✩ Roman's POV ✩
"Hi, is this Roman Blackwood?" the lady on the other line asks, and I reply with a yes.
The line goes silent for a second before another voice begins to speak.
"Roman?" my moms' voice echoes through the phone, and my body immediately intensifies with a weight put on my chest and hostility that I really did not want to feel today. Or any day.
I look over at my dad to see if he knew about this shit, but he seems just as clueless as me.
I haven't seen my mom ever since the night she got taken into the police car when I was fourteen. Not only that, but I never wanted to fucking see her anyway after what she did, nor do I want to hear her voice. Ever.
In under a second, I hang up the phone and hand it back to my dad because now I feel sick. My brain feels like it's on a fucking roller coaster and the reminders that I had enough of at night are beginning to flicker before my angrily seethed eyes.
"Who was it?" my dad knocks me out of the sickening flashbacks, and I look to see his puzzled face.
"Mom," I say shocked by my words, and his eyes widen.
She also pulled a lot of shit on him, so I can see why he's shocked as well, though not for the reasons I am.
"Did you let her say anything?" he asks, and I want to laugh at that question.
"Fuck no," I fold my arms and state.
There is no way in hell I am coming face-to-face or talking to that woman who's anything but what a mother should be. She's a fucking manipulator that only gives a shit about herself.
"Roman, you have to learn to move on," my dad begs with his eyes.
He acts like she fucking stole my toy car when I was a kid, though I can't blame him since he's only speaking from his limited amount of knowledge that I provided for him. She got her ass in jail because of the shit she chose to do, and I could give less of two fucks about what happens to her. She doesn't have the right to call me.
"We're going to a party," Ivy walks into the kitchen and informs me.
I nod. She looks in between me and my dad's tensed expressions and nods back a little awkwardly. Her feet move out of the room as she spins on her heel to leave, and once I see and hear she's gone out the front door with the others who are probably waiting for me outside, I look back to my dad who is about to say something about this subject. I stop him immediately.
"There is no fucking way I'm talking to her," I promise him what I promised myself when she left.
My dad also has no room to speak because he hasn't even forgiven her for what she did either. Every single time she's brought up, his entire mood changes and he turns into a super awkward person. If he can't move on from what she did to him, then there's no way in hell I can from what she did to me.
I walk back out in the living room and see that I was right about where everyone went. I put my shoes on which are sitting next to the couch and grab my keys from the kitchen counter as my dad thinks about what just happened.
I don't want to be rude to him because honestly, he's the most important person in my life, but this is the one thing I will not let him argue with me on. When I walk out the front, I see Ivy and the others talking out front.
"Ready?" Rider asks and I nod. "I call shotgun," he runs, but Ivy is two steps ahead of him with her taser out in his face.
"Funny," she seriously says as she walks to the front seat while Rider pouts walking towards the back.
We all take a seat after them and I pull out of my driveway to make my way to where Eldon put the address to.
I feel myself being watched, and when I look to my right at a stop sign, I see Ivy's eyes filled with worry while glancing at me repeatedly. She doesn't know about my mom, and I'll never tell her either. If the police don't know the full story, then nobody needs to.
I try to ignore her look so she'll drop it, and after a couple of minutes, I feel the eyes on the side of my head begin to disappear.
Loud, annoyingass music can be heard travel through the car as we pull up to the party, and I can already see the drunk people on the lawn looking like there's a bunch of zombies on crack.
I look over at Ivy to ask her if she has her things, but she speaks before me when she sees my mouth open.
"I have my taser, pepper spray, and my phone with your number on speed dial," she answers my questions before I can ask them.
I nod and unlock the car for us to all leave.
We walk inside and everyone's body pushes against each other annoyingly, though I've always hated being touched so I walk through without a hand on me. I see the pretty empty kitchen, so I make my way there and the others see the same. Everyone lets out a puff dramatically as we finally get out of the crowded space, and when I look at all of them, I notice a hand on Ivy's stomach. It disappears relatively quickly though so I can't tell if it was Eldon's or Rider's.
"I just almost got pulled into a threesome," Eldon holds his heart in relief as he catches his breath.
"You and Mia could've had one of those," Rider says while holding in his laugh at Legend, though Ivy and Eldon let theirs out.
He's never going to let that go, is he?
