Scars: Book One

by West, Sinden

  When we finally pulled into my town, nothing had changed. I stood there for a moment, and people walked around me. I had no idea where to go or what to do now. But I started walking, and my feet took me to Finn’s house. As I passed Mara’s mother’s house, it looked deserted, and a For Sale sign stood in the front yard. I swallowed and kept walking past it.

  No one was home at Finn’s house, so I just sat on the front steps and waited. He turned up at dusk just when I was getting cold. He was busy staring at his phone and laughing at something when he pulled his truck into the driveway. He was still laughing as he rounded the truck and headed for the front door. When he saw me, the laugh dropped from his lips.

  “Holy shit, Paige. Where have you been?” He collapsed down beside me and pulled me into his arms. “I mean, I know where you’ve been, but why haven’t you called or anything?”

  “You know where I’ve been?” I asked numbly.

  He pulled back. “Sure. Your Mom said your grandfather had died, and you were keeping your grandmother company. Honestly, your Mom only told us that when Merida got worried and told her she was going to the police. I know why you think she’s such a bitch now.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “Come on, I’m starving.”

  I sat at the kitchen counter while he made us turkey sandwiches and filled me in on all the gossip. I barely responded to him; I didn’t have to as he whirled around the kitchen piling our plates high and talking about shit that I didn’t care about.

  “What’s with the bag?” he asked with a mouthful of food. “You wanna crash here? My Mom’s gone to Vegas with her new boyfriend.”

  I smiled my thanks and ate my food slowly. We spent the evening watching TV and before bed he disappeared into the bathroom to shower. I grabbed one of his t-shirts out of his drawers and pulled it over me to sleep in. His phone buzzed, and I walked over to his bed on which it lay and picked it up.

  Melody’s name flashed across the screen. I read her texts, or sexts might be the better word. I was still looking at them when Finn walked in with a towel around his waist. He peered over my shoulder to see what I was looking at.

  He sighed and took the phone from me. “I’m sorry, Paige. I am.”

  “Are you going out with her now?”

  He sat down on the bed with his head hanging down. “Yeah. I guess I am. I was mad at you for not contacting me, and we used to always fight anyway…”

  I sat beside him and took his hand, squeezing it. He looked at me in surprise. “You were sleeping with her behind my back weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I was. Fuck. You must hate me now.”

  I squeezed his hand again. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. We’re still friends, right?”

  He sighed in relief, a big smile on his face. “Of course we are. You’re the coolest girl I know. I can’t believe you’re being so okay with this. I feel like an asshole.”

  I shook my head at him. “It doesn’t matter. I had some…stuff happen that put things into perspective.”

  He looked at me with concern. “You want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. “No. Can you just hold me for a little bit.”

  He pulled me down with him onto the bed and held me as I cried. I knew he was a little freaked but to his credit, he didn’t let me go until I fell asleep.

  The next morning, I learned, was a Saturday. I headed to my mother’s house, not even sure what I was going to say. Her door was unlocked, and I walked right in. She sat at her computer and looked up in surprise as I walked into the kitchen.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her as I sat in the chair opposite. “I’ll give you three fucking guesses, Mom. One, I’ve been the guest of a certain prison pen pal of yours. Two, I’ve been fucked, degraded and humiliated in every way possible. Three–“

  “Stop. Just stop. Please.” She shoved her chair back and headed to the cupboard, pulling out a bottle of bourbon. She poured some into two glasses before returning to the table and pushing one in front of me. I downed mine, welcoming the burn, and she did the same.

  Her forehead wrinkled. “What happened?” she asked nervously.

  “They grabbed me off the street the day after you kicked me out. He fucking hated me and made sure I knew it. But don’t worry, no one’s coming after you. I made sure of that.”

  She clutched her glass with white knuckles. “I thought we could still get some money out of him without putting you at risk. Fuck. I’m sorry. I just hated to think of all that time we wasted on him for nothing.”

  I got up and poured another drink for us and spent the rest of the morning filling her in on what had happened. I didn’t tell her everything though. At the end of it, her face was white, and she clutched my hand.

  “Move back in. I’m sorry I kicked you out. I told the school you were on bereavement leave so I think they’ll be good at about it.” She was genuine; I could tell, and I nodded in agreement.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  My boss yelled at me for the second time that day. This was becoming a habit in the month that I’d been home. Merida had sweet talked him into giving me my job back after my disappearance, but I was still in his bad books. It wasn’t just his temperament though; it was me. I was a lot jumpier than I used to be, spilling and breaking things. Before I wouldn’t have cared about that kind of thing, I would have just rolled my eyes at him or talked back. But now all I could do was mutter “sorry” and carry on. Secretly, I thought the asshole liked me being more compliant like this than before.

  I swept up the broken plate, and Merida whispered at my shoulder, “Don’t look now.”

  Finn and Melody came in, hand in hand. They always seemed to come in during my shift, and I knew that was Melody’s doing. She just wanted to rub it in my face. Finn on the other hand, in all his naivety, thought that I was fine with seeing them together since we were friends, and I was cool and blah, blah, blah. He was sweet, that boy, just not that bright.

