scream. It’s okay, it will all be over soon.”
I think I hear a voice by my ear, but I know it’s just in my head. It’s a voice that used to always soothe me, but now it just makes me want to weep. This voice doesn’t tell me how much it loves me anymore or how much my friendship means; it tells me how much it hates, how much it resents, and how much it wants me to suffer. All of my good memories of this voice have been replaced by the bad that happened here in this room.
I know I’m going to pass out again soon. My vision is swimming. Spots flash before my eyes as I struggle to remain conscious. I’m cold, so cold. I’ve lost a lot of blood. Blood I can’t afford to lose because of my condition. I can taste it in my mouth, feel it on the side of my face, and see it dripping onto the floor next to my head in a puddle. My body shivers and my teeth chatter so hard I think they might crack.
Flashbacks of the past few months run through my mind like someone flipping the pages of a book, and my heart shatters at the memories. I should have seen what was happening. I should have listened to Brady from the beginning when he tried to warn me about Finn, but everything about him scared me. The force of what I felt for Brady shouldn’t have been so strong so quickly. He had my heart and my soul from the very first touch, the very first moment. But he didn’t want it. He didn’t want any of it. I trusted too quickly, gave my heart away too easily.
Trusting someone is what got me into this mess. I trusted the wrong person, and now I’m going to pay for it with my life. Someone who should have been there for me and protected me…it was all a lie from the very beginning. Finn never cared about me. Deep down I knew it, I’d always known it. Every time I finished a performance and got off the stage with the crowd screaming and cheering for me, Finn would try to look happy, but looking back, I see now that his happiness was forced. He was jealous. He had always been jealous. I just never wanted to believe the hatred ran that deep.
I let the darkness wash over me, knowing it’s the only way the pain will go away. Ray, Billy, whatever the hell his name is got down on his knees between my legs after he punched me earlier, and as I floated in and out of consciousness, there wasn’t any fight left in me to stop him from tying me to the pole with the rope Finn secured or unbuckling his pants. The only thing holding me together right now is the fact that something stopped him from ruining me any further. Something caused him to scramble off of me quickly, and I remember watching him through the tiny slits in my eyes. His hands were in the air, and he was arguing with someone. I don’t know who it was, and I don’t care since they didn’t bother to save me. Billy isn’t here anymore but I am. I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere.
I can smell smoke now. It’s all around me, burning my nose and clawing at my throat. I’m handcuffed and tied to a pole in the basement of a room that I’m pretty sure is burning.
Closing my eyes, I think back over the last nine years and wonder about all of the things I should have done differently, the choices I made that have led me to where I am now. If I had never let my mother control me, never succumbed to the undeniable connection I had to Finn…if we hadn’t experienced that initial pull towards each other that I now know was something more than friendship—it was blood—maybe things wouldn’t be ending this way.
I hear shouts and the pounding of footsteps in the distance, but I can’t force my eyes open no matter how hard I try. Billy and Finn are probably just coming back to finish the job, not satisfied with how much they have already broken me, how much they have already taken from me.
Maybe if I had realized sooner, listened earlier, put away my pride and the belief that deep down everyone has some good in them,