8. WORST

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

THE MORNING I WOKE UP, I was tangled up in Alex's arms—one arm around my waist and the other around my shoulders. My back was hurting form the fetal position I was put in while Alex laid down on his back comfortably with my head resting on his chest as we slept.

As I was rubbing my eyes, Alex inhaled sharply, an indication that he was waking up. When I looked up, I watched his eyes open slowly, those amber colored eyes glinting as we stared at each other.

"What time is it?" He asked, his voice low and deep from being still half-asleep.

Pulling out my phone from my back pocket, which I forgot to place on the table, I switched it on, seeing the time. "Ten-thirty in the morning."

His brows knitted together. "Do you want me to drive you to school?"

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed, a text from an unknown number.

You know that I don't like you sleeping over with a boy, Amelia.

This was seriously getting out of hand and there couldn't be any reason for me to be afraid because... this is a prank. It would be impossible for the dead to rise back into life.

"What?" Alex's brows creased. "What is it?"

Shaking my head, I deleted the message and placed the phone back in my pocket. "Nothing. Someone's obviously pranking me; probably at school who thinks I get scared easily." Before he could ask what the text said, I sat up and faced him, "Did I wake you up in the middle of the night?"

For everyone, their dreams are either good or bad; but, for me, I always get nightmares—picturing everything the shitty things that has happened and the things that I never want to happen. Sometimes they repeat with the same outcomes, sometimes it gets worse.

There had been times that I either wake up from screaming, crying, or being woken up but there are times wherein I don't remember being woken up. That's why I'd rather not sleep knowing that I'll just be haunted by nightmares and I'll end up worrying mom and Sean about what I'm dreaming about.

Nodding, he pulled himself up and grabbed my arm, pulling me to his chest. "I tried to get you to move to the bed and you kept yelling not to be touched so I just stayed here with you. I was going to try it again when you weren't having the bad dream anymore but I fell asleep."

I was dreaming about my father.

It was when I was seven years old. He had told me to get him a beer and I obliged, successfully not tripping on the way to him until I did when I was giving it to him and the contents spilled onto his clothes. Needless to say, he got angry and pulled me up to the stairs with his hand on my hair. I remember feeling the burns that I got from the cement and the carpet, and then, being thrown back to the door of my room, my head hitting first.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital with nurses telling me to be careful next time when running around the house.

"Sorry about that," I whispered to his chest, but it only came out muffled.

I felt his lips on top of my head. "It's alright. You know that I'm always going to be here for you even if you don't want me to."

We stayed like that for a while. I listened to him breathe, heard his heartbeat going fast, and felt his fingers running through my hair. Something inside me felt that this was wrong and yet, I couldn't move. I had missed this—being in his arms and feeling like we were own in our bubble.

But that had burst a long time ago.

Pulling myself away from him, we gazed at each other.

"Sam, I—" he moved forward but I had already stood up to stop him from doing something that I knew we would regret.

"I need to get to school," I announced rather loudly, breaking the growing tension between us.

He pointed at the door to his bedroom. "You still have some clothes on my drawer. I'll drive you."

Giving him a smile, I went inside his room. It still smelled like his cleaning detergent that had a huge sign on it saying GREEN APPLES, combined with the intoxicating smell of cologne.

I closed my eyes.

The bed was sinking beside me, and when I opened my eyes, there he was—Alex, only in his boxer briefs, on top of me with his elbows propped up between my head. He gave me that cheeky smile of his as he leaned down and gave me a peck on the lips.

Small drops of water were dripping on my cheek and I realized that he had just gone out of the shower. "Mhm," I pushed him back, gazing into his eyes. "You need to take care of that mess of a hair."

He rolled his eyes, ignoring me and just bringing down his lips on me again and again, with his smile wide in between our kisses.

After enjoying a few more, I ducked down and stood up from the bed. "I'm going to shower."

"Do you want me to take you to school, today?" He cocked a brow.

I shrugged. "Is that even a question. Of course, I want you to."

Then, he dropped me off blocks away from the premises, away from prying eyes that might hold suspicion.

There was a knock on the door. "Hey, Sam, you okay?"

"Yes," my voice broke.

* * * *

"WHERE WERE YOU?"

