Breaking Free

by Ellie Rose

  I am tired of being afraid.

  I am tired of fearing him.

  I am tired of being controlled by him like a puppet.

  I hear the screeching of tires outside and bolt off my bed to the window. I push aside the curtain just in time to see the tailgate of a truck speeding away.

  Chapter 20: Present

  Monday morning comes faster than I like.

  I check the still noticeable bruises on my neck before leaving. I hid them from my parents by staying in my room most of Sunday, and if I left my room, I made sure to have my hair around my shoulders.

  I grab another turtleneck from my closet and slip it over my head, then head downstairs to wait for Anna and Seth. The house is silent, just like most mornings these days.

  My dad usually stays up late, and my mom is a teacher at the local elementary school.

  I grab an apple from a bowl on the counter before walking outside.

  I haven’t seen or talked to Anna since last Thursday, and I am excited to see her again. When the Jeep pulls up, Anna jumps out before I am close enough and races towards me, throwing her arms around my shoulders, hugging me tightly.

  “Hey, Paige! I missed you!” she says, pulling back from me, a smile across her face.

  “Hi, Anna. I missed you too.”

  Anna gives me another hug before we hear Seth call out. “All right. All right. Now that we have established you guys missed each other, can we head to school now?”

  “He’s a bit grouchy this morning,” Anna whispers to me before she heads back to the Jeep.

  “I’m not grouchy!” Seth yells out, making me laugh.

  I catch sight of him in the driver’s seat as I pass his side of the car, and my heart does a quick pitter-patter. Even though I just saw him on Saturday, I have missed him too. And Anna is right, he does look grouchy this morning.

  When we arrive at the school, I pull him aside, telling Anna, “We’ll catch up to you.”

  She stares between Seth and me before heading towards the campus.

  “Why are you upset today?” I ask, staring into his stormy gaze.

  “He’s in your homeroom, isn’t he?” Seth growls out.

  I look away to stare at Anna’s back disappearing into the crowd of students heading into the building. “Yes. He is.”

  “Why are you not more upset about this? Why are you so calm?” he demands.

  “Because…” I glance over at him. “I’ve been handling it since school started. I can’t let him see how afraid I am to be anywhere near him. Just because I look calm doesn’t mean I am.”

  My heart pounds in my chest, and I feel fresh fear.

  What if Joshua sees Seth’s face, and he guesses I told him?

  “Listen.” I grab his hand in mine. “If he sees your face right now, he will know something is up. He will know I told you.”

  “So what?”

  “Seth,” I warn him. “Please don’t do this.”

  He looks down at our entwined hands. “He should be in jail, Paige.”

  I look behind him and see Anna waiting by the doors, staring at us. I can’t read her face from here. “Come on, Anna’s waiting.”

  I let go of Seth’s hand and head towards Anna, with Seth close behind.

  “I’m walking you to class. Every class from now on.”

  “No, you are not. Anna will get suspicious of why you are hanging around so much, and so will Joshua. We need to stay like we have been as much as possible.”

  I hear Seth sigh behind me. “Fine… can I at least walk you to homeroom? I mean, you are my homecoming date after all.”

  I can’t help the giggle that slips out. “Yes. That you can do.”

  We meet Anna at the doors, who is looking between us both, but luckily, she says nothing.

  I don’t feel as afraid as I have been, with Seth on my left and Anna on my right. Even when I spot Joshua outside homeroom, the panic attack I usually have does not take hold of me.

  Joshua looks over at us with a triumphant smile on his face until he catches sight of Seth. His smile turns into a deep scowl. Seth grabs my hand and forces me to a stop. He stands next to me, glaring at Joshua. I can feel the anger radiating from him.

  “Seth?” I mumble.

  “I’ll see you after school.” He pulls his hand from mine and stalks off toward his class.

  “Uh… what was that all about? Why are you guys acting so strange?” Anna asks, watching Seth leave.

  I shake my head and flash her a small smile. “Nothing. I’ll see you after class.”

  It isn’t until I am sitting in my seat that I let the anxiety take over.

  If Joshua doesn’t know from Seth’s reaction out in the hall, he soon will, and that means if I don’t do something, he might hurt Anna.

  After homeroom, I meet Anna in the hallway. As soon as she sees me, she wants to know right away what happened this morning.

  “Why did Seth freak out like that and grab your hand?”

  I shrug my shoulder and walk by her, ignoring her question. I feel bad doing that, but I am not ready to share with Anna why exactly Seth was not in a good mood today.

  I sit down in my seat, and Anna sits down in her desk next to mine, turning her whole body to face me.

  “Is there something going on between you and my brother?” Anna asks.

  “No,” I reply almost too quickly.

  “Are you sure?”

  I avoid looking at her, which makes her giggle. “He likes you.”

  My head snaps up towards her, my eyes wide.

  “The way he looks at you and holds your hand every now and then. It’s obvious he does. He told me he asked you to homecoming.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have to go with him if you don’t want me to.”

  “Are you kidding? You are definitely going, and we are hitting up the mall Saturday morning for dresses.”

