Save Me

Chapter 3: RUNAWAY

JAMES SANTORO

AVA ONASSIS

*trigger warning*

Ava:

After that incident, I started finding any way to distract myself from the pain in my heart.

I began picking fights at school so I could get hit and feel anything.

I would yell at my aunt so that she could punish me by hitting me with a belt.

I once willingly let myself fall from a play structure because I saw a woman playing with her child wishing my mother was still with me. The pain in my chest growing, I let myself fall backwards, everyone gasping at the impact to my head.

No matter what, however, the sorrow never lifted.

Eventually, when I turned 18, I left my aunts house. She was now married with a child and she wanted to be free of me as a burden.

I left not knowing where I was going or what awaited me.

I began living in homeless shelters, not having money for clothes, I would wear whatever was donated. Once wearing shorts so baggy, they fell right off me in the middle of the street.

I would never forget the absolute feeling of embarrassment. I felt more and more like the useless parasite my father described. But I turned to my biggest refuge...

Cutting.

I would use reusable shavers that the shelter provided to cut myself. Burning the sides with a lighter and melting the plastic, finally, letting the blades go free. I never felt anymore in control of my pain than I did when I cut. It felt good.

The stinging. The pain whenever it was rubbed against or my clothes would stick to it.

That was until one fateful night, the night that would've been my mothers 47th birthday.

I didn't want to keep remembering that my mother was no longer by my side. So I asked my friend Toby to come with me to go steal a bottle of alcohol.

"Yes! Let's go!" He said, grabbing me from my hand and rushing to the liquor store in the corner.

The stocky build store clerk eyed us under his thick eyebrows as he read a newspaper. We entered, probably noticing that we were dirty and had baggy clothes.

He eyed us as we entered the small corner store and scanned the aisle until we noticed a huge bottle of Smirnoff Vodka.

Toby smiled over me, his 5'9'' frame still towering over my 5'2'' frame. His blue eyes showed a twinkle of mischief under his blonde curly hair that was obvious it had grown out because it covered his left eyebrow. I smiled back at him, still holding hands. He looked up at the clerk, grabbed the bottle and ran out of the small store still dragging me with him.

I looked behind me as we ran out the door. The store clerk was yelling behind us finally getting up from his chair,

"Hey! I'm calling the cops you fucking hoodlums!"

Toby didn't stop running and only laughed at his words. It was obvious he had done this before. I, on the other hand, never have even attempted it.

We finally stop catching our breaths in the middle of an alleyway, the busy streets buzzing around us in a dark Chicago night. We caught our breaths and we sat on the floor, back against a huge dumpster.

"That was fun. I forgot how much of a rush doing that gives you." Toby said while laughing and opening the huge bottle.

I gave him a silent smile. Still feeling uneasy about what we'd just done.

"I don't know something just doesn't feel right." I look down, my hands were sweating.

"Just drink and you'll feel fine. I promise" he said as he took a long swig of the drink.

He made a disgusted face and then wiped his mouth and handed me the bottle.

I downed the liquid as I felt the burning sensation that trickled down my throat and chest. I instantly felt hot as I finished gulping the liquid. I coughed not realizing I had drank a lot.

Toby looked at me wide eyed, "Damn Ava! Slow down, we haven't eaten much for days so this will probably hit you a lot quicker than you think." He took another swig quickly.

I grabbed the bottle from him still not forgetting the sorrow I felt about today's date and took another long burning sip. I looked and I had more than a third of the bottle finished.

Toby and I went back and forth until we were both drunk out of our minds. We finished the bottle and I got up. Stumbling and finally feeling numb to the pain that was forever in my chest when I remembered my mother.

Toby followed suit and grabbed me by the waist. I didn't react to his contact, I was way too drunk. My head felt like it was heavy and my mind felt like everything was in blurry slow motion. Toby began kissing me down my neck and down to my chest, never letting go of my waist.

As he pulled my baggy cardigan off my body, I could feel my head going blank and my legs starting to give out, I dry heaved as he looked up and talked but I couldn't hear what he said. I fell to my knees while he still held my waist. The concrete surely scraping them with how hard I hit them. He shook me with a worried expression on his face.

I let myself fall to the floor, my body no longer mine and I started feeling bile rise up in my throat. I turned my head to let the bile out freely and once it did I couldn't breathe because the dry heaving wouldn't stop. I felt as if though the world around me was going dark.

Toby stood up and yelled to me but I couldn't comprehend what he was telling me,

"Hold.....Ava....Oh...Help!"

He ran towards the street.

Darkness.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital room with an IV and wraps around my wrists.

I felt as though my mind and vision was cloudy, I looked around me seeing all the monitors and the white and cream colored room. I tried to move my hand but something was over my left hand. I look to see a man in a doctors coat sleeping with his head over his left arm and his right hand on top of mine.

As I began to move more, he stirred awake, running a hand threw his dark brown hair that was shorter on the sides and longer on top. He yawned, then turned to look at me with the most beautiful blue eyes that stared directly into my pained soul and somehow made me forget how to breathe.

"Hi, I'm Doctor Santoro, But you can call me James"

Damn. My ovaries.