Chapter Twenty-One- A house of Cards
I stood outside my house, at the edge of my driveway on the side walk. The boys had left a while ago, Kyan had gone with them, they had mentioned something about going to the movies and asked if I wanted to come. I had kindly declined and said that I had some studying to do. Which of course was a lie, I just didn't want to spend any more time with Kyan. I had already spent hours with him in a car, neither of us saying a word to each other, which was awkward enough.
I took a deep breath as I stepped forward, I didn't want to step foot into that house. It felt like I was living in a house of cards, that was moaning and creaking, getting ready to all fall over. But I had already been standing outside for too long. I didn't want to stand outside for much longer, it was freezing, and I wasn't sure when Paul was coming home. I wanted to be unpacked and unsuspecting by the time he came home. I walked up the path to the front door avoiding the icy spots and pulled out my key and unlocked the door.
I pushed my front door open, which felt abnormally heavy and slammed it shut. It was around half passed two in the afternoon, and it was dead silent in my house. Mom should have been home by now.
"Mom?" I called out, I was greeted by silence, "I'm home!"
I kicked my shoes off at the door and turned around. There he stood, in the shadows of the kitchen doorway, eyes gleaming at me. Paul. The devil was home. I felt my heart quicken and my breathing become heavy as I glanced at my luggage. There was no excuse that had entered my mind that was strong enough to defend myself against him. It was exactly what it looked like.
I heard rustling next to Paul, and my mother, beaten to a pulp rounded the corner. Tears spilled from her swollen purple eye, her lip was cut, and a small bump had appeared on her right cheekbone.
"Paul." She croaked "don't hurt her, its my fault."
"You're right. It is your fault." Pauls' voice was low, "So you think that you can do whatever you want? You think that you don't have to obey orders. You have no respect."
"I'm sorry." I whispered.
"Sorry for what? For making a fool out of me by waiting till I leave to disobey me. Sorry for thinking that you wouldn't get caught?" Paul's eyebrows rose "you want to know why it is that you got caught? I was coming home early so that I could spend some quality time with you. I was doing something nice! For you! And this is what your doing behind my back?"
Paul began to move forward, to move closer to me. I could hear my mom crying behind him. He stopped right in front of me, his shoes touched my bare toes.
"Give me your phone."
My hands shook as I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket, I stretched it forward. He grasped it out of my hands. I felt his finger under my chin, lifting my head up till my eyes met his. His eyes were soft, his thumb stroked my chin, and for a moment I thought he wouldn't hit me.
His hand rose, and I flinched back, I heard a loud smash as something broke into piece and scattered across the floor. He had smashed my phone onto the ground. I looked into his eyes, they were no longer soft, but hard as steel as he stared down at me. Then suddenly my head was swimming as everything went black.
I sat on my bedroom floor in a pool of blood. I leaned against my bed, my head was pounding and it hurt to move. Paul had really done a number on me. I'd never been in this bad of shape before. I had a cut across my eyebrow, and my lip was busted. I had bruises lining my wrists and legs. My breathing was shallow, my eyelids were half closed, I could feel myself slipping into unconsciousness, for the second time.
I heard my door open and Brynn's voice "Neo, oh my goodness, I have so much to tell y-" her words were cut off. I didn't lift my head, I didn't want to see the look of horror on her face.
"Neo" she whispered my nickname and I felt her kneel next to me, "Paul-"
"He was home when I got here" I cut her off.
She gingerly helped me to my feet and pulled me to my bathroom. She sat me down on the toilet and started rifling through my drawers and cabinets, pulling out toilet paper, makeup, hairbows, curling irons until she found rubbing alcohol, cotton pads, gauze and band-aids.
"He broke my phone" I explained as she cleaned my wounds "he threatened me, and Kyan. He told me to never speak to him again. He said that if I do, he'll kill me. Or worse."
"What could be worse than him killing you?" Brynn asked appalled.