  I stare at her with my mouth open in shock, which makes her laugh again.

  “What? You didn’t think I would be happy about you and Seth?” She punches me lightly in the shoulder. “Come on, give me more credit than that. Besides, if you guys get married, we can be real sisters.”

  “Oh my gosh.” I laugh. “We aren’t even dating, and you are talking about marriage? What would Seth say if he heard you?”

  “Well, he’ll either go very pale, or his face will turn twenty different shades of red. I’ll ask him later, after school.”

  I gasp. “Don’t you dare!” I say, bringing a whole new round of giggles from both of us.

  “I think you guys would be great together,” Anna says, once the laughing stops.

  I cross my arms on my desk and bury my burning face into them, groaning.

  I didn’t want to admit to Anna that being with Seth has crossed my mind a lot more lately. I don’t know what it is with Seth, but he makes everything seem so much brighter and cheerful.

  He makes me laugh until my sides hurt, and he holds me close to him when I’m crying. He makes me feel like me again.

  * * * *

  My name came over the intercom in seventh period, fifteen minutes before the bell rang, telling me to report to the office. My mom was here to pick me up from school, I half-hoped she had forgotten about the therapy appointment.

  Now, I am sitting in front of the therapist, staring at my hands, clenched in my lap.

  “So, Paige. Your mother tells me that up until last year, you were homeschooled. You decided you wanted to attend high school, and your parents agreed. She says she noticed at some point during the year, you changed. She didn’t want to pry, but she has been worried about you. She mentioned a few other things, but I want to give you a chance to discuss them with me. Do you like the high school you are going to? Is there anything you would like to talk about with me?”

  The woman has light blonde hair clipped back, with no emotion on her face.

  “Paige?” The therapist says.

  I bite my lip and stay silent. We have been sitting in sile
nce since I entered the room thirty minutes ago. I hope it will stay that way until the end of the appointment.

  “You haven’t said anything since you entered the room other than saying hello. Is there anything you want to say?”

  I look up at her then and see her making notes in the notepad on her lap.

  “No,” is all I say.

  “Okay. Tell me about this boy…” She flips a page in her notepad and reads something before she flips it back to the page she was writing on. “Seth is his name?”

  “My mom told you about Seth?”

  The therapist nods. “In passing, yes. She told me that he seems to make you revert back to your old self when you’re together.”

  Every day, Seth has come over to the house this week after he drops off Anna at home to take me to the gym to teach me self-defense.

  My mom could hardly contain her happiness when I told her that I was going to homecoming with him.

  I shrug in response, but my lips stay sealed shut.

  “Paige, we can’t get anywhere without you talking.”

  Several more minutes go by in silence before the therapist gets up from her chair. “Okay then. We will do this again next Thursday. Hopefully, you will be more open to talking than today.”

  More sessions? She wants me to come again next Thursday?

  I only nod my head at her, but I am already trying to think of ways to get out of it when I get into my mom’s car.

  “So, how was it?” my mom asks on our way home.

  “You told her about Seth?” I say in an accusing tone.

  “I wasn’t supposed to? I didn’t know he is supposed to be a secret.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and look out the window. “He’s not.”

  “Do you want to go pick out a homecoming dress with me?” my mom asks, adding a cheerful tone as she changes the subject.

  “Anna wants to go with me Saturday morning,” I state.

  “Awesome! We can all go together!”

  I turn and give her a small smile. “Sounds fun.”

  I don’t really want to go dress shopping with my mom, but if it gets her to stop worrying about me so much, then I am happy to go along with her plan.

  When I text Anna telling her my mom wants to take us shopping Saturday, she can’t contain how excited she is by the news. We make plans for nine on Saturday morning.

  Lying in bed waiting for sleep to consume me, I feel my excitement of going dress shopping building.

  For once, I don’t lose sleep thinking about Joshua, I lose sleep because I can’t wait to go shopping.

  Chapter 21: Present

  My mom and I pick Anna up right on time Saturday morning.

  Anna comes bounding out of the house, skipping towards the car. Her smile reflects my own as I watch her get closer to the car.

  I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Seth, but to my disappointment, I don’t.

  Anna enters the car, breathless and excited. “Good morning! I hardly slept last night! Where are we going first?”

  My mom laughs as the slides the car in reverse. “There is a new dress shop in town that I want to check out.”

  Anna and I both nod eagerly.

  “So, Anna. Is there anyone special you are going with to homecoming?”

  “No,” Anna says a little too quickly.

  I look over to see Anna’s cheeks have become shockingly red. “There’s someone?! How come I don’t know about this?”

  Anna looks down at her lap. “It’s not important.”

  I nudge her with my shoulder. “Who is it?”

  Anna mumbles something under her breath, but I can’t hear her. “Who?”

  “Just this guy in my homeroom. It’s the only time we see each other. He doesn’t even know I exist,” Anna rushes out quickly before hiding her face in her hands.

  “What’s his name?”

  “George…” she says quietly.

  George. The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place a face to it.

  “What does he look like?”

  “Short brown hair and gorgeous brown eyes. I have seen him talking to that girl Beth during class, and he hangs out with her at lunch. They are probably together or something,” Anna answers sadly.

