been, but there was still something gnawing at her, a little voice in the back of her mind that she couldn’t seem to quiet, no matter how hard she tried.
Sam was nice. But he wasn’t Fezco. A fact that had been clear from the beginning, but had only become more and more obvious as the months slipped by.
Sam was sweet in the beginning, caring and doting, gifting her with flowers and notes and presents that at first felt like too much. In time it became clear to Lexi that his overly affectionate gestures were just part of a greater, more insidious balancing act. What had started off as an overabundance of romantic gestures and thoughtful gifts had swiftly revealed itself to be a preemptive response, a counterweight to offset and somehow remedy all of the horrible things he did that Lexi found herself on the receiving end of.
It became clear to Lexi early on that Sam was like two different people, neither of whom seemed at all alike. Most of the time he was sweet, bombarding her with loving text messages, and unexpected gifts. And then there were other times where he was cruel, mean in ways she had only ever heard her sister and her friends talk about guys being.
It started with them getting into a fight a few weeks after they had started dating, Sam getting annoyed with her for spending so much time with Ethan, even after she had explained that their relationship was strictly platonic, that she and Bobbi worked with him as directors of their high school's theater department. He had yelled at her, screamed at her until he was red in the face, accusing her of cheating on him with Ethan. She had denied it outright, because of course it wasn't true, but even when she had told him that there was nothing between her and Ethan, and that there never would be on account of Ethan being gay, Sam had refused to believe her. He’d stormed out of her bedroom, calling her a fucking slut, and had left Lexi stunned silent on the sofa in her bedroom, her heart pounding and her mind trying to grasp what the fuck had just happened.
She thought about Fezco, about the time he had stopped returning her texts when he thought she and Ethan had started hooking up. She thought about confronting him at his store, about how hurt he had looked, and then how embarrassed he’d seemed when she had told him the truth of the situation. He hadn’t screamed at her, hadn’t called her horrible names or left her feeling afraid. He had been stupid and wrong, but he’d never been cruel.
Sam had messaged her early the next day, telling her he was sorry, and that he was just stressed out about school. Lexi thought of her sister, of all the guys she’d ever been with, and how they had all treated her the same. She thought about her father, and all of the fights he used to get into with her mother, all of the horrible names they would call one another, and how she would curl up in her bed with a pillow pressed to her ear as she tried to block out all of the screaming.
She wondered if this was what all relationships were like. If every romantic endeavor ended up here one way or another. And then she would think of Fezco, about how he’d never wanted to date her, but how he’d never been cruel about it, at least not in the way Sam was. Fezco was a lot of things, but she didn’t think that he was hateful. He was never so filled with rage that he screamed at her or backed her into corners, or scared her. Sure they had yelled at one another, gotten frustrated and fought over stupid shit, but things with Sam felt different, worse somehow, and Lexi couldn't figure out where the invisible line that separated the two men was or how it delineated the pitfalls of one relationship with the perils of the other.
This pattern with Sam continued on for months. He would accuse her of something she hadn’t done, would yell at her even when she’d denied his untrue and unfounded claims, and he would call her horrible names, names that no one had ever called her before – bitch, slut, whore, cunt, tease. He would always apologize afterwards, atone profusely while bombarding her with flowers or presents, text messages and voicemails, all to emphasize how sorry he was.
She wondered, every time she forgave him, why she did it. She wondered why she stayed with him. She wondered if this was just the way that men treated the women they were meant to love, and if women were just meant to stand there and take it.
She would wonder about all of these things, and then she would think of Fezco. She’d think about how stubborn he was, how obstinate and headstrong he’d always been. She’d think about how he didn’t want to be her boyfriend, but how he’d never made her feel as unlovable as Sam had. She thought about that last night they’d spent together, how he’d given her his sweater because he didn’t want her to get cold, and she thought of Sam and all of the elaborate gifts he would bombard her with after he had ripped her fucking life apart.
That was the difference between them, she thought. That one boy gave her the shirt off of his back even while his own heart was breaking, and the other gave her an elaborate bouquet of flowers to cover up the destruction that lay in his wake.
She’d think of all this, and she knew that this wasn’t how someone who loved you was supposed to treat you. But she stayed anyways, and she hated herself a little more each time she’d let it slide
-
Fezco spent the months following New Years Eve doing three things: selling, fucking, and smoking.