"He'll kill Kyan."
She stopped and stared at me for a minute searching my eyes for something, "he's bluffing. He has to be, he wouldn't kill him."
She sounded as if she had trouble convincing herself with her own words. I shook my head, and bolts of lightening shattered my skull.
"We don't know that. Look at what he's willing to do to me, and mom. He'd kill Kyan before he would ever kill me, he's obsessed with me too much." I wince as she pours rubbing alcohol onto a cut "He's already threatened mom he'd kill me if she tries to run. If anyone found out about what he's done to us, it would ruin him. He would never take that chance. He's willing to do anything to keep us quiet, even if it means killing us."
School was almost over, I had managed to avoid Kyan all day, ducking into bathrooms or empty classrooms whenever I saw him in the hallway. I even ate lunch in the bathroom, so I didn't have to sit at our table. I was walking to fifth period, which was social studies. The hallways were crowded and loud, I kept my head down in order to keep attention from being drawn to me. Suddenly I felt a hand grasp my arm and pull me aside. A door slammed and I found myself in an empty classroom, with Kyan standing right in front of me. I gulped.
"What happened to you? Are you okay?" he asked inspecting my wounds. When I didn't answer he frowned, "what's going on? Why have you been avoiding me all day?"
I didn't know how to respond, I knew I wasn't supposed to respond. But Paul couldn't know if I happened to exchange a sentence with Kyan in a classroom, right? Right? Just as I was about to open my mouth the bell rang indicating that I was almost late for fifth period.
"I have to go" I said quickly before I rushed out the door. I scurried into Mr. Hendricks class at the last second, and avoided his disapproving glare. I found a seat and sat down, making sure to keep to myself. Mr. Hendricks started to teach before he was interrupted by the classroom door opening.
"Ah, Mr. Leighton, so good of you to grace us with your presence."
"I couldn't deny you the privilege of all of this, now could I?" Kyan had responded in the same manner of sarcasm as usual, except his voice was laced with venom.
"I'm going to assign partners to each of you for a project to work on. And I think that it would be a great idea to pair the two latest students together. So, Leighton and Miss. Wallace you two are partners, try not to be late turning in your assignment as well."
I felt my head go fuzzy and light, of course of all people I had to be paired with it would be Kyan. Why was Mr. Hendricks doing this to me? As soon as class was over I stopped at Mr. Hendricks desk.
"Mr. Hendricks, is there anyway you could give me a different partner? Please, I am begging you?"
He shook his head "Beg all you want Wallace. I've made up my mind, and there is no escape. Here's your packet." He handed me a packet with the outline of the project and instructions. I sighed as I walked out of the classroom.
"You really want to get rid of me that badly, huh?" Kyan said, his back leaned against the wall next to the classroom. I rolled my eyes as I continued walking down the hall.
"Did I say something? Or do something? What's with the cold shoulder suddenly?" Kyan kept prying. I felt like I was being interrogated. But I understood where he was coming from. I'd want answers too if he had done the same thing to me.
"It's not you." I said.
"Really? 'It's not you, it's me'? is that really the card you are playing right now?"
"It's neither of us. Just forget about it okay." I stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked in his eyes for the first time, "Just, forget about me. Okay? For both our sakes, just forget about me." I spoke quietly, before I looked down and walked away, leaving Kyan standing alone, shocked and bewildered in the hallway.
I had to leave everything behind. I had to leave Kyan, and had to forget about the sneaking out, and the secrets. I had to forget about it all if I wanted to keep everything intact. I could feel the house of cards rattling. If I wasn't careful it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart.
I sat at my desk looking through the project I had received. I could just do the entire project myself, and fake the part that Kyan was supposed to do. It wouldn't be hard, I had done it before. I pulled a pencil out of my cat mug that sat on my desk and began filling in my name and the date on the paper.
I remembered something from yesterday and stopped, I turned around to look at Brynn who was smiling, looking at her phone.