  I feel the air rush out of me as Anna talks. George is one of the people I used to hang out with last year at lunch until Beth stopped talking to me.

  “Beth? The Beth that I haven’t seen around the house in ages?” my mom asks.

  Anna turns to me, wide-eyed. “Beth used to come to your house?”

  This conversation has suddenly taken a dangerous turn, and I am not sure what to say to steer it in a different direction.

  “Beth and Paige were best friends, but she hasn’t come to the house in a while,” my mom says from the front seat.

  Anna gapes at me. “You never told me this.”

  I shift uncomfortably in the back seat. “We just went our separate ways… can we talk about George again? I might be able to talk to him if you want me to. I used to hang out with him. I mean, we barely talked, but I can at least see if he has noticed you.”

  This gets the conversation on a different track, but I can still feel my mom’s eyes on me.

  Even though Anna says she doesn’t want to talk to George, I am going to try to convince her to do it anyway.

  We arrive at a store named Flower Dresses. It has a ton of windows so people can see in the shop.

  When we get inside my mom heads right for the rack that has a clearance sign on the top.

  “Oh, this is so pretty,” Anna says, pointing to a sparkly, yellow dress on one mannequin.

  “Of course, you think so,” I say with a giggle.

  “So, when were you going to tell me about Beth?” Anna says as she riffles through the racks of dresses.

  I am thankful she waits until my mom is out of earshot to ask.

  “We grew apart eventually,” is all I say.

  We search each rack for a while, and Anna tries on several before she comes across a lavender dress with rhinestones on top and ruffles on the bottom.

  “I thought for sure you would pick a yellow dress,” I say.

  Anna turns around in a circle in front of the mirror and grins. “I thought so too, but I really love this dress.”

  “Maybe George will too.”

  Anna’s face turns red again.

  “I don’t think he will ever notice me. I’m dumb, and he is so… smart. The only reason he is in my homeroom is because AP kids had to be.”

  “Maybe it’s fate.”

  Anna rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “I didn’t ping you as someone who believes in fate.”

  I pretend to be offended. “Anna, I am a girl, after all. I think all girls are romantic in their own way. I might not show that side of me all the time, but I do believe in it. I just don’t think it will ever happen for me.”

  “My brother.” Anna sounds like she is making more of a statement than a question.

  I smile, picturing him holding me in his arms. “He is a good person, but I don’t think I am the right person for him.”

  Anna comes over to sit next to me on the small couch the store has in the fitting room.

  “Why do you say that?”

  I look down at my feet, trying to figure out how to answer that question without giving away what happened.

  Anna continues when I don’t answer her. “Seth is a unique person. He cares far too much about people and protects people more than he should. He is thinking of joining the military because he hopes to make a difference in the world.”

  My head snaps up. Did Seth finally tell Anna about wanting to join?

  Anna lets out a small laugh when she sees my stunned expression. “His best friend, Rick? He let something slip last time we talked on the phone.”

  “He’s afraid to tell anyone,” I tell her.

  “Just like you are afraid to tell someone what happened to you?” Anna says quietly.

  “What… what
do you mean?” I stumble out.

  “You were crying in the bathroom on the first day of school for a reason, and you get pale every time we arrive at school. Something happened to you, didn’t it?”

  I don’t say anything as I watch her. She is staring straight ahead, waiting for me to answer.

  “Anna.”

  She looks over at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “You don’t realize that when we are together at school or when we went to the mall, you are always looking everywhere around you. You keep looking over your shoulder, and you practically jumped out of your skin when my brother took the movie series out of your hand.” When she sees my confused expression, she quickly says. “I’m a very observant person.”

  My heart is pounding in my chest as I watch her. I thought all this time I was hiding it well, but apparently, I wasn’t.

  “Look, Anna—” I begin, but she interrupts.

  “The way you acted when I mentioned Joshua. I just put two and two together.” Anna grabs my hands in hers. “Whatever happened to you, Paige, just know you are not alone. You will never be alone. If you need to lean on me. Do it. I’ll be strong enough for us both even when you are feeling weak.”

  I can’t control the tears that fill my eyes and finally escape down my cheeks. I lean in and hug Anna.

  We are hugging on the couch when my mom comes in with more dresses to try on.

  “What’s wrong? Why are both of you crying?” my mom demands.

  Anna and I pull back, wiping away our tears. “Nothing, Mom. We just really like Anna’s dress.”

  My mom looks between us as if she doesn’t believe what I am saying, but when Anna smiles at my mom and agrees, my mom’s face lights up.

  While I try on dresses in the fitting room, I think over my conversation with Anna. Now two people know about Joshua.

  Anna doesn’t know the full details, and neither does Seth. Knowing that both of them believe me, and both of them are on my side, makes me feel stronger than I have felt in a while.

  I find a dress that is different shades of green with fabric that seems to shimmer in the light from the ceiling of the store. The green color of the dress reminds me of Seth’s eyes.

  “This one.”

  Anna comes over and smirks. “My brother’s eyes are green.”