The days had all started to blur together, the only delineation stemming from the parties he’d sell at on the weekends.
Lexi was at most of them, that guy she’d kissed on New Years – Sam, he’d heard his name was – always standing next to her, his arm slung over her shoulders, his hand on the small of her back, his mouth on hers. It made Fezco fucking annoyed, this pretty mother fucker touching the girl who’d been his only months earlier. But she hadn’t been his, because he’d fumbled the fucking bag and he’d let Lexi Howard slip through his fingers.
He was fucking in love with her, he’d finally admitted that much to himself following that last night they’d shared in the back room of the Dairy, her naked body pressed against his, his blue sweater clutched in her hand as she’d walked out of his store.
He’d done what he’d promised himself he would do; he’d ended things with Lexi before it became too complicated. But he wondered how much good ending things had done him. He was still in love with her, he’d have to be pretty fucking dense to not realize that. He still couldn’t stop thinking about her, even with her out of sight, she wasn’t out of mind. She’d become a perpetual complication, a constant thought in the back of his head that gnawed at him to pay attention to it, a chronic ache in his chest that clouded his mind and obscured his judgment.
Don’t ever fall in love. It’s the one instinct you can’t trust.
He didn’t trust love. He couldn’t trust love. What good had loving someone ever done for him?
He’d loved his mother, and it hadn’t mattered, it hadn’t stopped her from killing herself and leaving him with his piece of shit father.
He’d even loved Paulie, in his own naive sort of way, the way only a child can love a parent, clinging to them, desperate for some modicum of affection even after enduring beating after beating. That love, the love he’d had for Paulie, had been primordial, and it had faded over time, disappearing completely by the time his grandmother had scooped him up out of his father’s strip club.
He loved his grandmother, despite how fucked up she had been. She hadn’t known how to be a parent, hadn’t known how to be a grandparent, but she’d saved him, protected him when no one else had, and shit like that was binding, it was something that he would never be able to repay her for.
Maybe that’s why he’d kept Ash after his grandma had her stroke, some sense of obligation stemming from the loyalty he had for his grandma and his little brother.
‘Family is the most important thing in life, Snowflake,’ his grandma had always said to him. Even while cutting up coke on their dining room table and drinking hard liquor while chain smoking Camel’s, she’d somehow managed to delve out moral benchmarks, teaching him about how crucial it was to love and protect your family while she cooked crack in a coffee pot and washed his baby brother in their kitchen sink.
He’d wondered, as they’d gotten older and life had gotten harder, if he should have done right by Ash, wondered if he should have called CPS after his grandma had her stroke, wondered if it would have given his brother the opportunity to live a life that he himself had never had the chance to live. Maybe if he had, Ash would have been taken in by some nice family, a real family who could have given him all the shit he deserved.
When he’d have these thoughts, when the guilt would start to creep in and wrap itself around his throat, he’d remind himself of how fucked up the foster care system was, how the system and the social workers had let him down over and over again while he was living with Paulie, and he knew that, if nothing else, he could give Ash love, could give him the promise that he’d never hurt him.
He knew, without question, that If he’d been given the chance to do it all over again, he would have done it all the same. Maybe that made him fucking selfish, maybe it made him a bad brother, but he loved Ash too much to let him go. He was his brother, his family, and there was nothing more important in life than your family.
Ash was better off with him, all the drug shit aside, Fezco knew that he could take care of his brother, protect him and love him the way their grandma had.
There were worse things in life than being raised by a drug dealer. Memories of black eyes, cracked ribs, and ring clad fingers striking him across the face would flood his mind every time he thought he wasn’t good enough to be raising Ash, and it would remind him that, no matter how fucked up their lives were, things could always be worse.
Lexi had been a different story. He didn’t have any obligations to her, and she didn’t have any to him, so he’d cut her out, slicing away at the roots that had begun to wrap themselves around his heart before it was too late.
He sometimes wondered what his life could be like if he didn’t sell drugs for a living, if his grandma was still around, and he had the chance to be a normal teenager for five fucking minutes.
He wondered if his and Lexi’s paths still would have crossed. So much of their relationship seemed to be steeped in the shit that came before it; Rue and her addiction, Lexi hanging around his shop for years before they had ever talked, even that night they’d first sat down next to one another on New Years had happened because he was at that party to sell. Ill fated as it all was, his fucked up life seemed to be at the root of them crashing into one another. Maybe that had been the sign all along that any kind of relationship between the two of them wasn’t meant to last.