  He waved enthusiastically at me like there was any way I could miss him because they were sitting right in my section. I waved back before putting the broom and dust pan away. I forced a smile and walked over to them.

  “Hey, guys,” I said brightly.

  “Hi, Paige,” Melody said tightly.

  “Hey, babe, how’s it going?” Finn said with the cheeriness of someone who was getting lots of sex on a regular basis; which he was now that he wasn’t with me. He didn’t hug me hello, which had become his habit since my bout of crying on my first night back, and I guessed Melody had read him the riot act on that. I couldn’t see them lasting; Finn didn’t like being told what to do.

  Finn ordered a sundae, and Melody a diet coke. I managed to get their orders to them without breaking anything as I had last week. I’d really wanted to smack that smug look off that bitch’s face when she laughed, but I was on thin ice with my job as it was. I needed to keep working and having some kind of money, even if it was a pittance. All was good between Mom and me for the first week I was back. Todd had been working on a job out of town, and his face dropped the moment he learned I had moved back in. He only spoke to me if I spoke to him first, which I didn’t do because my mother kept shooting untrusting looks in our direction if she came across us together. Who knew when she’d try and kick me out again? I stayed away from home as much as possible. A lot of that time was spent at the library catching up on the school work that I’d missed or going to parties that Merida dragged me too. I liked being distracted. It stopped me thinking about things too much.

  Things like the way Melody had her tongue in Finn’s ear as I was putting a coffee down in front of the man that sat at the table next to theirs. My eyes were so transfixed on their actions that I didn’t notice that the table was an inch away from where I released the coffee. It banged on the table, and the contents spilled quickly over onto the man’s lap. He jolted to his feet, brushing angrily at his pants.

  “You stupid, bitch!”

 
“I-I’m sorry.” I offered my cloth to him, and he ripped it out of my hand and started dabbing at where he’d been soaked.

  “You better be sorry, you stupid whore,” he sneered, throwing the cloth back at me. I caught it and crouched down, starting to wipe at the mess on the floor. “Are you fucking retarded or something?”

  I heard laughter, and I knew it was Melody. I felt myself flush and felt tears prick at my eyes.

  “Shut up, asshole,” I heard Finn say from where he lounged with an arm around Melody’s shoulder. “Give her a break, you fat prick.”

  “Screw you, kid,” the man replied, before storming past me and out the door. My eyes followed him and then I looked at Finn and was about to thank him, when I saw Melody sit upright.

  “Oh my god, Finn. She’s not your girlfriend anymore. You don’t have to stand up for her!” She got to her feet and headed out the door. Finn watched her go and sighed, before getting to his feet to follow. But before he did, he crouched down beside me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, grateful for his concern.

  “You sure? Because it’s not like you to cry about things.”

  “I’m just having a bad day,” I mumbled. “You should go after her.” I stood up and so did he.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I better. Call me later if you want to talk, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I watched him go before Merida came over, armed with a mop. “Let me do this. You’ve got a customer anyway. Don’t worry, the boss didn’t see.” She gave me a reassuring squeeze on my arm before getting to work.

  I turned to the booth where the new customer sat with his back to me, trying to blink away the tears. I plastered a smile on my face. “What can I get you?”

  My smile froze then dropped as my eyes rose to look at him. Aaron stared back with those same predatory eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked softly, wanting to pinch myself because I wasn’t sure that this was even real.

  “I had some business in the area and thought I’d check in on you. Lucky I did, it seems like you’re having a pretty crappy day.”

  I stood there, staring at him. Finally, he motioned with his head to the seat opposite him. “Have a seat.”

  I did, without even thinking about it, and my heart beat wildly. “I kept my mouth shut,” I said desperately.

  He reached over and took my hand. “Relax, Rachel. I knew you would. Calm down.”

  I leaned back in my seat, watching him warily. Before either of us could say anything else, my boss came over, looking pissed off. “What are you doing, Paige? You’ve got customers waiting.”

  Aaron looked him over before speaking. “She’s on a break. She’s allowed a break, isn’t she?”

  My boss’s attention turned to him, ready to say something. But I guess he caught the look on Aaron’s face, or something, because he looked unsettled. “Sure.”

  Aaron smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile, it was more of an ‘I’ll-fucking-eat-you-up-little-boy smile.’

  “Good. Why don’t you run along and get a couple of coffee’s then.”

  And my boss did, to my amazement. Maybe I was so used to Aaron’s ways, that I’d forgotten the fear that he could evoke.

  “You can’t be like that to my boss. You’ll get me fired. I need this job,” I hissed over the table to him.

  He looked around him, not looking particularly impressed. “No one needs this job,” he said distastefully.

  “I do,” I said, slightly affronted. “I have to look after myself. I need this money. You don’t have to ruin everything in my life, you know.”

  He played with the menu in front of him. “Relax. I’m not ruining anything for you. And if I wanted to, I’d leave you working in this shithole just to ruin you. Nice customers you’ve got, by the way. They make you cry every day?”

  I looked him straight in the eye. “Only you do that.”

  He smirked at me and leaned forward. “I could get back at that guy for you if you wanted me to.”

