Remembering Chloe

Chapter 19 [pt. 3]

**unedited**

Chapter 19 [pt. 3]

May 27

3:03 a.m.

When my eyes fluttered open, the first thing I saw was a man standing over me. He was tall, taller than anyone I’d ever seen before, and he was cast in shadows. His black hair was a mess and his eyes, which were as blue as they’d ever been, were trailing along my little black dress. But they weren’t hungry like so many other boys had been. It was more like they were shining with disappointment.

“Chloe, what have you done?” his words were lost in the darkness but I knew what he was saying. His voice was harsh and low; he was grumbling. I wanted to hear what he had to say – anything Ryan had to say was important – but he refused to raise his voice.

His hands found their way to my shoulders and then slid behind my neck. He grunted as he lifted my limp body to a sitting position. I knew I should have helped him but for some reason, I couldn’t move. No, that wasn’t right. I was capable of moving but I just didn’t feel like I was strong enough to move.

My head was still beating against my brain and I winced. It was worse now, but I didn’t know why. I’d taken every precaution by going outside and lying down, yet it still pounded inside my skull with the ferocity of a lion.

Ryan’s other hand made its way under my knees and he lifted me up from the bed in one fluid motion. I was cradled against his chest and my arms hung loosely from my body, dripping to the ground.

He took me downstairs and then outside, which I knew from the sound of a slammed door, and then stopped short of the road. I cracked an eye open further to take in my surroundings. There wasn’t much around me but darkness. The music from the party still reverberated through the streets but it almost felt like a dream now. I could barely remember being inside that house, where streamers and red plastic cups littered the lawn.

Ryan boosted me up to his shoulder so that he was only holding me with one arm now. He wasn’t being gentle about it either. His shoulder pierced into my stomach and made me feel like I needed to throw up. In fact, if I weren’t so tired, I might have.

He opened the car door quickly and dropped me into the backseat as lightly as he could. The sound my body made as it hit the leather was still fairly loud, but I still felt numb and didn’t even flinch. It was his car; I could tell from the smell and I took a long breath.

Ryan jerked the door closed and for a minute, he didn’t come back. For a minute, I was worried that he’d just left me in his black car to sleep and re-entered the party to have some fun instead. But that wasn’t like Ryan.

I heard a bang a few feet away from the car and then Ryan opened his door and slid into the driver’s seat, holding his fist in his hands. Even in the dark, I could see how it was red. What had he done? I wanted more than ever to hug him tightly and fulfill the corny movie scene where the heroine bandaged up her hero after a bloody fight but I didn’t have the strength to move on my own.

He gripped the steering wheel and then turned to look at me. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but I was afraid.

I wasn’t looking into the eyes of a Ryan that had gone to the beach and had laid in the sand with me. I was looking at the Ryan that Chase and Samara feared and one that I would never have wished on anyone.

“You know, Chloe, I thought you changed.”

He didn’t continue for a moment and I thought that it was all he had to say to me. But, of course, I was wrong.

“What are you doing hanging out with those kids anyways? They aren’t good kids. They drink too much and they get high and they do stupid things,” his voice echoed through the pain in my head yet I tried not to let it show. Whatever I was feeling in my body was nothing compared to the anger that was seeping through him.

“Samara and Chase – there’s a lot you don’t know about them,” he paused.

“I know that they’re your best friends but- they just aren’t good for you, alright? I need you to stay away from them. They don’t care about you like- look, they only care about themselves. Samara only likes to have sex with random strangers and Chase- Chase is sleeping with Samara,” he paused again. Did he think that I was awake?

“Look, Chloe, I know it’s none of my business who you’re friends with. I want it to be though. I want to be able to warn you off all those creeps like them. They don’t care about you like I do, alright? If you got hurt, they wouldn’t come get you unless there was something in it for them. Just- please, stay away from them.”

Ryan turned his back to me and sighed. The sound filled the empty car. He turned on the ignition and backed out of the driveway carefully. How he could see through the darkness that surrounded us like heavy fog, I didn’t know.

“I know that you won’t remember any of this in the morning but just try to. I would hate to see you lose another memory just because your friends got you drunk.”

I nodded in my sleep. It all felt so unreal. The truth and the lie seemed to merge into one. I couldn’t remember losing my memories or drinking yet here I was, without my childhood but being tortured by a drumming in my head and an ache in my stomach.

I stared at his hands until I felt sleep pulling at my existence once again. It felt like a blissful oasis compared to the agony my body was being submitted to and I accepted it quickly. The last thing I saw before I went to sleep were the large gates of my house opening up for Ryan’s car like a giant mouth ready to swallow its meal. 

---*---*---Author's Note---*---*---

Hello lovelies! As always, I have a very long and boring A.N. to write and for you to read/skip over so that you might get to the next chapter or comment or vote. Well, either way, here it is. 

So, to start, I just have a few requests for you all. Actually, it's only one request, really. I would really appreciate it if you could stop asking me to read your stories. I don't mean to be rude because they're all wonderful I'm sure but I'm so down on time lately that I barely have time to write and I feel so terrible when I can't get to one of your stories to give you some advice. If you really want me to read your story - if you really need me to read your story - then please message me. But otherwise, I'm sorry but I don't see any time that it will be possible to do so. 

Also, I would love if you could all vote millions of times for this story so that I might make it as a finalist in the Watty Awards. If you don't think I deserve it, then there's no need for you to vote but if you think I do, the button is awaiting your click!

Alright, I think I'm done with my A.N. now. Oh, also, sorry that this chapter is so short. The next one is much longer! 

The song of the week is Ho Hey by the Lumineers. It's a wonderful song. 

Yours truly, 

Hannah-vo