to Rome when he wanted to drag me to a party. Forcing that distance from Carter, I learned to have fun without him.
But there were still those times… Times where he’d be wrapped up in a girl physically, but he’d be staring at me from across the room. His attention would solely be focused on me, and I’d see something brimming in his magnificent eyes that was far from friendly.
He would never act on it, though. Our friendship was important to him in a way he would never divulge with me.
I was simply a boundary he would not trespass.
I did my best to forget my first kiss with him, did my best to move on from him, and when it got hard some nights, I drowned in a sea of literature to dull the ache.
Carter
If I kept her at arm’s length, I would never hurt her.
Seven
Winter of 2007
18 years old
“Leah.”
Gasping, I whipped my eyes open in the dark and shuffled away from the hand shaking my arm, hoping to God it wasn’t him again. But as the seconds passed, I blinked away my exhaustion and stared at Carter’s comforting face. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in his leather jacket that was drenched in the rain I could hear blasting through the opened window.
For a second, I was terrified of the noise level. I jerked my face in the direction of the door, half-expecting Russell or somebody else to come bursting through it. My heart lurched at the thought and my stomach swam with nausea.
“You can’t be here,” I whispered hysterically. “You have to get out of here, Carter, before anyone sees you.”
“He’s asleep, Leah,” he immediately reassured me, leaning over the bed to rest a hand on my shaken body. “Your Aunt’s stopped for the night. They’re both passed out from all that booze. Calm down, I made sure he wasn’t awake.”
I slumped my shoulders. I’d been living in hell for the last two months. Russell and Cheryl had hit a massive bump in their relationship. She’d completely gone off the reservoir, deciding she wasn’t going to whore herself half as much as she had all these years. She claimed her body couldn’t handle any more of it, which was fair enough in my opinion. They fought a lot about it, and Russell had threatened to stop her drug supply, but she was eerily calm about it. Even after he knocked her around a few times, leaving her bruised and suffering from withdrawal, she stuck to her guns and refused to do as she was told. As a result, their income was suffering.
Russell copped a lot of bad flack for this. Men lined themselves up for a go at Cheryl, and some waited inside. I had to keep myself shut inside my room. Even when I was desperate to pee, I wouldn’t dare step foot out there. But that didn’t seem to make me as invisible as I longed to be. One man in particular was snoopier than the rest, and when I woke up to a large figure hovering over my bed, I nearly peed right then and there. If it hadn’t been for Russell catching him at the nick of time, I dread to think what he would have done.
The argument that ensued after that was branded inside my memories forever. As soon as the scary man told the rest there was another girl – “one of age” – in the room, they started hounding Russell for a go at me.
I thought Cheryl would protect me. She hated doing what she did. Surely she didn’t want to witness her niece subjected to the same thing. She had told me herself to never become her. Which is why I hated her more than anything when she didn’t say a word. Not that she’d ever given two shits about me, but I thought there was some kind of goddamn comradery there, especially in regards to what a complete dick Russell was and how disgusting the idea was to use me – that she wouldn’t put me through the hell she had gone through all these years.
But no. Such courtesy was not extended to me. I wasn’t fortunate enough to be a passing thought in that coke whore’s head, and I was absolutely livid by it all. All these years
But there were still those times… Times where he’d be wrapped up in a girl physically, but he’d be staring at me from across the room. His attention would solely be focused on me, and I’d see something brimming in his magnificent eyes that was far from friendly.
He would never act on it, though. Our friendship was important to him in a way he would never divulge with me.
I was simply a boundary he would not trespass.
I did my best to forget my first kiss with him, did my best to move on from him, and when it got hard some nights, I drowned in a sea of literature to dull the ache.
Carter
If I kept her at arm’s length, I would never hurt her.
Seven
Winter of 2007
18 years old
“Leah.”
Gasping, I whipped my eyes open in the dark and shuffled away from the hand shaking my arm, hoping to God it wasn’t him again. But as the seconds passed, I blinked away my exhaustion and stared at Carter’s comforting face. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in his leather jacket that was drenched in the rain I could hear blasting through the opened window.
For a second, I was terrified of the noise level. I jerked my face in the direction of the door, half-expecting Russell or somebody else to come bursting through it. My heart lurched at the thought and my stomach swam with nausea.
“You can’t be here,” I whispered hysterically. “You have to get out of here, Carter, before anyone sees you.”
“He’s asleep, Leah,” he immediately reassured me, leaning over the bed to rest a hand on my shaken body. “Your Aunt’s stopped for the night. They’re both passed out from all that booze. Calm down, I made sure he wasn’t awake.”
I slumped my shoulders. I’d been living in hell for the last two months. Russell and Cheryl had hit a massive bump in their relationship. She’d completely gone off the reservoir, deciding she wasn’t going to whore herself half as much as she had all these years. She claimed her body couldn’t handle any more of it, which was fair enough in my opinion. They fought a lot about it, and Russell had threatened to stop her drug supply, but she was eerily calm about it. Even after he knocked her around a few times, leaving her bruised and suffering from withdrawal, she stuck to her guns and refused to do as she was told. As a result, their income was suffering.
Russell copped a lot of bad flack for this. Men lined themselves up for a go at Cheryl, and some waited inside. I had to keep myself shut inside my room. Even when I was desperate to pee, I wouldn’t dare step foot out there. But that didn’t seem to make me as invisible as I longed to be. One man in particular was snoopier than the rest, and when I woke up to a large figure hovering over my bed, I nearly peed right then and there. If it hadn’t been for Russell catching him at the nick of time, I dread to think what he would have done.
The argument that ensued after that was branded inside my memories forever. As soon as the scary man told the rest there was another girl – “one of age” – in the room, they started hounding Russell for a go at me.
I thought Cheryl would protect me. She hated doing what she did. Surely she didn’t want to witness her niece subjected to the same thing. She had told me herself to never become her. Which is why I hated her more than anything when she didn’t say a word. Not that she’d ever given two shits about me, but I thought there was some kind of goddamn comradery there, especially in regards to what a complete dick Russell was and how disgusting the idea was to use me – that she wouldn’t put me through the hell she had gone through all these years.
But no. Such courtesy was not extended to me. I wasn’t fortunate enough to be a passing thought in that coke whore’s head, and I was absolutely livid by it all. All these years
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