  I leaned forward as well. “Careful, your psychopathy’s showing and we’re in public.”

  His smirk turned into a grin. “I’ll be more careful in future. Come on, let’s go.”

  I frowned. “No. Where? I mean, no. I’m working.”

  “You look like shit and you’re upset. You can’t work like that. I’ll sort out your boss for you, wait here.”

  I watched wide-eyed as he headed to where my boss was making coffee. He flashed a wicked grin and to my amazement my boss started looking flustered and giggled. Was Aaron flirting with the guy? It didn’t seem possible. It was less than a minute of conversation before he returned. “Let’s go,” he said to me.

  I stood and removed my apron as he waited before slowly moving with him to the door. I saw Merida watching me, puzzled yet grinning, a million questions in her eyes. Aaron had a different car this time, and I paused as he got in the driver’s side. “Don’t worry. I won’t bite,” he called to me. I took a breath and opened the car door.

  He drove to a motel on the outskirts of town. It was a rundown place that catered to drunks often due to the seedy bar across the road. I followed cautiously as he opened the door to his room. I looked around at the outdated décor, feeling Aaron’s eyes on me.

  “It’s not the farmhouse, but it’ll do for tonight,” he said, closing the door behind us.

  I turned to look at him. “Why are we here?”

  He shrugged and laydown on the bed, his arms folded behind his head. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing. Sit down.”

  I perched on the edge of the bed.

  Aaron sighed. “Seriously? Get over here.”

  I crawled up to sit beside him, and he smirked. “That’s better. So, how’s your mother?”

  I glared at him. “Are you going after her now? That’s not fair.”

  “Nothing’s ever fair, Rachel. You should know that by now. But don’t worry, it was just a question. There’s no hidden meaning behind it.”

  “Then why are you really here?” I look down at where he lay. His arm shot out and pulled me closer, so I was lying down as well and pressed against his body. He started to touch my face gently, sweeping hair out of my eyes.

  “I was bored. I thought you could be a distraction for me.”

  I scowled at him. “If you want to fuck me, just say. Don’t play games.”

  He pulled me over so I lay on top of him, a look of amusement on his face. “Do you want to fuck me, Rachel? Be honest. Our situation is far more equal here. You don’t have to feel that you need to seduce me to stay alive.”

  I tried to pull away, but he held me firm. “It’s not quite that black and white though, is it?” I told him.

  He let me go, and I rolled off him into a sitting position annoyed at the smile on his face. “I guess not. But this is just between you and me. You can do what you want. No one’s judging what you do. Hell, I’ll even kiss you since you like it so much.”

  And with that, he sat up and placed his hand on the back of my neck pulling me gently toward him. He kissed me slowly so I couldn’t help but kiss back. The rest of the day was spent like that, naked in bed, fucking and sleeping. At one stage food was brought to the door, and we only ate part of it before screwing again. After that, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

  I woke up in the morning to see Aaron coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He started to get dressed. “You can stay in the room until ten. I’ve got to take off.”

  I nodded silently. Fully dressed, he finished shoving his stuff into a bag. Before he headed out the door, he turned to me. “I’ll see you ‘round Rachel.” I didn’t answer, and he looked at me thoughtfully. “I really broke you, didn’t I?”

  And then he was gone out the door, his last words spinning around in my head. It was only then that I noticed what was on the pillow beside me.

  A few hundred dollar notes.

  He’d paid me like a whore. My mouth twiste
d as I fought against crying, but I didn’t succeed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I did the natural thing when I got home from the motel.

  I slept with Todd again.

  Because it seemed the right thing to do.

  It was only fair to screw with others’ lives the way everyone screwed with mine. All the emotional turmoil from the morning had morphed into ice cold calculation. My every move was rational and motivated by cruelty.

  I got to Todd when he was drunk, and my mother was out. To his credit he tried to say no at first, but once my hot mouth was wrapped around his dick, he threw all caution to the wind. My mother found us on that shitty floral couch as I rode Todd. As she stood in the doorway with keys in hand and her mouth pinched, I slowly slid him out of me.

  His eyes snapped open. “What are you doing? Don’t stop,” he whined before he saw what I was staring at. “Oh, fuck,” he breathed.

  I walked past my mother to my bedroom. My bag was already packed, so I just slung it over my shoulder and left the house without another word. It was midnight by the time I reached the bus stop, and I waited there until dawn came and jumped on the first bus to the nearest city.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Four Months Later

  Thomas was the closest thing to a friend I had. We both waited tables at a shitty diner serving shitty food. Thomas always brightened my day by his sarcastic, quick-witted commentary. It was because of this that I first thought he was gay, and this was the reason I allowed him to befriend me in the first place.

  He was a few years older than me, but I must have weighed more than him. He was of slim build and seemed to be void of body hair. This was another reason I bought into the stereotype of him being gay. So it surprised me to learn he had a female lover. She sent him texts and whatever he was doing he would drop it and jump at her every command.

  But that Saturday, he was hanging out with me in the park as people around us did energetic, outdoorsy stuff. We just lay on the grass recovering from hangovers and shielding our eyes from the painful sun. My phone buzzed, and he grabbed it before me.