My Happy Ending

Chapter 58

Thump, thump, thump.

I wanted to groan but the sound got caught in my throat. My breathing was shallow and choppy so I tried to take a deep breath. Yet, I felt too exhausted to inhale.

That was when I realized that I couldn’t move a single muscle of my body. I tried to move my arm, but I remain unwillingly immobile. It tried something smaller, like wriggling my finger. I felt my hand jerk to the side and I realized I could smile in accomplishment. The smile slowly faded as the pain registered.

Thump, thump, thump.

The sound was like a bass drum pounding right beside my ear. My head seemed to ache more and more as I slowly regained control of more parts of my body.

I inched my leg a little to the right, or what I thought was right. It was hard to tell directions while my head spun. I squeezed my eyes and willed myself to freeze again to make the pain go away.

I heard something knock onto the ground and crash loudly, which didn’t do much to help. I wanted to open my eyes to see what made the sound, but the pain only made me squeeze my eyes tighter.

I turned my head to the side and sighed in relief when something cool was pressed against my cheek. The pain subsided slightly and I savored the feel. Soon, the surface began to lose its coolness and began to heat to my body temperature.

I groaned as the pain grew again and seemed to have gotten worse.

“Amber!” Noah’s voice called and I wondered if it was only my imagination. Noah wouldn’t be… Where was I? What happened?

I vaguely remembered going to school, feeling like hell, and then being rejected by Noah. Then Alice drove me home and then I came up with a blank. What happened when I got home?

“Amber!” Noah called again and I forced myself to open my eyes.

Bright light made me want to shut my eyes again, but I squinted through it. Once my eyes had adjusted, I opened my eyes fully.

I was still at home. I was lying on the floor in the living room and the couch was calling out for me to lie down for just a few minutes…

I forced myself to look away and my eyes immediately snapped to where Noah was on the ground beating the crap out of some man. I gasped as the man shot up and landed a strong punch into Noah’s face.

Noah slid back a few feet and the man angled towards him, giving me a glimpse of his face.

I let out a blood-curling terrified scream that you hear in horror movies. Both pairs of eyes snapped to me, Noah’s filled with concern and my father’s filled with anger. I flinched away from him and froze in terror when he took a step towards me.

He didn’t get very far as Noah tackled him to the ground only a second later. Noah slammed his already bloody fist into my father’s face. Noah pulled back his hand and winced and my father took the opportunity to take the advantage and land a couple punches.

“Stop!” I screamed. I got up, ignoring the soaring pain, and tried to pull him off Noah. He only shoved me backwards and into the wall. I cried out as my already pounding head slammed into the hard wall.

I shut my eyes and tried to block out both my painful headache and the sound of fists hitting flesh. A couple seconds later the punches seemed to have stopped but I still didn’t open my eyes.

A warm hand cupped my face, but I didn’t flinch away from it so I knew it was Noah. I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes, even though I really wanted to stare into his eyes and have him tell me everything would be okay.