Page 83 of Hitting the Goal Line
Something comes over his face like he realizes that what he’s doing is wrong. It takes him a second, but he finally lets me go, letting me fall to the ground.
Instead of getting up right away and running away from this place as far as I can, I stay in the floor and try to collect myself.
I’m okay.
I’m okay.
“Sophia, I’m sorry,” Elijah says, sounding close but far away at the same time. “I shouldn’t have done that. I let my anger get the best of me. I promise you it won’t happen again.”
His words sound sincere and when I look up at his face, I see the apology in his eyes, silently telling me that he means every word.
And every inch of me is saying to believe him.
I just know if I can.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SOPHIA
It’s dark outside.
Darker than it was when we left the arena and headed to Elijah’s.
It has to be late, but how late, I don’t know. I haven’t checked my phone since I left Elijah’s and I really don’t want to check it now. More so when I don’t want to see the messages that might be waiting for me from my boyfriend.
After Elijah let me go, and apologized, he acted normal, asking me what I wanted to eat and if I wanted to watch a movie before bed. Like he had forgotten that he had his hands digging into my arms and had shoved me against the wall.
As much as I wanted to play along and forget about what had happened, I couldn’t. So I got up from the floor and told him that I was going to head home. I felt bad doing it, I apologized a hundred times for it.
From the looks of it, he was upset, but nodded and let me go. He apologized again as he walked me to the door and kissed me goodnight.
As I left the building, I knew that I should have called a car to take me home, or even waved a cab over, but I decided against it and started to walk. It wasn’t that far of a walked anyway.
So, I walked and I walked and I walked until I was standing in front of the building where Blake and I live.
Now I’ve been standing outside for god knows how long.
I should really go inside. It’s getting darker and colder.
But I can’t seem to make my feet move. So I stare up at the building some more. Not really seeing any aspects of it.
It’s when I hear a dog barking in the distance that I’m finally able to get out of my trance and make my way inside.
It takes me a minute to push the button for the elevator, though, but the second that I do and step inside, I let out a sigh of relief. One step closer to being home.
When the elevator arrives at our floor, I don’t hesitate getting off and walking down the hall to the apartment. When I reach the door, I take a second to just look at it. I should be opening it and heading straight to my room to put an end to this night once and for all, but I just stand here, looking at the door.
Halloween is in about two weeks and I thought it would be nice to put some decorations up. I had to make do with solely decorating the front door since we don’t have a front yard or a small porch where I can put up those animatronics that scare people or even have pumpkins.
Looking at it now, though, I want to rip everything off. Every single inch of caution tape, every little paper black and white pumpkin that I put up, my hands itch to rip off. There’s no reason to, it looks nice and I’m sure the kids that live in the building will like it when they come by to get candy. But everything from the last few hours is just boiling inside of me and ripping off the decorations seems like a logical thing to do.
He apologized. You know he didn’t mean to grab you like that or even yell. You have no reason to be angry at Elijah.
Right. No reason.
It was just a one-time thing, a heat of the moment. It won’t happen again.
I think that it’s the fact that it even happened once is what has me feeling all types of ways.
