Hopelessly Falling [book 2]

Chapter Forty-Two

XLII
• • •

Crystal's POV ***

[flashback] *

I woke up the heaviest I'd ever felt in my life. My head was pounding so hard that it felt like it was going to burst, and my lungs barely had the strength to move enough to bring in air. It felt like a 1000 pound weight had been placed directly on top of me. My eyelids finally lifted open, and after a few moments of blinking to clear my vision, I saw that I was in the back of my car in my driveway.

Everything in my body was aching beyond belief, and the palm of my hand was burning. I finally mustered the strength to sit up and look at it, remembering that I had cut my hand when I was drunk in my bathroom. I swore as I took in how infected the blood-covered wound already was.

And then I took in all of the bruises that lined my body, remembering where I got them, and why I felt so mortifyingly violated. I couldn't stop coughing, my throat painfully soar and scraped up as a few tears slipped out of my eyes.

'You're so drunk you won't even remember this,' he had told me.

He was wrong.

I remembered all of it. Even after I blacked out, I for some reason remembered the sensations of everything he did to me. Everything. There weren't quite any words to describe how gross and just dead I felt. The memories flashed into my mind aggressively, and I sobbed.

He was mad that he hadn't succeeded a year ago. That was probably why he had used me for so long tonight. And then he must have driven here and put me in my car after he was done.

The sun was just rising, and it took all of the remaining strength I had in me to carry my shell of a body out of my car and into my house. No one was awake yet. I finally made it to my bathroom, and immediately started throwing up.

It must have been a few hours later that I stopped shaking enough to pick myself up from the floor and slug over to my closet, tears streaming down my face. I grabbed the three-quarters-full bottle of vodka and clambered into my shower fully clothed, turning on the shower and sinking down onto the floor, my tears mixing with the warm water.

As I laid there sobbing, I chugged the burning liquid for as long as I could with each swig, intending on finishing the entirety of the large bottle... and not particularly caring if I ended up dying from it. I was out cold again in no time.

[end of flashback] *

It was my breathing I felt first, a shaky rising and falling of my chest. And then it was the beeping of monitors. Then, I felt a few things that were attached to my arms, and then the bed that I was in. After a few minutes, I finally cracked open my eyes, squinting as much as could at the insanely bright lights above me.

I could only move my eyes as I finally regained my full vision and looked around the hospital room, the subtle ringing in my ears finally subsiding. My already swollen eyes teared up as I looked over and saw Ashton and my mom asleep on two chairs. She was resting against him as though he had been comforting her as she fell asleep. My heart squeezed at her disheveled appearance.

My body seized up as a painful cough sounded from my throat, and I winced at the burning sensation it caused. Ashton flinched awake at this, and his eyes widened when he saw that I was awake. He quickly shifted my mom off of him so that she was resting on the back of her chair before standing up and coming over to me. I was still pretty out of it, but I looked back up at him with sad eyes. I guess a part of me had hoped I died so that this moment wouldn't have to happen.