Life was simpler without love in it. Love the people you have to, he thought, the rest is just a fucking weight around your neck. And in his life, he couldn’t afford to have any extra shit weighing him down.
That’s why he fucked so many chicks he barely knew. There was no commitment involved in one night stands, no broken hearts or hurt feelings. It may not have been the healthiest way to approach his relationships with women, but it worked. Or, at least, it had been working.
The only problem was, he couldn’t seem to get Lexi Howard out of his fucking mind.
He’d almost called her a hundred times after he’d ended things between them, his thumb hovering over her contact name in his phone, her beautiful fucking face staring up at him. He wanted to call her, to tell her that he’d fucked up and that he wanted her back in his life, that he wanted her to be his girl. But he couldn’t, not when he had people like Laurie and Custer and Bruce seeping into every corner of his life. Not when she would become just another weak point, another liability that he’d have to try and keep at the edge of his world.
So instead of calling her, instead of telling her how he really felt, he cut her out. He cut her out, and he sold and he fucked and he smoked.
It had become a normal part of his routine again, finding some girl at whatever party he was selling at. He’d smooth talk her for a little bit, and then he’d drive them back to her place and fuck her until he didn’t have enough energy to think about Lexi. But the not thinking wouldn’t last very long, and he’d usually be halfway through putting his clothes back on – whatever girl he’d gone home with asking if she could see him again – when Lexi’s face would flash through his mind.
-
Things with Sam were consistent, if not completely fucked up and chaotic. Most of the time her relationship with him felt like a losing battle, like something that she had somehow stumbled into and now couldn’t find her way out of. Like a fly caught in a web.
She thought about Fezco almost constantly during the time that she and Sam were together. Everything about their relationship had been intense, every emotion she had felt – anger, sadness, excitement, happiness – had been amplified to the extent that she could hardly think about anything other than Fezco, could hardly think about anything other than how intoxicated she felt in his presence. It was like love on steroids, infatuation in its rawest form, and as frustrated and hurt as Fezco could sometimes make her feel, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about him, couldn’t stop herself from wanting to be around him.
When she and Fezco would fight it was heated, tears and raised voices and slammed doors. And when they’d make up it was passionate, a relief that felt almost euphoric as the pain and the heartbreak would be forgotten. They’d fuck one another like they’d never get another chance to, fingers digging into flesh, swollen lips, Fez pounding into her so hard it would leave her aching between her legs.
Things with Sam were different in almost every conceivable way.
She and Fezco would yell, voices raised as they tried to get their points across, but there was never ire in it, never any fear or malice.
When she and Sam would fight, it was more often than not one sided. Sam would scream at her, back her into corners and walls and accuse her of things she would never even think of doing. And then he’d call her names, terrible names that she’d never even heard her father call her mother during the worst parts of their marriage, and it made her feel hated and unloved in a way she had never experienced before.
Fezco made her feel electric, like every time she was near him the air between them was humming with electricity, anticipation swirling through her belly.
Sam made her feel broken, like all of the parts of her she had always been so insecure about were glaringly obvious, like he hated her for being who she was, hated her for not living up to some idealized unattainable version of a woman he’d created inside of his head
And then, after tearing her down until she felt completely worthless, he’d bombard her with gifts, apologies for things he’d done and for things he’d yet to do, and she hated him more each time the cycle would begin all over again. But more than anything, she hated herself for allowing him to continue treating her the way he did.
She tried to figure out why these two relationships felt so different from one another, when on paper they probably seemed so much alike.
Both men were angry in their own way, consumed with women, or idealized versions of women, that she would never be able to measure up to. Both men didn’t seem to have much use for her beyond fucking her, and although Sam wasn’t shy about being seen with her in public, it was beginning to feel more like he was searching for outside validation than he was actually trying to make her feel special in any kind of way.
She’d tried to talk to her mother about it once, tried to tell her all of the things that were going on between her and Sam, but her mother had just told her that Sam was a nice boy, that men didn’t think things through the same way women did, and that if she didn’t want to be alone for the rest of her life she’d have to figure out how to compromise, how to forgive even if she’d been the one who was wronged. She wondered if that’s what her mother thought about, if that’s what she told herself, when she was drinking alone in their den, thinking of her own failed relationship, and how much she wished she’d compromised when their father was still around.