"I'm going to kill you," Legend threatens and fucking pounces on Rider's back.
He hits him on top of the head and Rider ow's each time in the same annoying tone.
"Me too," Eldon wants in and jumps on top of Legend's back.
Rider tries to hold up the weight of all three of them, and Ivy laughs at their fucking annoying bickering. Sanchez left a while ago since he had somewhere else to be, though I'm guessing it was just another party or hookup he had planned. A girl walks into the room and they all separate simultaneously like a bunch of robots. All of them clear their throats deeply like it'll make them look more attractive or older. Like they weren't just stacked on top of each other like dominos.
The girl looks over at them, but her eyes catch Ivy's instead whose back is against the counter while watching the guys in humor. I nudge her shoulder, and she hums obliviously before turning around and noticing what's going on by the way the girls' eyes are examining her with depth. A smile takes over her lips in surprise before she talks.
"See ya bitches." She waves us off and follows behind the girl who was motioning for her to come with her.
The guys all whine in defeat like they stood a chance anyway, and I look just to be sure Ivy isn't getting kidnapped by a random girl.
"Damn Legend, that's two today," Rider says in shock and here we go again.
Legend pounces right back on Rider and of course Eldon joins in too while I'm stuck here wondering why I hang out with these dumbasses. It really does confuse me most of the time.
Out of nowhere, as I've returned from getting a drink and have taken the first sip of it, a girl just fucking comes up to me and kisses me, stunning me a little. My moms' voice comes in the back of my head right as I feel the surprise, and it feels like it's being fucking yelled at me while also making me a little dizzy. I know it's not the alcohol because I only had one sip and it takes much more to actually get me drunk, so of course it has to be the paining noise that left me in shock today. I back away out of instinct, not only because it triggers something inside me, but also to see who the hell it is because of the suddenness of the kiss.
When I pull away and look down, I realize that I've never seen her before in my entire life. The girl has blonde straight hair, light skin, green eyes, and a pretty nice body from what I can see in the red dress she's wearing that hugs her pretty tightly. It takes me a second to recollect myself as her drunken eyes look up at me, but I ignore the dickish way I walk right past the blonde girl and go up to the guys. They've stopped fighting and are now just talking to each other like none of that shit before ever happened.
"Keep an eye on Ivy," I demand seriously.
They all nod at my instructions and don't question me further because they know they weren't going to get an answer anyway.
I don't even care that that girl looked embarrassed, my main focus is just to get the hell out of here.
I walk out of the kitchen and get into my car because that phone call has obviously fucked with my mind entirely.
***
♡ Alaiya's POV: ♡
I try to listen for any noise, but don't hear any inside. I pray that he's sleeping as I slowly and quietly open the door into my apartment, but the TV would be on if he was awake. When my feet step inside, I'm careful not to make a peep of noise on the hard wooden floor. The kitchen and front entrance are not too far from each other, and the living room is right in front of both. As I walk in, I don't see him around, making relief and a feeling of finally being able to breathe again wash over me. Literally. I think was actually holding in my breath so he wouldn't even hear me breathe if he was here.
I shut the lights and walk to my bedroom. I decide to get ready for bed by taking a shower. I only wash my body since I already washed my hair this morning. My dark brown curly hair is let out in its natural length which is up to my mid-arm once it's out of the clipped bun I put it in, and after, I put my pajamas on. My body has become pretty thin after taking those pills as I can see in the mirror, but at least now my thighs aren't as big anymore and my stomach is a lot flatter.
I walk over to my bed and get into my comfortable blankets and pillows. The minute my head hits the softness of my mattress, my heavy eyes take over and I let the darkness come in and consume me. This is the first time after days that Carson hasn't done anything to me, so even though some of the bruises left previously sting just a little bit because of the shower, I can at least sleep without tears.
Two hours later:
"Alaiya!" Bangs are heard against my bedroom door, making me shoot awake.
I get out of bed and rush to unlock and open the door, thinking that there must be an emergency but forgetting the part where he still may be drunk.
He stands there in full view and I look at him worriedly because I thought something was wrong, but by the look on his drunken face, that definitely isn't the case. I try and stay calm though and continue to worry because maybe something bad did happen.
"Thank goodness you're okay." He oddly pulls me in for a hug, the scent of strong alcohol taking over my senses.
