Saving Her

Chapter One: Hayes

"I just don't think this is working out anymore. I'm sorry." I say without any kind of remorse or emotion in my voice. He walks towards me with fire behind his eyes, grabs my shoulders and shakes me just a little too hard for my liking.

"Whatever you stupid bitch, you're not even putting out anyways, thats why ive been cheating on you for this long. God I don't even know why I've stayed with you this long, other than the fact that you're easy to toss around, and get my frustration out."

"Okay, great, so are we good then?" I ask, wanting to get out of the danger zone as soon as I possibly can. I start to walk away, but he comes at me again. Matt backhands me across the face, surely leaving a mark, grabs me by the top of my throat, and screams down into my face, " No wonder your daddy hits you, you don't even care about anyone but yourself, you don't put out, pitch in with any of the chores, hell, you don't even blow me anymore. Why the hell would I stay with you? "

I love how in all of this, he's made it out like he's breaking up with me and not the other way around, like I'm not the one who, not even five minutes ago said it was over. He tightens his grip on my neck and pulls me towards him. Matt takes a deep breath, blows it out past my face, and lets go, slightly shoving me back and away from him as he does. I'm sure the jab to the ribs earlier reopened my stitches but I ignore that for now. I stumbled only a little as I start heading towards the door, I get to the exit, think about looking back and hesitate. Only for a moment, and then keep walking out into the day.

It's packed, just like it is every evening at five pm at Helton's Best, the shitty little grocery store on the outskirts of town where I work two or three days a week in between classes. The store isn't large by any standard, just big enough to count for a food source in this tiny college area. Every afternoon, between the afternoon and night classes, the store is flooded with students and teachers alike. I'm behind the counter of the courtesy desk, hiding away and waiting for the new manager to bring the tills back to be counted.

I'm about to go find him, when the prettiest girl I have ever seen, IN MY LIFE, walks in and heads down the drink aisle. Is she new here? How have I never seen her around? I ask myself. I immediately dial Beckett's number, freaking out a little the more and more rings it takes him to answer. "Stop fucking Hadlee and answer your goddamn phone, im having a crisis over here!" I say when he doesn't pick up. She briefly emerges from the lane, only to disappear down the one next to it. What is with those shoooorts? The way they seem to stick to her every curve, the t-shirt just fitting enough to show the suggestion of her wonderful figure.

There's something different about the way she moves, gracefully yet slightly with a limp? There's a bruise on her cheek, and one of those smaller, funny looking band aids on her upper cheekbone. I start to come up with all these little ways that could have happened to her, when suddenly my phone rings, effectively pulling me out of my daze. I looked over and down to see that it was Beckett calling me back.

"Hello?" I ask

"Hey babe, what's going on? Are you okay? What's the crisis?" he asks frantically as the line picks up the call.

"The hottest girl I have ever seen is here, in the store, oh my fucking god."

"Oh, I thought you were going to say something actually crisis-like. That's like, nothing, you've got this." he says, trying to be reassuring.

"Okay, just because your girlfriend looks like she's a runaway Victoria's secret model, doesn't mean that i'm fine, it just means that you're hot and she was bothered. It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it was basically love at first sight, or anything of that nature I'm sure."

"No, of course not." he says sarcastically, throwing my sass right back at me. I'm just about to respond when the new manager walks back in with the deli till.

I slam my phone down onto the counter, just in time, he misses the phone in my hand, and shakes his head slightly at me, like i'm a weirdo or something. By the time we finished the last few tills i'm positive that the pretty girl had left, and that it was alright to leave the safety of the desk. I finished putting the tills away for the night and hopped on a register to finish out the last few hours of my shift. I'd just gotten logged on when the girl from earlier came back through the front doors.

To my surprise, there's blood trickling down her cheek, not a lot but enough to notice. She starts to walk over to me, i'm the only one with an open till but no customers, and asks, "Hey, i'm really sorry to bother you, but can you help me with something?" There's a lot of things running through my head that I'm sure I could help her with but I'm sure none of them are actually what she meant.

"Yeah? What's up?" I ask shakely. Wow, way to act cool Hayes. Come on get it together, you've talked to beautiful girls before.

"Can you help me find the first-aid things? I thought I had some in my car, I always have stuff in my car for when these things happen. I guess I must have used the last of it on the last fi- time." she says, also shakely. I wonder if she's nervous, or just shaken up because of whatever happened to her face. What if someone hit her? She obviously isn't going to tell me, she doesn't even know my name, but it's not like i don't know a thing or two about those kinds of things. Not that she knows that about me.

" Of course right this way, it's just down here."

When I get off, it's time to head back to the crappy house down the street where I'll sneak in quickly, grab a box of cheez-its from the pantry, run into my room and lock the door. I'll quickly shower and have a snack before promptly passing the hell out for a few short hours before my morning classes begin and my day starts all over again.