BREAKAWAY

Chapter Five - Edited

Sang's POV:

The car ride home was silent, which was a whole lot better than my mother calling me names, but worrying, because she'd never passed up an opportunity to verbally attack me before.

Maybe she's getting better, maybe I was a good girl today, maybe I don't deserve her punishments.

We pulled into the driveway, but my mother didn't get out of the car. I tried to open the door, but she had locked it. I started getting worried. She'd never done this before, so I didn't know how to react.

She turned around to look at me.

"Would you like a shower?" She asked me sweetly. I was shocked, but happy. Maybe she's changing, realising how much she'd hurt me and now she's regretting it.

I nodded with a smile. She smiled back at me.

We got out and she held my hand gently all the way up the garden path and into the house. I felt loved and cared about. It felt really good. I liked it.

She led me to the bathroom, and locked the door behind us.

"I- I can do it myself." I rasped, my throat still painful from her burning concoction. It reminded me not to trust her, and I backed away slowly.

"Don't be silly." She said, still smiling at me, but now I could sense the lies in it. "I'll help you."

I started getting undressed, and I watched her as she pulled a wooden stool out from under the sink and placed it in the shower. I was confused, but now I knew better than to ask.

I stood there in my bra and panties, wringing my hands and shifting nervously on my feet. She turned around to look at me, and grabbed my wrists, pulling my underwear off of me, leaving me standing naked in the middle of the bathroom.

She pulled some zip ties out of her pocket, and tied my hands together, quickly followed by my ankles. I swayed on my feet, trying not to lose my balance, but she yanked me towards the shower, causing me to slip.

I couldn't catch myself as I fell, and pain erupted through my body as I ended up bashing my hip and elbow against the floor, and hitting my head on the wall of the shower. I barely had time to cry out before I was being pulled into the shower and sat on the stool.

My mother stood over me, smirking.

"I saw that boy touch your hair." She said, untying the hairbands and yanking my hair out of the two plaits I'd put it in this morning. "I'm going to wash his fingers off of you."

She finished attacking my hair, and reached up, turning on the shower which cascaded water down over me. For a moment the warm water was bliss, but then she turned the dial all the way to the hottest setting, and I screamed in pain.

The water burned as it ran down my skin. My skin was really pale because I wasn't allowed to go out of the house a lot, so before my eyes it started turning red and blistering. It looked like sunburn, but sunblock wouldn't have helped me.

My mother simply looked at me calmly, turned around, unlocked the door, and left, closing the door behind her.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I can't believe I trusted her for a minute.

I tried to think of other things to distract me from the flames engulfing me, but all I could think about was my dry mouth and empty stomach.

I looked at my hip, unsurprised to see a large, green bruise appearing among the older bruises littering my sides and ribs.

I counted every scar on my body, and then every second in a minute. I counted everything blue I could see, then everything red, then yellow, then green.

My eyes were heavy and I wanted to sleep so badly, but I couldn't relax with the burning pain all over my body.

I counted another minute. There are only 60 seconds in a minute, and only 60 minutes in an hour. Mother will surely let me out after an hour.

I really wished I hadn't let Gabriel touch my hair. Maybe I shouldn't have shaken hands with Mr Blackbourne or Dr Green either. I knew she'd see, and I knew she wouldn't let it go.

The hot water softened the newly formed scabs on my knees, and they fell off, causing the small wounds to start bleeding again.

I counted them.

I focused on the concentrated sting of the cuts from the rice grains.

I counted another minute.

The water went cold. I must have used up all the hot water. It was blissful, cooling my red, irritated skin and making me sigh in relief. I tilted my head back and took a few gulps of the ice cold water, which soothed my still throbbing throat. I was too thirsty to care about being caught.

I quickly realised that my mother wasn't coming back in any time soon, and as an hour turned into two, I was shivering violently from the water which had once felt so amazing.

My teeth were chattering and my limbs were shaking so hard I could barely stay on the stool.

I really hoped my mother hadn't taken her sleep medication yet. If she had, I would be here all night.

I counted another thirty minutes before my mother stormed back in, looking livid. She turned the shower off and cut off the zip ties, pushing me onto the floor where I lay and panted for breath, unable to stand up.

"You bitch." She hissed at me. "You used up all the hot water."

I didn't bother reminding her that she'd tied me up in the shower in the first place. "I'm sorry." I said meekly, clearing my throat and wincing.

She must have accepted that answer, because she left, turning off the light which plunged the room into darkness. My breath caught, and I dragged myself across the landing and into my bedroom, where I dried myself off and put on a jumper and some sweatpants.

I rolled onto my mattress, and remembered the pile of ice hockey clothes still in the corner of the bathroom, but I pushed the thought away. My mother was probably asleep by now, so they would be safe there until the morning.

I rolled over to lay on my unbruised side, pulling the sheets closer around me and tried to stop shivering as my eyes closed of their own accord.

I don't want to be here anymore.