"Hey Brynn, what were you going to tell me yesterday?"
"Hmm?" she asked never looking up from her phone.
"When you came home, you had something to tell me,"
"Oh," she paused as she looked up, suddenly forgetting about her phone. "It's just that. Something happened last night."
"Okay, do tell."
"Well I went with the boys to go see that movie. And it was good, it was fun. After the movie we went into the arcade they have at the theater and started to play some games. I was kicking Jax' butt on Donkey Kong, when Reece distracted me and caused me to lose. I was livid and chased after him, even out into the parking lot. Well I caught up with him, because he's a slow runner, hence why he's not on the track team I guess. I tackled him to ground and we wrestled before he stopped, pinning me to ground. And, out of nowhere he just, well, he kissed me..." Brynn trailed off.
"Holy crap. What did you do?" I asked.
"I slapped him at first. But then I kissed him back. I didn't realize how much I liked him, or even that I like him at all until he kissed me."
"Wow. Brynn that's amazing. Are you happy?"
"Yes." Brynn said thoughtfully "for the first time in a while, I'm overjoyed."
"Good." I smiled at her and stood up, so I could give her a hug, her phone buzzed. She glanced at it and smiled.
"He wants to go get ice cream."
"Go. Have fun." I smiled at her as she thanked me and walked out my bedroom door. I hadn't seen her so happy in so long.
About an hour had passed since Brynn had left, I was silently working on the project when I heard tapping at my window. I knew exactly what and who it was. I ignored it and tried to continue writing "And furthermore it goes to show that-" I was cut off by more tapping, louder this time. If it continued Paul would hear and become suspicious. I pulled my blinds up to see Kyan waiting on the other side, I braced myself as I opened my window.
"What's going on?" Kyan asked loudly.
"SHH!" I say as I put my finger to my lips. I bent down and grabbed a notepad and a sharpie and started scribbling in it. I capped the sharpie and turned it over so Kyan could read it.
"Paul will hear. This is the only way we can talk."
Kyan looked at me funny, but disappeared for a second only to reappear with a notepad and pen as well.
"What's going on? Why can we not talk? Is it because of what you told me? Are you embarrassed?"
I shook my head and wrote, "I'm not embarrassed. Paul was home when I came home. He knows I've been sneaking out, he knows I've been lying."
"Is that why you aren't talking to me? He hurt you didn't he. Why didn't you tell me?"
I read his sign before writing again, "He broke my phone, told me to never talk to you again. He. He threatened me."
Kyan's eyebrows furrowed, "What do you mean he threatened you?"
The air between us was eerily silent as I wrote my response, "He told me that he would kill me. Or you, if I didn't stop talking to you. Even writing to you is putting us at risk."
"You need to get out of that house. You can't stay there anymore, Naomi."
"I will once I get into college I'm gone, and I can take my mom with me, we won't need him."
Kyan shook his head at me, "You honestly think that he's just going to let you walk out the front door? He hasn't allowed you to go anywhere for years, you think that's going to change just because you turn 18 and you are accepted into a college?"
"I don't know."
"Look. My dad is a cop. I won't tell him until we have enough evidence."
I looked at him for a moment, "What do you mean evidence?"
"Take pictures, of every bruise, every cut, broken bone or any form of physical harm he's done to you. If you have pictures that he has been abusing you, and maybe a witness that he threatened to kill you, it should be enough to put him away. He will never be able to hurt you again."
I bit my lip "How do you know for sure?"
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
"Of course, I trust you."
"Then take the pictures. I'm going to get you out of there. We'll call it Project Breakaway."
I saw the first card, the King of Hearts, fall from the house of cards.
I'm really sorry I haven't posted in a while. I kind of lost my spark for writing. But I'm gonna try and finish this book for you guys. I love you all, and thank you for your support towards me!
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Sincerely, Your Average Writer.