Blue || Cedar Hills Academy #1

Sex, Drugs, Etc.

TW: Mention of SA, mention of divorce, and mention of assault + alcohol addiction

(This is a very short chapter but get ready for the next)

Emerie 

The New Year is supposed to launch a new beginning but for me it brought nothing but dread.

It is officially 2003, and I'm officially dreading winter break being over. Once break is over and school starts up, my vacation ends. I go back to being the sixteen year old girl who gets assaulted every day.

Girls or guys.

Morning or evening.

One (and one of my only) best friends, Vicky, blows up my friend by spam-texting me.

"Happy New Year!!" The texts read. She follows up the text with a bunch of bottle-popping emojis.

I send a smile emoji because I don't have the effort in me to wish her a happy New Year as well.

Tomorrow, I'm going back to Cedar Hills Academy and I won't look back for seven hours. Seven hours of pure, never-ending torture.

The worst part of getting assaulted is you never know that you've been assaulted until after the fact. You know especially when you can't shake the feeling of their hands off– and not in a good way.

You might take a shower that day and wash your hair and body as you normally do. But you find yourself scrubbing at your body harder than usual– scrubbing until your skin turns an ugly red and you have to stop yourself before you actually do any real harm.

Being assaulted is like riding a wild horse– you start off confident at first, then as soon as it happens, you start to become selfish: you wish it would happen to anyone but you.

It started one day when I was seven years old. My parents had a few work friends over for dinner, but other than that, there weren't a lot of people over. A man, my father's best friend, had walked over to me and asked me if I had ever kissed a boy. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next.

"Em, honey, you alright?" My mom's voice brings me out of my daze. I put on a small smile. "Of course." I reply. Why wouldn't I be?

I see the hint of worry in her eyes but the both of us knew she couldn't do anything. Some kids get abused by their parents, or one of their parents. I got assaulted by my own father.

I walk out of the room, feeling the familiar yet uncomfortable invisible hand tightening on my throat. I struggle to breathe as I stumble out of the room and into the front yard. Once I'm outside and away from the crowd, a tear slips down my cheek.

"Emerie?"

What the actual fuck is Maverick doing here?

Theo Maverick, better known as Maverick (or Mav) is one of the most popular hockey players in Chester, England, and has also never talked to me nor acknowledged my existence so up until now I didn't know he knew I existed.

"What are you doing here?" I snap.

"My parents are friends with your parents." He says simply just as I wince. Right. His father is the man who first assaulted me when I was seven, and I'm ninety-five percent sure Maverick has no idea about it.

"Ah, right." I clear my throat a bit awkwardly.

I think I can hear crickets.

Maverick clears his throat a bit awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'm going to get going..."

"Alright. 'Night."

"Night"? Someone kill me now. 

I'm not a big fan of the sports crew, (never have been,) yet there's a few I can tolerate. Maverick is one of them. Chris, or Christian, is another one, but he's a bit on the man-whore side. 

"Yo, Emerie!" 

Speaking of the devil.

I routinely plaster a smile on my face, turning to Chris. "Hi Chris." 

He frowns, his smile lines deepening. Chris looked much older than he was and he acted much younger than he was except for bottle of vodka he had in his hand 24/7. 

"Want a drink?" He holds the bottle towards me expectantly. 

"I don't drink." 

"Pfft, boring." He sways a bit, putting a hand in his pocket. 

"What are you doing here anyways?" I didn't mean to sound rude but a bit of harshness seeped into my voice. 

"I'm stayin' with Theo's folks for a bit." He smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes.

Chris and I aren't exactly best friends, but I'm closer with him than anyone. His parents are going through a divorce and are constantly fighting. Because of this, he drinks his way through it, which is slowly deteriorating his reputation as hockey captain. 

"Ah. Would you like to get a water with me?" Not that I want to drink anything at the moment, but whatever can help to keep his mind off of his "situation". 

"Okay." 

And that was that. 

Author's Note:

Credits go to Binding 13 for the inspiration!! Thank you to my mom and L.F. for inspiring some of the characters <3