Safe With You

16. Why Didn't You Tell Me?

The extremely bright sun shines through my window shedding light on the floor and on my face about near blinding me. I turn over and smile seeing my best friend waking up next to me.

"Hey." I whisper. I reach out to touch her shoulder when I realize its not a shadow, its a bruise. Every time I've seen her she's had on sweaters and she wouldn't let me see. Now she has a t-shirt and shorts on, I can really see what he was doing to her. "Aly, wake up." I go to touch her arm but theres hand prints all over them too. Tears welled up in my eyes at the thought of her hurting this bad. I knew there were bruises, but this? It went way too far and I should've seen it. "Aly." I lightly touch her arm and wake her up.

She sits up and gasps, her whole body starts shaking and she almost starts screaming.

"ALY! Aly, its fine. Shhhh, I'm right here, you're safe. Shhhh." I stroke her hair and notice there are chunks where it's shorter than others making it clear he pulled her hair so hard that it ripped out.

"Hunter!" She clutched onto me and cried harder than I've ever seen before.

"I'm right here." I say and rub circles on her back.

"He knows. He knows that you know. H- he's gonna come here and hurt me." My heart shatters onto the floor in a million pieces.

"I promise, I won't let him hurt you ever again." I kiss her shoulder and wrap her in a hug.

"Ah!" She winced in pain and I quickly let go.

"Aly, tell me where it hurts."

She looks at me in confusion. "Are you kidding me? Everything hurts!" We both look at each other for a second while she was still trying to catch her breath. "Everything." Her voice turns into a whisper. She slowly lifts up her shirt just below her bra and all I see all the marks that he left on her.

"Aly," I lightly brush my hand on her skin and cover my mouth with my other hand. "Oh my God." She sits up and rips off her shirt. I sit up with her and I see her back. It's a mess. All I want is for her not to feel any of this pain anymore. Her whole back is three colors, none of which are her natural skin color. It's black, blue, purple and I little bit of green here and there. "He dropped me onto the floor when he was carrying me."

I shake my head in disbelief. How could someone do this to a human being and be okay with it? "Aly, why didn't you tell me it was this bad?"

"I'm sorry." She says letting her head fall in her hands.

"Stop apologizing." I say shaking my head again, still looking at her.

"Well, what am I supposed to say?"

"Just answer the question. Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?" I get up and crawl in front of her as her hands fall in her lap.

"I was afraid you'd not want to talk to me anymore, and even if you did you'd say I told you so."

A deep sigh escapes through my nose, she knows me too well. I hate myself for making her think that and I hate myself even more because I know thats exactly what I would've done.  "I'm sorry for making you think that." I grab her hand and she looks up at me as I smile. "You're so beautiful." I whisper.

She looks down and blushes. "How could you even say that when I look like this?" She says it like she's joking, but I can tell deep down she meant the question whole heartedly.

I shake my head and shrug. "You're always beautiful, to me." I whisper. As I crawl back to my warm spot of the bed, she gets on her hands and knees and crawls over into my lap. I lean against the headboard and turn on some music. "I have a question." I mumble. She looks up at me and smiles.

"Yeah?" She bites her bottom lip and it makes me want to grab her face and kiss her right there.

I take a deep breath. "Do you feel safe here?" She sits up and turns her face just inches from mine.

"There is no place in this world that I feel safer, than with you." She takes her hand that she just got the cast off of and strokes the side of my head with her freezing fingers, never losing eye contact. Her blue and brown eyes study mine, her eyes could cure cancer I swear. They're so deep and intense, you can get lost in them for hours, days. Before I can blink her lips are glued to mine and it doesn't even seem real.

"Hunter," she says pulling back after a few seconds.

"Whats wrong?" I ask and take her hand, rubbing her fingers with my thumb.

"I have to go back and get my stuff. I don't have anything here."

"No, you don't need to go back,"

"Hunter yes I do-"

"we're going to go back." I say with a smile on my face. She slowly smiles then jumps and wraps her arms around me.

"Thank you." She says letting out a sigh of relief and resting her head on my chest.

"Don't mention it."

"You're such a dork." She laughs sitting back up and hitting me.

"Whatever. Hey," I whisper. "go get a shower and so we can get this over with."

She stands up and before she walks away, she turns around, leans down and kisses me again.