Things between her and Sam came to a head on a hot Friday in June. There had been a lull in his mood, a prolonged contentment that made her uneasy, because she knew what came next, and she waited with bated breath for Sam’s temper to erupt, for the screaming and the name calling and the accusations she knew were inevitable.
What she hadn’t anticipated was how terrible it would be this time, just how awful and terrifying it would be when the proverbial damn finally broke.
They were in Sam’s room, laying in his bed after just having fucked. The sex had been mediocre – as it usually was – and she hadn’t had an orgasm. She finally understood what her sister had meant when she’d told her that sex was usually never a pleasant experience, that it was something that you did to make your boyfriend happy.
She had done all the things she knew she had to do. She’d moaned and screamed and threw her head back in an attempt to preserve his ego, in the hopes that it wouldn't kick start another fight.
She’d never felt that way with Fezco. He’d always made her come, had been diligent about it, really. He’d always touch her the way she wanted him to, his head buried between her legs, his fingers inside of her, his thumb pressing hard fast circles against her clit. But there was nothing she liked more than when he’d fuck her. He was rough, but not unrelenting. She liked it that way. Her face pressed into his mattress as he’d fuck her from behind. Her knees pushed up to her chest as he’d grind into her. Her legs thrown over his shoulders as he’d pull her body against his roughly.
Sam didn’t do any of those things, and Lexi got the distinct impression that he thought he didn’t need to, or at the very least he didn’t care. She had made the mistake one time of telling him afterwards that she hadn’t come, and he had proceeded to accuse her of sleeping with someone else, calling her a slut and a whore. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
But as they lay in his bed now, Sam sufficiently satisfied, and her very much unsatisfied, she wondered why she was continuing to make allowances for someone who wouldn’t even think to do the same for her.
Lexi stood from the bed, shooting him a tired smile over her shoulder as she grabbed her clothes to redress.
“Where are you going?” he asked, voice uncharacteristically soft as he rolled onto his side and watched her slip her clothes on.
“I have to get over to the school. We have dress rehearsals for the play tonight. I told you, remember?” She spoke gently, timidly, hoping that her words were phrased just so, so that it wouldn’t throw him into a tailspin.
He hummed in confirmation, and Lexi felt her muscles relax, maybe tonight would be a good night. Maybe it wouldn’t end with him screaming at her and accusing her of a host of ridiculous transgressions.
The room was quiet, and she was now almost fully dressed, buttoning up her cardigan and clasping her watch onto her wrist as she walked towards her shoes that were tossed in the corner of the room.
“Is Ethan going to be there?”
Lexi halted in her movements, her chest going tight, and she closed her eyes as she took in a steadying breath.
“Yes,” she said, voice soft and placated, and she hoped her tone would do something to prevent an outburst, to halt the complete and utter meltdown she could feel brewing inside of Sam, even from where she was standing with her back to him.
She jumped when she heard glass shatter behind her, turning quickly and without thought to see what had caused the noise, and she felt fear and dread crawl its way up her throat when she saw the now broken mirror panel of his sliding closet door, her cell phone laying amongst the pile of sharp reflective shards.
He was standing before she even really had time to register what was happening, before her mind was able to piece together the unbelievably quick shift in his mood, and before she knew what was happening, he was lunging at her, his large body closing the distance between them, and everything went black for a second as he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her hard up against his bedroom wall.
She was dazed, her brain moving too quickly as it tried to figure out what was happening, and her hands instinctively reached towards his hand that was wrapped around her throat, pulling desperately at his arm and wrist as she tried and failed to extract him from the grip he had on her.
Her lungs were burning and her eyes were stinging with tears, and as she looked into his eyes, trying desperately to pull air into her lungs, she didn’t even recognize the person who was looking back at her. His dark eyes were cold, devoid of any kind of emotion that wasn’t anger or hate, and this was the most afraid she’d ever felt in his presence.
She knew she was close to passing out, that if he didn’t let go of her throat in the next few seconds she’d be blacking out, and she wondered fleetingly if this was it, if he was going to push too far this time, and she was going to end up dead.
His fingers gripped her throat impossibly tighter, and she scratched at his arm, her fists hitting his chest fruitlessly as she tried to get him to stop, and he slammed her head against the wall one last time before letting go of her.
