Right Through Me

T H I R T Y F I V E

I should have never shown up there. I must've been crazy, out of my mind. Donovan was being too unclear, too confusing. I was tired of all these misunderstandings. I just wanted to be away, to get away from him.

I shoved him away, removing my lips from his and looking away from him, my stomach tingling from the short contact we had together. I was fuming, I was more than angry, I was absolutely furious. He reached out and grabbed me again, pulling me towards him but the last thing I wanted him to do right now was kiss me again. 

I pushed him away from me again, slapping him directly across the face to get him to realize that I was no longer in the kissing mood. The hallway went deathly silent, the sound of my hand colliding with his cheek echoed throughout the hallway and both of us remained completely still for a moment.

"You asshole!" I finally screeched, tears streaming down my face. He didn't look up at me, he kept his head turned to the side, focusing on the wall beside us. "I don't understand you...I don't get it!"

My voice resonated off the walls and we were soon welcomed with silence again, Donovan still didn't look at me. He kept his direction towards the wall still, ashamed, I bet.

"I told you how I felt, I told you I loved you!" I screamed, more and more tears running down my cheeks and dripping down my chin. "You haven't made anything clear. You let me leave, you didn't stop me, so why are you trying to do it now? Why now?!"

He was dead silent. His mouth never opened and his face never changed expressions. 

"Tell me for real, Donovan," I said, my voice lowering and cracking. "What do you feel for me?"

That caught his attention. He slowly turned his head towards me, his eyes meeting mine. He looked ashamed, confused even. I could see he was fighting an internal battle.

"What do you want me to say, Lina?" he finally asked, shutting out all emotions from his face and looking at me blankly, calmly. "Do you want me to make your fantasy come true and tell you I love you and then take you off into Wonder-World? Grow up. You're so desperate I had to do something."

There it was. His words hit me harder than anything ever before. I could feel my heart slowly begin to break and then shatter. I swallowed back the lump in my throat, choking out a sob and stepping back from him, away from him, as if his words could possibly kill me. My hand shot up to my mouth to cover the sobs threatening to escape. I shook my head, not believing it and I could see regret flash through his eyes.

"That's it?" I choked out, continuing to step away from him. He took steps forward, reaching out to me, his face finally showing sympathy and true regret. "I'm just desperate?"

"Lina, wait--" he began but I turned away from him and dashed down the hall, crying so much I could hardly see where I was going. I left the house in a hurry, running out of the massive neighborhood and hauling a cab as quickly as I could.

I couldn't breathe. My lungs burned from the running and I hiccuped constantly from the sobbing. My chest hurt, ached, and my heart cried out to me but I was too devastated. 

Why didn't I just stay the hell away? I should've moved on. Why did I have to come back?

I knew better. I knew better than to come running back. I found any excuse, any reason, to try and come back when I should've just stayed away. Of all people I had to fall for, why did it have to be Donovan Ander? Why must it have been him?

After about fifteen minutes I finally calmed myself down but I still hiccuped and my nose was stuffy and plugged. 

"You should've stayed away." I looked up through the glass barrier, staring at the driver who looked at me through the rearview mirror. 

I stared at him confused.

How the hell did he know?

That's when I noticed it, the tattoo under his eye and on his right arm, he was apart of the Japanese Gang, or what was left of it. I stared horrified at the man, scooting all the way back and reaching over the open the car door; locked.

"My brothers are all dead, because of one stupid bitch," he said, his voice laced with Japanese accent. "You stuck your nose into our business and now--" he began, breaking out into a horrific cackle. "Now, there's only a few of us left. All of us so bored we started betting who would be able to kill you first."

I went from being heartbroken to being extremely terrified. I struggled with the door, trying to unlock it but it was jammed. I was panicking, I could hardly breathe anymore. 

"I don't even care about the money anymore," he said, his face growing serious. "My younger brother was killed because of you. Shot dead like nothing. I just want to kill us both, so I can be with my brother and you can be with your whore-of-a-mother."

I screamed frantically, pulling at the door-handle and breaking out in a frantic cry.

"Let me go!" I screeched, my heart pounding and thumping so hard in my chest. "Please, I didn't do it!"

"You did!" he screamed back, causing me to freeze in my spot. He accelerating and now, we were going a dangerous speed. "What the fuck was so important about you? Why the fuck did my brothers have to die because of some weak little girl?"

Everything was going in slow motion now. I watched him pound on the wheel, screaming and shouting but I could no longer piece together what he was saying. I stared straight ahead, so horrified as we continued to go faster and faster, a semi coming up in the lane beside us, coming the opposite direction.

I pulled my phone out of my bag, my fingers dialing whatever number they wished. I held the phone up to my ear, watching as everything still continued to go in slow-motion. 

You know that saying, "my life flashed before my eyes"? That was happening to me, right now. But it wasn't my life, per se. It was my friends; Leslie, Mia, Amanda, Diane, their faces flashed and small memories of them came. Donovan took up the entirety of that, every moment we shared together flashed before my eyes and right when the driver turned the wheel hard and the car was ready to tip over, right in front of the semi, the person on the other end of the phone answered.

In that split second I screamed out only one word.

"Donovan!"