"Yeah, of course I'm okay, what's wrong?" I pull away asking.
"I didn't hear you come in," he breathes deeply. "I thought you may have been hurt. God, I'm so lucky to have you." I smile at that comment.
"Do you want me to make you some coffee?" I question softly.
He nods with his lips tugged up. We both go to the kitchen and I begin to make him his favorite coffee. Ever since we were teenagers, Carson's always loved his coffee. He said the way I make it is his favorite.
"You know you're everything to me, right?" he asks out of nowhere.
I smile at him, a little uncomfortable because I never know what to say when he says that to me.
"Aren't I everything to you?" I'm put on the spot.
"Of course you are." I'm a little confused at why he's cornering me about this situation.
He smiles, though it doesn't reach his eyes and that's what scares me a little. But either way, he hasn't hit or screamed at me so I'm happy with what I got.
This is the Carson I love.
~~~~
Carson and I get to campus the next morning and I was right. He's back to his sweet and kind self and this is the part that I love. He's been sweet the entire time and hasn't said one rude thing to me since that night. We both walk into class and take a seat in our normal seating area. Carson doesn't like to be crowded or smothered, so he usually spaces us out so he doesn't have a panic attack. I don't find it a big deal for us to sit apart because I know what it's like to have a panic attack and I don't want to cause him to feel that kind of pain. We wait for the professor to get here and he finally enters after a few minutes. His gray hair is gelled back and his skinny, yet older-looking body stands in front of the entire room. He's pretty tall and I think is around forty or fifty which explains the dark eye-bags under his eyes. Plus, the pressure of teaching can be a lot so that too.
"I have a project," he begins, and the whole class groans in annoyance. "Boo-hoo," he waves everyone off as he grabs the paper off his desk. "We all learn about historical events in school, but that doesn't mean they're always taught correctly," he begins to explain. " Everyone is going to be in a group of four. All of your groups are going to pick a topic that you would like to be explained more thoroughly or correctly, and your group is going to write a full essay about it. This paper requires factual information so no Wikipedia," he says the last part with a pointed look at all of us. "Instead, include museums, books, articles as your cites."
"And I choose the groups because I'm a dick and think it's fun to bring my student's anger," the girl who he yelled at yesterday makes her voice deeper and imitates him.
He looks up at her frustratedly and then back down at his paper.
"As I was saying," he breathes out and the class laughs. "I will put you in your groups," he calls, and the girl whispers aloud, "I told you" so everyone can hear.
Professor Wright purposely stopped because he knew she would say something, and once she's done, he goes back to his clipboard and calls out everyone's names.
"...Alaiya, Jackie, Wilson-," he pauses and begins to flip through his papers.
He oh's and writes down something before he speaks again.
"Unfortunately, Jackie and Wilson aren't in this class anymore," he explains to me. "You are with Ivy, Roman, Kai, and Axel."
I look at him confused because I don't know who any of those people are. The only person I really know in this room is Carson.
Carson's group gets called and when I look over to where he's looking, I see the group of very pretty girls smiling at him and him smiling back. I snap my head back around and try to act like I never saw that, even though I for sure did.
"And Brandon will have to join your group Alaiya since all the other groups are full," he adds another random person, and I nod like I know him.
Professor Wright dismisses us to begin the project and everyone stands up simultaneously. I turn my head around because I still don't know who's in my group, and when I look back over, I see the girl who was talking out loud a couple of minutes ago wave over to me. Thankfully, she does that or I probably never would've known where to go. I swallow my nerves as I walk up the ledge since I've never spoken to these people before. Four guys are in front of me, but the girl speaks before I can get a glance which I'm kind of happy about since Carson is still in this room.
"Let's go to the library," I think Ivy was the name Professor Wright said, suggests.
Everyone agrees and begins to walk out of the classroom with their backs facing towards me. I look back to see if Carson noticed who was in my group, but see he's busy with his group. I'm glad he is because he would not like me around so many men, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt to see him laughing and smiling with a bunch of pretty women.
Just ignore it.
He's still my boyfriend at least.
♥ ★ ❦ ✱ ♥
A/N: They're about to meet!!! Oh, and Alaiya will be explained later on in the chapters as to why she's in this relationship in the first place. Just give her time.
Please tell me if there are any grammar errors.
Word Count: 3413