Lexi dropped to the floor, her muscles void of any strength, and she could hear herself sucking in desperate lungfuls of air, coughing and wheezing, and the sounds felt like they were coming from somebody else, someone who was wounded and imperiled. Someone who was definitely not her.
Sam didn’t give her much time to recover, because then he was grabbing her by the hair, yanking her to her feet painfully, and she heard herself screaming, that same noise that sounded like it was coming from somebody else filling the room.
Lexi had never been hit in the face before, sure she and Cassie had fought, hitting each other once or twice when they were younger, but when she felt Sam’s fist collide with her face, it was disorienting, a pain so unexpected she didn’t know how to process it.
He hit her a few more times, his knuckles making contact with her cheek and mouth, and when she heard a crack, she wasn’t sure if it was her nose breaking or a tooth snapping. All she could smell and taste was metal, warm tears mixing with the hot blood that felt like it was covering her entire face.
He hit her a few more times, his hand gripping her hair so tightly some of it ripped out, and she knew the wind had been knocked out of her when she felt his fist collide with her ribs, the force of it so strong she could hear the crack that accompanied the feeling of her ribs snapping, and then he was letting her go, his hand releasing its grip on her hair, and she was falling to the floor as she tried and failed to pull in a breath.
She had gotten the wind knocked out of her before, once when she was younger, and she and Cassie had gone ice skating together. Her and her sister had slammed into one another while skating in opposite directions, and the impact of that combined with her hitting the ice had taken all of the air out of her lungs.
This – sitting in a heap on her boyfriend's bedroom floor, blood and tears and hair sticking to her face as she gasped for a breath that seemed determined not to come – was much, much worse.
Lexi barely registered anything else after she hit the ground, the only cognisant thought in her mind was that she needed to get out of this room and out of this house and as far away from Sam as she could. She could barely see, her vision blurred by the tears and blood obstructing her eyes, but she could see well enough to register that he had his back turned to her, his voice low and angry as hateful words poured out of his mouth.
She heard him call her a whore, heard him call her a slut, but she was slowly beginning to regain some sense of her bearings, and as soon as she felt like she wasn’t on the edge of passing out, she hauled herself up from the ground, and ran from his room, not bothering to grab her shoes or her shattered phone before all but falling down his stairs and bursting through the front door.
The sun was beginning to set, the sky drenched in bright oranges and reds, but all she could focus on was the road in front of her, the bare soles of her feet hitting the ground as she ran as fast as she could down the quiet street of Sam’s neighborhood. If she had been paying attention to anything other than the five blocks that separated her from where she was now and her home, she would have registered the blood that was dripping onto the sidewalk, little drops of crimson staining the beige slabs of cement underneath her.
She looked back over her shoulder only once, afraid that he might be following her, but his front yard was empty, quiet and desolate and vacant of the person who had just beat the living shit out of her.
She wondered, as she ran barefooted down the street, blood covering her face and dripping down her neck, if there was anyone who could see her right now, if some nosey neighbor had their face pressed to their window, or some unsuspecting passer-by was watching her as she sprinted down the sidewalk. What a stupid thing to wonder after what had just happened to her. She didn’t think she’d want their help even if they were there to offer it, too ashamed and embarrassed to want to be helped by anyone right now.
She wondered – if someone could see her right now – if they would even try to help her at all. If they would want to stop and make sure she was ok. It hadn’t been her experience in life that people often did things out of the kindness of their hearts.
She thought of Fezco, about how he was kind in spite of all of his anger, how he was soft in spite of all of his unrelenting stubbornness, and she hated herself for even thinking about him in this moment. She fucking hated him, wished she had never met him, wished she had never met Sam or gone to either of those dumb fucking New Years Eve parties at Virgil’s house.
She wondered why, if she hated Fezco so much, the thought of him made her feel a little less alone as she continued running down the quickly darkening streets, why the thought of him made her feel less afraid.
She hadn’t stopped crying since Sam had slammed her against his bedroom wall, but she let herself dissolve completely as she got closer and closer to her neighborhood. She held her right side as she cried, a sharp pain shooting through her and her broken ribs shifting with every breath she took and every sob that fell from her.
She thought of a laconic boy, and a blue sweater, and a poorly wrapped joint, and she wished so badly that she could have all of it back. She wished so badly that she had never had any of it in the first place.