I turned to a very furious Travis Mason yelling at me in the middle of the hallway, catching everyone's attention as he took long strides towards me.

My brows furrowed as I whispered to him, "Watch your fucking tone. I'm still mad at you."

He scoffed, pulling out his phone and showing me a picture. "I think the privilege of you getting mad at me got revoked when you decided to sleep in some guy's place!"

It was Alex and I cuddled up together on the couch. The angle to where it was taken suggested that it was from the window.

What the hell?

Everyone had surrounded us, watching us with their phones and widened eyes. On the front row of it all was his friends with the same disappointed look while Christi, Hailey, and Bailey beside them were all smirking at me like I was a mouse caught in a cage.

But I wasn't in a cage and I wasn't going to be treated like some circus freak that was watched while the master poked me with the sharp end of the metal stick.

So, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him away, and walked to the room that served as my panic room when I got cornered by Christi and her friends.

Crossing my arms, I grabbed his phone and deleted the picture. "Okay, let's establish a rule to never ever yell at me in front of the entire school, you got that?"

He rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't have to fucking yell at you if you acted decent."

He did not just say that. "You're a fucking asshole," I spat, pushing him back, causing him to hit the wall behind him.

"I was always an asshole, sweetheart," he winked and smirked, like the sadistic asshole he was. "I was just apologizing to you not because I felt bad because I knew that if I tried to act nice, maybe I could get into your pants."

The pit of my stomach dropped. What did I expect from a guy like Travis Mason? Yes, I wasn't accepting his apologies and maybe that was the best thing I could have done. If I didn't, it wouldn't show his true colors. I knew that he was a jerk and I was so stupid to think that he would just change in a day.

Never expect anything from anyone, right?

He must've noticed how I was taken aback by his statement because somehow, the anger on his eyes disappeared and it was replaced with something else—something that I knew not to know because none of it mattered at all.

"Sam—" Before he could step forward, I stepped back.

Shrugging, I couldn't help but let out a humorless laugh. "Let's make a deal. Let's not poke into one another's business. Instead, let's just act like the perfect couple for everyone until you're satisfied enough to stop blackmailing me. Good? Good."

As I opened the door, I'm greeted by my brother who was passing by. His eyes widened as he saw me. "Hey, I heard Travis was yelling at you. What happened?"

Shaking my head, I pointed at him behind me. "You talk to him and explain why I was at Alex's last night."

I shouldn't have gone to school today. I should have stayed at home and took care of mom.


My butt was already hurting from just sitting on the steps that had been bathing under the sun for a couple hours now but I didn't care. I needed some fresh air, and going out the back door was an easy access to go to.

I was starting to hate everything that was happening to me—the blackmail, the continued abuse from my father, the sickness that still followed my mother, the conflicted feelings that I had, whether I liked it or not, with Travis, and the haunting messages and hallucinations that I was having.

Everything was complicated and I wanted it all to stop.

"My, my, what do we have here?"

I looked up seeing Christi with three of the guys from the football team. I believed their names were James, Shawn, and Derek.

The girl between them grinned and nodded towards me. "What are you waiting for? Grab her and start teaching her a lesson not to mess with me."

They simultaneously grabbed my arms before I could even throw the first punch. They threw me back on the ground, my back hitting first on the hard cement.

"Beating up a girl," I muttered, pushing myself up. "and a senior, much less. You better hope I get fucking amnesia after this because I'm going to bring hell down on you three when I get back up."

"Shut the fuck up!" James was the first to land a blow on my ribs using his foot.

Derek soon followed by pulling me up and giving me a hard slap on my face, and then, Shawn who threw me back down on the cement so much that I ended up feeling my shoulder pop out of its socket.

Before I could scream, James covered my mouth, with his free hand around my neck, strangling me and then letting me go.

"You shut up!" My father slapped me again.

Shawn stepped on my hand and I felt my fingers moving from different places. Still, James' hands were around my neck and lips.

"I told you not to move!" He hissed, pulling his belt from his waist. "Turn the fuck around."

I couldn't remember how long they were torturing me. All I did remember was spitting out blood, feeling the pain everywhere, and hearing Christi's high pitched cackle from behind, encouraging them to do more until she was satisfied and told me to leave me when she thought that I had lost consciousness.

Could it get any worse than this?

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net