Page 53 of Hold On

“Thank you,” I say quickly to make sure she knows that she is the most special girl in the world to me. I can’t help but cry as I do, and she trembles as she lies down and cuddles into my chest. I do my best to help her get warm. It smells like copper and moist dirt around us. “Get some sleep,” I quietly suggest but she shakes her head no. She looks extremely tired, so much so, she’s wired.

“Just… busy night and all,” she deflects. I nod softly, knowing she’s fucking traumatized. And it’s my fault.

“He hit me. With a bat,” I recount. I’m having trouble remembering the actual attack, but I do remember the bat and what it looked like coming at my face.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Bash!!” she wails into my chest. I just hold her, crying as well. There’s really nothing else to say or do. We can only be here for each other. She flings her leg over mine as we cuddle as close as we can in the cramped, dingy shed. Alina shakes the entire time. I kiss her forehead, and she moans softly, so vulnerable and tired and sad. I wish I could take it all away from her.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” I whisper. Her face tilts up. She looks at me for a long time, unspeaking. I have no idea what she’s thinking. Probably a million things. She doesn’t answer me. I can’t say that I blame her. If she had asked the same of me, I’d straight up refuse her. I don’t know what I’m doing or what this means for us. But she’s here and she’s not leaving me. This is probably the worst thing you could experience with someone and come out the other side still together.

I hope we’re still together.

*****

The sun has been up for a few hours and I’m starting to feel like absolute shit. A night on the shed floor did not help me. It didn’t do anything for Alina either. She has dark circles under her eyes, and she looks absolutely empty. I feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world. Especially when she had to pee and crouched right outside the door, too scared to go any farther.

“We need to leave,” she says suddenly. I look at her, not sure what to expect or do. All I care about is that she’s still using the wordwe. “You’re coming home with me, ok?” I can only nod, mute. She’s still doing shit for me after all I put her through. Now I’m the one crying as she gathers her things. I place my palm gently on her leg.

“Thank you,” I whisper quietly. She looks at me with all the love in the world, tears filling her eyes. She just nods silently. There isn’t much to be said.

Alina:

It takes us more than twenty minutes to get Sebastian out to my car. We have to keep stopping for him to catch his breath. His head is also spinning with every step. The proximity to his house is unnerving, although he’s assured me his dad has long since left for work.

He’s waiting for me on the curb, holding his head and the side of his stomach, splattered with blood and crusted with dirt. I unlock the door and then help him into my car. I look back at the house nervously and notice his mother watching me with herson from the porch. It’s hard to read her face. But she’s sporting a black eye that wasn’t there when I saw her in the window the previous evening. I move a little faster, needing to leave as quickly as possible.

Bash falls asleep once I lay him back in the seat, then take off. It’s a good fifteen minutes to my home from his house and he’s a little hard to wake when I finally get there. My brother disappeared back to his friend’s house and my parents are gone as I do my best to help Bash to my room. I clear out the bottom of my closet, throwing shoes everywhere. I had planned to help Bash shower when we got here, but he pushes me out of the way as he practically passes out, curling up into a ball in the corner of the closet. I cover him with a blanket and pull his shoes and socks off.

I make him let me change the bandage on his head though.

Then he’s fast asleep. I close my closet partially, watching him from my bed as he snores. When I’m sure he’s out cold, I cry my heart out. The house is silent around me.

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Then

Sebastian:

I wake up staring at a white wall. But the floor beneath me is plush carpet and I’m warm. A fluffy, turquoise blanket with cheetah print covers my body and I smile, knowing it’s my Lina Girl’s. I must be in her home. I stretch out and wince, not only at how I feel, but how I smell. Then I feel guilty for dirtying Alina’s room. I look over and see that she’s lying in her bed asleep. Last night was hard on us both. She looks like a fucking angel, but I have to pee, and I want to clean myself up. I’m looking through a doorframe and realize I’m inside her closet. My brain still feels fuzzy and slow.

“Alina,” I say quietly, not sure who’s home or what time it is. She doesn’t move. I sigh. She’s so fucking tired, she’s out. I do my best to be quiet, getting up without making a sound. I know where the bathroom is and figure maybe pissing there instead of on her closet floor is a good idea. Cracking her door, I look down the hall before making a beeline, admittedly a slow one in my condition, to the toilet. It feels like fucking heaven as I empty my bladder.

But as I catch sight of my face in the mirror, my heart sinks. Not necessarily because I look like shit. That was going to be a given. But at the fact that my father could do this to me, his only child, and still sleep at night like he deserves it. Like he works hard all day, and that rest is well earned. It isn’t. He makes mesick. And I can’t help but feel like a fucking idiot for thinking that anything was going to be different when I went home this time. I’m zipping up my fly when I hear the knob of the bathroom door jiggle. I scramble away from the entrance. But it’s Alina, looking scared as shit as she pokes her head in.

She shuts the door and locks it before running to me. “Baby!” she shrieks as she grabs me in a hug. I use whatever strength I have left to do my best to hug her back.

“Hi, Lina Girl,” I say with a smile as she nuzzles me and kisses me, not even minding the dirt or blood on her clean lips and face.

“C’mon, we need to get you showered. I’m not sure when my parents will be home, so we need to take advantage while we can.” I nod, totally open to being her willing patient.

“I just want to make things easier on you,” I say quietly as she levels me with a stare.

“Don’t ever fucking go back there, Bash.” Her face holds remorse but mostly challenge in her expression. “You deserve to be loved, not… whatever the fuck this is. It’s abuse, actually. It can’t be classified as anything else,” she says harshly. I look away. She’s right, of course, but it’s still hard to hear.

“I’m eighteen. I’ve just been biding my time to get out, Lina,” I defend. She nods, understanding, as she begins to strip me of my clothes. It’s slow going. My entire body aches and as she begins to see more of it, the more mortified she becomes. I’ve always bruised well and this newest encounter with my father is no exception. I’m black, blue and swollen. There’s a splash of purple and some dark red as well. She’s full-on sobbing by the time we get my body into the shower. The hot water feels amazing though. She climbs in with me and helps me to wash myself of all the trauma I’ve endured. I’m grateful. My head hurts and it’s hard for me to lift my arms to wash my hair. Ittakes over forty-five minutes to get me cleaned up and bandaged again. And by the end of it, I’m falling deeper in love with Alina.

We make it back into her room without being caught. I lie in her bed as she cleans the spot I napped in on the floor of her closet, then proceeds to make a bed for me there, stuffing way too many pillows at the top for my head. But I’m beyond grateful. And when she finishes, she lies me back down before she leaves, going to the kitchen to find something for us to eat.

She comes back with two bowls of Top Ramen and then turns on her stereo so we can listen to music while we eat on the floor of her closet, spooning with each other. I’m in such awe of everything she’s done for me that I have no words to thank her with. I just keep staring at her and wondering why she’s keeping me around when she’s a fucking goddess and has all of this to offer someone who actually deserves her.

My dad fucking attacked her.

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