(I Just) Died In Your Arms ~ Stanley Uris

027

Julia's POV

⚠️I'm giving a trigger warning just in case because rape is mentioned and there's a lot of gore. Just fair warning.

My eyes struggled to open, immediately waking up to a splitting headache, my left eye swollen shut. It was hurting everywhere, as if every inch of my body had been pummeled by tons of weight. All the memories from the night before was coming back in bits and pieces, but I knew for certain I wasn't okay.

It was painful just to sit up, one side of my stomach extremely tender to the touch. I looked down my legs, soaked up to my knees was water coming from a broken pipe, and the inner parts of my thighs were cherry red from my own blood. My pants were improperly fastened, as if they were done by someone else. Besides the blood on my pants there was a pool of it a couple feet away from my hand, soaking into the tile and staining it. I was in some sort of state of shock, my hands all jittery and my mind unable to wrap my mind around what happened. The room was spinning, and I had to use the counter as a crutch to limp to the bathroom.

The light flickered on, and I saw myself in the mirror, battered so badly that my left eye couldn't even open, my cheek a purpley red, and my cheeks stained with dried tears. How could I not remember all of this? I touched the back of my head, and found my hair was matted with blood pouring out of a wound hidden in my thick hair.

I turned away from the mirror, fighting back tears as I removed all my clothes in a buddy, jumping in the shower to remove the feeling of my dad's hands the lingered on my skin.

My clothes were covering the deep maroon bruise splotched right under my ribs, directly over my liver should be. If I was in the right state of mind, I would be concerned. But I blinked it away, taking my sponge and scrubbing my skin until it became red; it almost felt no matter how much I tried his touch would be there, how my innocence was stripped of me at the mere age of thirteen.

They weren't kidding when they said being a teenager sucks.

There wasn't one inch where my body was unscathed. So you would think, logically, I should be on my way to the police station and getting a rape kit done to prove my dad's guilt, but all that was on my mind was that I didn't want to have another absence on my record.

I flipped my hair over, washing the blood out and watched the water turn a brown pink color, disgusted by my own blood. All the blood, all the touch went down the drain, but the memories were still there fresh in my mind. The pain was still there.

I started to cry, defeated tears rolling down my cheeks. The one thing I've been avoiding my whole life had just happened to me, and it felt as if the world was ending all over again. It was my fault though, I didn't try hard enough, but I still wished I wasn't this lonely.

I cupped a hand over my mouth, forcing back the loud broken sobs, just in case my dad was roaming somewhere in the apartment. I felt so disgusting, more disgusted with myself than usually. My skin crawled and I repeatedly asked myself what I did to deserve a hell like this, to be tortured and abused like this.

Screaming seemed like all I could do, but with the nosy neighbors I couldn't do so, so I resorted to pulling at my hair to get the dried blood out.

I wanted to lock myself in the shower, to never leave this household, but I had to go to school eventually. I stepped outside, chills ringing over my damaged body, wrapping a towel around me so I couldn't see it any longer.

I changed into some new clothes, into underwear that wasn't splattered with blood. After putting on tight jeans and a baggy hoodie that hid most of my frame, I tended to my face, tying my hair in a way you wouldn't see most of my purple cheek and lifting my hood over my head so nobody would ask questions.