T O X I C | ORIGINAL

03

I woke up with an empty spot beside me. I reached over to feel the wrinkled sheets, meaning he slept here last night and not on the couch. I smiled in relief, but soon I felt the uncomfortable ache on my cheek and slight pain all over my body, making the smile fades away a little bit.

I headed to the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror and slid off my silk robe down my shoulder. I gasped faintly from what I saw on the mirror; God, I was bruised here and there all across my body.

It must'd been from the fight that we had a week ago. He lost control but as usual, it was all my fault. I forgot to pick up his laundry and I'd known he had couple of drinks that night. That night ended with yelling, arguing, calling each other with names and finally with the usual blacks and blues. . .

I put on some proper clothes to hide the bruises much better then after that I headed out to the kitchen.

"Good morning," His morning voice came from the living room, with smoke from his deadly shaft of cigarettes blown away onto the air.

"Hey," I wrapped my arms around him from behind and kissed his temple gently. "Don't you think it's too early?" I tried to take the half-done shaft from between his index finger and his middle finger but he held my hand and stopped me for doing that.

"I've tried," He retorted annoyingly. "Don't worry, this might be the last one for today," He was trying to cut off his smoking addiction but the effort was not working quite good.

"Promise?" He nodded then brought my hand to his soft lips, and he kissed it really softly.

"Promise,"

"Okay, so what you wanna eat for breakfast?" I asked.

"You?" He grinned and looked up to me, earning a playful eyes-rolling and head shaking.

***

I was folding our freshly washed clothes when my phone started to ring. I half running to grabbed the phone from the coffee table outside our room and I immediately picked up the call without noticing the caller I.D.

"Hello,"

"Hey, sissy," I sighed and instantly felt stupid for picking up the phone. It was Claire, my older sister.

"What do you want?" I asked bitterly, not because I didn't get along with her; trust me we had the best sisters bond ever, but it because she could get very nosy about my private life, especially about me and Elliot.

"I'm outside, can you open the door?" Fuck. My breath was hitched for a second. No, no, no, she couldn't see me like this.

"What? What are you doing here?" I walked fast to the bathroom, checking out my nasty bruises on my face.

"Why? I have rights to meet my little sister," I groaned in frustration mixed with annoyance.

"Fine. Hold on," I gave up. But first, I put on Elliot's hoodie which was way too big for me and I covered my head with the hood, trying my best to hide the bruise.

I hesitantly unlocked and opened the door for her. "Hey!" She exclaimed and instantly wrapping her arms around me. "Goodness, you're getting thinner and thinner every time we met, Chanti. Are you sick?" She pulled away from the hug.

"No, I'm fine," I lied. I wasn't fine at all; physically I was beyond okay, but mentally, I was dying.

"You know you can always tell me about everything, right?" I nodded. "Good. Now, where's your smoking hot boyfriend?" I rolled my eyes at her and left her on the doorstep.

"Seriously?" I headed to the kitchen. I heard her giggle and followed me to the kitchen.

"What? He is hot," I shook my head.

"Yeah sure," I shrugged and put the glass of water in front of her while she was sitting on the stool. "So how are you?"

She shook her head, "No, sweetie, the question is; how are you?" She asked. "And why are you hiding under the hood?"

"I'm good, Claire. Trust me, I'm totally fine," Lies.

"Hold on, is that a bruise?" She completely ignored my answer. "Chanti, remove the hood now," She demanded sternly.

I froze, didn't know what to do. "I'm fine, Claire," Instead, I threw another lie right onto her face.

"Then remove the goddamn hood, right now," I reached the top of my head and slowly but surely, I really did remove the hood. "Oh my God," She gasped, shutting her mouth with her hand.

"Claire, it's n-nothing," I tried to calm her down. "I swear, I fell down couple days ago,"

"What happened to you, Chantel?" She had tears already brimmed on her eyes. "Please don't tell me that you're fine cause clearly you're not," She shook her head.

I looked down completely defenseless as my throat was completely dry, even though I really wanted to tell her the truth.

"Claire, I'm—"

"Did he hurt you, Chanti?"