He is all around me. His arms fuse me together, because I am so scared I will fall apart. I breathe in his American Eagle cologne. He murmurs softly in my hair, and it’s those words that stop me from losing control.
I can’t help it. It feels like my world is cracking to pieces.

Blake, the captain of the football team. He doesn’t know what love or compassion is.
He only understands power, and making others suffer for his decisions.
I can still smell the boozy scent of alcohol in his breath. I still feel the way Blake scrabbled at my clothes, “to get a better view of my body,” he said.
My stomach and thighs are covered with scratches, because I fought him every step of the way.

Jared is the only one who I would trust this secret with.
He understands that you can’t have power over someone in a relationship. Jared knows that what Blake did will never leave me.

Jared’s willing to wait for me. He’s fine with waiting until I say I’m ready.

Blake didn’t wait. He ambushed me in the woods, while Jared and I were playing James Bond in the park. Blake had his friends (drunk just like him) take my clothes, and they left me. I laid there, curled into a ball on the fallen pine needles, a collapsed skyscraper.

Jared found me crying. He didn’t say a word, except a gasp when he saw blood pooling on my stomach like worms poking their heads out of apples. He wrapped me in his sweatshirt, and took me home.

Jared didn’t leave me, like Blake did. He tucked me into bed, and spent the night, holding me tight. I secretly inhaled his American Eagle cologne all night long, while his face wrinkled and his hair fell into his eyes.

And that is where this story ends, but I’m not sure if it’s the end. Perhaps it’s the end of the beginning. ?