Innocent Torture

5|fear

E B O N Y

"What is this feeling in my chest? It makes me want to crawl on my knees, and beg for the mercy of whomever is causing this to please, make it stop." - Jackie

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I danced until my lungs couldn't take the deprivation of oxygen anymore as they painfully ached, and with every step I took it was a shaky walk.

I got back to the house 'early' so that a repeat of what happened the night before wasn't what I was met with as I stepped back into the house, and to my luck, Gale wasn't even there.

He didn't come in that night and waking up early in the morning, I didn't hear his snores as I made my way out of the house with a water bottle and apple in hand.

Something felt extremely odd today, and it wasn't just the fact that my throat was now healing with an itchy feel to it. But it was the time of day it was; It felt different.

As I walked down the street, and the school came into view, that's when I noticed the ultimate change.

There weren't busses outside loading off people. And the normal groups of people who gossiped about anything and everything, weren't outside.

My worst fears arose then, and as my breathing faltered when I practically fell up the stairs and pulled open the blue school doors, that's when I saw that the halls were empty, and the janitor was now sweeping the hallways with his large broom type mop thing, and I felt the air quickly flush out of my lungs. Like I had been hit by one of Gales punches.

My head began to spin, as I thought about how Gale will end up hitting me tonight when I got back to that house and he finds out about my tardy.

I gripped the wall as I tried to steady myself, and I pushed myself as my eyes began to blur and I felt cold lockers underneath my hands as I kept pushing myself to the bathroom atleast.

But then my knees began to buckle as a sob left my system, and before I could hit the floor, I was caught in someone's arms.

They didn't say anything as they pulled me up and into their chest, and as I tried to control my sobs, and my hard breathing I couldn't as this mysterious person just pulled me through the halls, and into somewhere that I knew deeply of.

It was my hiding spot.

As my sobs turned into soft sniffles, I pulled away from this mystery guy and look down at my feet as I wiped my face with my sleeves.

"Why are you crying?" The voice sounded familiar as I glanced up at Jackson, and gulped away the tears the best I could.

"I-Its nothing-"

"Your knees buckled underneath you. You were breathing like you'd just been punched in the gut, and by that evident bruise on your shoulder I know it's not just because your clumsy and ran into a wall." His words shocked me as I just glanced at him, knowing he somehow remembered.

"Your really confusing you know that? You save me, some random guy on the street who busts into your studio or whatever the fuck it is. And then when offered a reward for doing so, you decline. Then you come into this hell hole of a building the next day looking and acting like you'd just been beaten the night before." He noticed what he said right after he said it, and he swallowed and sighed to himself as I felt a pang of hurt in my chest.