One of the Bullied | ✔

Chapter 34 - Crying Out

I purse my lips, but then think better. He has to realise I'm not giving in to him. At all. "You should be glad I'm even giving you a chance." I say curtly.

"I am glad." He looks up at me.

"You know, I actually trusted Rita. I suspected that the person wasn't actually called Rita, and I also suspected it was a guy. To be honest, I thought it was a prank, but then they started proving to me that it wasn't a prank."

He doesn't say anything, but I see him clenching and unclenching his fists. He suddenly sighs and runs a hand through his hair. I've seen him do that so often.

"It was very difficult for me to accept that it wasn't a prank." I say, tilting my head back a little, trying to find the right words to express my feelings. "I think you can understand that better than anyone."

"I do." He answers quietly.

"And I felt hopeful for the first time in years. I actually felt like there was someone I could talk to, and there was someone who talk to me without setting a hand on me physically, or retching if I even opened my mouth."

He'd opened his mouth to say something, but when I say the retching he closes it. Even if he claims to never have hit or kicked me, he knows he's done all kinds of other horrible things.

"And you wouldn't understand how nice it felt." I say, a tear squeezing its way past my cheek. I keep my eyes straight on the window, rather than looking at him. I prop my elbows on my knees, leaning forward. He puts a hand gently on the small of my back. I don't move to shake it off.

To be honest, I don't have the energy.

"But then I found out it's you, and then it's like everything change again. I don't trust you, and I think you can perfectly understand why." I sniff as another tear runs down my cheek. "It's like I've lost my last chance."

I sigh.

"Rita was like... A window for me, right. And now. Now it's you. I don't trust you or anything that you do, and it just feels like that window's closed now and there's officially no escape. I don't see how you can be a solution to anything."

"But what I want to do is to give you a chance." He says a moment later. "We can find a way to stop everything."

"Yeah, right." I say. "You're more concerned about your reputation than anything else."

"How do you know that?"

"I'd say I know you pretty well."

"You know one side of me pretty well." He counters.

"How do I know how many more sides there are?" I ask, raising my voice. "How do I know a single thing you're doing is in earnest, or a single thing that comes out of your trap is true?"

He sighs. "You don't have to." He answers. "But I promise you will believe me, sooner or later."

"To me, that just sounds like a threat." I say.

"I didn't mean it to be a threat." He says weakly.

"Maybe it's just because it's the only thing you've ever said to me." I spit. "Threats."

"We all make mistakes!" He exclaims.

"You can't justify a mistake you made during four years!" I exclaim back, starting to get seriously angry with him. How dare he? "It's my decision to be here right now, and it's not because of anything you've done, okay?"

"Do you want me to take you home?"

"I can take myself home." I answer, getting up and storming out of the room in a mixture of confusion and complete, blind, fury. I make it downstairs before I feel a hand on my shoulder and he pulls me into him again.