Pieces of You

Chapter One

Blaire | Before

━━━━━━━

I'm being crushed.

On the edge of sleep, suffocation begins to consume me. It seeps into my brain like spilt ink, electric on every nerve. Wiggling, I push my shoulders back, but his weight doesn't budge. He's heavy. So heavy. His hands are on me, all over, covering my skin with his cold, sickly flesh. I try to take a breath, but I can't.

Across the bed, on the nightstand, a candle flickers against the darkness. My necklace lies next to its glass container, sparkling silver in the firelight. I took the chain off earlier, before he arrived and after I lit the wick. As the smell of black cherry entangled with smoke filled the air, I thought that maybe tonight would go down differently; the candle was my attempt at forging romance, but look at where it got me.

I should've learnt the first time.

As I stretch my fingertips across my silky duvet to reach for the necklace, a noise escapes my lips – a growl, almost, sharp against my throat. My Dad bought the necklace for me on my sixteenth birthday; it's not anything special, nothing sparkly or expensive like my usual taste, but its pendant is a bee, the same nickname I had when I was younger.

It's something that makes me feel happy again. Safe, like one scream would cause Mom to come rushing in rather than just walking past the door pretending she doesn't hear. So, no, it doesn't have the monetary value as other jewellery in my drawers, but if I could just touch its cold silver surface as his fingers reach to make their own necklace on my neck, then I can die in a strange kind of peace.

But I can't get to it.

My fingertips struggle against the nightstand, its edge pointed like a knife, but he must think I'm searching for a sort of weapon because he starts squeezing harder. I twist under his weight, but now I can't see anything. Just the colour of blood, edging into the corners of my sight. Pain sears my brain, and it's then that I realise – this is it. Finally, I'm going to die.

I open my mouth to scream, but then I wake.

Dean shifts off me, wrapping his arms around my waist. They drape sluggishly over my body, the arms of a quarterback, pinning me into a position that only makes me panic more. My chest rises and falls in a rapid motion and my heart pounds in my ears. Immobilised on the bed, I try to convince myself that despite its vividness, this fight for my life was only a dream – that, for now, I'm safe.

I breathe in and out, the way Dad taught me when I'd wake from nightmares at six. Air fills my lungs, expanding the muscle and calming my heartrate.

I open my eyes and try to focus. Through the curtains layered on my bed, the sky is the colour of blue ink. Streaks of sunlight will soon stretch across my bed, warming my pale skin and forcing me to get up. The sunlight offers a calmness to the room I call my own, the room that Mom will promptly kick me out of when I graduate high school.

On the other side of my bed, I find my nightstand as I left it. The candle still flickers, its light barely an ember now, and there my necklace lays – twinkling in the morning light, as if nothing happened. Well, nothing did, I remind myself.

Behind the candle, an alarm clock reads the time: 05.56AM. I bite my lip, releasing a heavy breath. Of relief or fear, I can't tell. All I know is that this can't keep happening.

'Dean,' I whisper. 'It's six. You need to leave before Mom catches you.'

I'd like to say that this isn't what it looks like, that there's a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why Dean Hall is in my bed this morning, taking up half the sheets and leaving me cold in the brittle morning air. If you know me, you might even be wondering why it isn't Nathan sleeping next to me, because he is my boyfriend, right?