Page 81 of Encounter

Instead of my heart turning heavy and lungs twitching with desperate, hyperventilating breaths as they always would, resistant energy poured back into my veins. Wasn’tthiswhat I wanted to stop? All these months, weeks, hours spent uncomfortable and stressed out and training—wasn’t this why I called Chast at the very beginning? To stop this?

“Get off!” I screamed, snapping my head back with all my might.

Yelping, Blake fell on the ground, clenching his nose.

Desperately pushing myself away from him on the slippery floor, I looked for my bag to grab it and run away, but it took him only a few seconds to get himself together and go back at me. Stopping his arms with mine, I barely held him back while sharp pain shot through the arm he twisted.

It was nothing like those scenarios or moves Chast showed me. I could barely think. I could barely remember anything.

Like two wild dogs, we squirmed on the floor. Getting lucky, Blake punched me in the face. Shooting my leg out in an impulse, I managed to kick him in the stomach.

What felt like some majestic fight to the death must have looked pathetic from the outside. Huffing and holding my face, I stood up.

“You really fucked up this time!” Blake growled while he tried to recover. “You’re fuckin’ dead!”

He keeps pushing.Kept pushing and pushing and pushing, all these years. What did he expect to happen?!

“What the hell’s wrong with you? Losing your shit over something like this?!”It was stupid of me to think he would listen.

Instead of slowing down, he stood, even more eager to beat the shit out of me.

Realizing how bad it was going to get, I started backing away while screaming in my mind—begging for my trembling hands to work with me. No matter the help Chast tried to provide, I knew I wasn’t going to win against Blake’s entitled, narcissistic rage. It was way too powerful, fed and fueled for years.

“Please, just— Just leave me alone!” I gritted through my teeth, tense and breathless.

Blake leaped forward, grabbing me by the neck. I pushed him away, but with ease, he punched me in the stomach and pushed me again, making me hit the wall behind me. “Too late for beggin’ you little fa—”

“Hey!”

Thank. God.

Letting out a loud sigh of relief, I remained frozen, flinching from Blake’s fist, stopped only by our management professor rushing in.

We still both ended up in the dean’s office.

With our parents paying the hefty sums of money for the tuition, we got some talking to but nothing more.Of course...I knew Blake would never get in trouble, and I would never get any justice. How could I expect such a thing?

Instead of calling Chast, I called Dad’s driver to get me home. I trembled for the entirety of the ride, but instead of the familiar feeling I would have every other time I got messed up by one of them—shame, fear, frustration, all mixed together—there was something else. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.

Maybe it was the adrenaline—still buzzing through my veins—as it spilled away, which created a strange haze in my mind. The bizarre emptiness in my chest wasn’t uncomfortable but... freeing.

I studied my face in my bathroom mirror once I arrived at home, letting out a deep breath. The damage didn’t seem too bad. My arm got the worst of Blake’s fury—it still throbbed every time I moved it, but at least it wasn’t broken.

The expression on his face when I talked back... It made me let out a satisfied snort remembering it.

Chast would be proud.

With a stupid smile on my face, I walked to the hallway where I dropped my bag with the phone beforehand. Startled, I froze as Dad opened the main door, with an expression of that cold, paralyzing disappointment I so despised.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“You are fighting at school now?!” he growled, slamming the door behind him. He must have been on lunch when they called him.

I hated it. I hated how much I cared about his damn validation. How guilty, small and shitty I felt every time he looked at me with those eyes.

With shivers passing down my spine, I took in a sharp inhale. “Wh— Did they call you?Seriously?!” I wasn’t going to fold and let him snap on me this time. I was sick of it. I wasn’t going to get metaphorically beaten up by him after getting arealbeating from Blake! “I’m an adult, why would they ca—”

“You keep saying you’re an adult! Better start acting like one!” Twitching as he slammed his fist against the key table next to him, I had to force myself to not look away from Dad’s burning, hateful gaze. “Instead of an adult, you’re behaving like a goddamn brat! Getting into petty fights at school, like some simple-minded, pathetic loser!”

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