Buttercup [H.S]

Prologue

2011.

It smells like bleach in here. That head-ache inducing, sharp chemical smell that almost sears your nostrils and clings dryly to the back of your throat. The tiled ground beneath me is icy cold, muddy and damp, likely from the dripping sink leaking above my head.

"Riley!"

My legs are aching. In fact, everywhere hurts, as if I'd ran a marathon with a boulder pulling behind me. I can feel the muscles in my thighs burning and shaking like jelly beneath me; I pear down to see them defiled with angry, blistering red marks. The faint outline of finger prints. The satin lining of my dress is torn, frayed and bunched up in a tangle around my hips.

"Riley!"

There's dried blood smeared down the pale insides of my legs, my tampon having been torn out and discarded across the room somewhere. I was too numb to feel embarrassed. My head felt heavy like stone, as if my shoulders could barely keep the weight up. A nausea bubbled in my gut, my mouth tasting sour, almost acidic, tingling and salivating.

"Riley, what the fuck happened?!"

My eyes zigzagged unsteadily across the dim
bathroom, unable to focus properly on any one thing. An open stall door, the paper dispenser knocked off the wall, the toilet seat askew and hanging from one hinge, my underwear bunched up and thrown aside on the ground.

"Riley...oh my god..."

And then there's that voice coming from somewhere beside me, I'm aware of it but I can't focus. I try to swivel my heavy head around to look at who it is, but I'm drunk with shock. The urge to vomit is getting stronger, my body recognising that something is wrong, trying to expel itself of anything that could harm me.

A bit late for that.

I try to speak but it's like my throat has closed in on itself; dry, full of sand.

I'm suddenly aware of hands on me, warm and so gentle, a stark contrast from the fists belonging to another that had been pinning me down in that stall only minutes ago. Or had it been hours? How long had I been slumped on the bathroom floor, how long had it taken me to crawl from that toilet cubicle to where I was curled up like an infant now?

The warm hands were trembling, darting haphazardly from my shoulders up to smooth down my hair in frantic strokes. I see wet blood along their fingers as they draw their shaking hand away from the crown of my head.

I clear my throat, managing to push out a hoarse whine as my eyes finally focus, meeting the green, red rimmed ones looking back down at me.

"Harry..." I croak, and manage to grip to his black dress shirt. I grimace in shame at his tear filled eyes as they scan my battered body, watching as he pieces the evidence together until it finally dawns on him what's been done to me.

A sob chokes out of his throat as he mutters to himself in denial, shaking his head as he ever so delicately pulls my dress back down to cover my bruised and bloodied thighs.

I grip desperately to any part of him I can reach, willing for him to just make this all go away, make it better before someone else stumbles in here and finds me.

"Harry...please...Take me home."