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  Thankfully, my parents were at one of their secret church meetings and I was home alone. He stood there confident and strong on my porch—this handsome, dark-haired stranger with light grey eyes and thick, dark eyelashes. He said some words, I said some words, I laughed, he laughed and somehow, we exchanged numbers, somehow, he saw beyond what anyone else sees when they look at me.

  He saw the one thing I have never seen in myself; he saw promise.

  While I wait in agony for my parents to take themselves to their separate bedrooms, I begin getting ready. I ditch my silk pyjamas, and I replace them with a long-sleeved black sweater and denim shorts. I unearth my secret makeup bag, which I keep hidden underneath a broken floorboard and I stare at myself in the mirror as I wonder what to do.

  My wavy, black hair is knotty and disgraceful. I take out a comb from the drawer—something that my mother allows me to keep and I begin combing it back, smiling as the waves layer themselves down my shoulders.

  I grip my dimple-chin between my fingers, swinging my face left and right, sighing as I reach into my makeup bag to see what I can try and do to make my face more presentable. I decide to just rub my skin in cream that makes it shiny and oily. My eye lashes are already thick and dark, but I gently add some mascara to give it some volume.

  I reach back into my bag, bringing out a tube of coconut lip gloss that tastes bizarre on my lips. I spread it out, filling it in until I’m pretty much smothered in it.

  That’s enough. That’s more oddity than I’m used to.

  I hide my bag, rising from my stool and I turn out my bedroom light—climbing into bed with the covers pulled across my body. They’ll most likely check on me before they go to sleep, they usually do whenever my mother makes me recite the lie passage. I pat my hair, making sure it covers my face, as I turn away from the door towards the window.

  I watch the moon that sits high in the blanket of darkness and I find myself praying to it that tonight will be okay. I’ve snuck out a thousand times, they never suspected a thing—so why should tonight be different?

  It’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine. I’ll be home before dawn and I’ll get a few hours rest until I’m woken up, and by then, I’ll be fresh and ready to face the horrors of the day.

  It’ll all be fine.

  Chapter 2

  Sometime later—an hour?—I hear my mother crawling up the stairs as though her spine has been carved into pieces. She opens my bedroom door, as expected and then closes it. My father follows a few minutes later and as soon as I hear his bedroom door shut, I reach underneath my pillow case for my phone.

  I send Nathan a text to inform him that the coast is clear for him to begin driving and he texts me back barely twenty seconds later, like he’s been staring at his phone for the entire hour to be given that news.

  The party is at least ten minutes away, and that’ll be enough time for my parents to drift into a soundless, deep dream where they’re probably just sat on chairs; reading and sewing.

  Ten minutes goes by like seconds and soon enough, I hear Nathan’s car pull up on the street outside my house. Excitement courses through my veins and I fly the covers from my body as I wander through the darkness of my bedroom to the window. I open it wide before climbing out, testing my right foot first which goes over the ledge easily and I dig my foot into a gap between the bricks as I twirl my left foot to follow it. I grip the edge of the window as though my life depends on it. I drop my body softly downwards as I make the exchange from the window to the ledge, but then my foot slides against useless brick and I’m left hanging in mid-air.

  Blood drains from my face as I clench my teeth in agony, I stretch my arm outwards to try and grip the pipe that I usually climb down, but something is different tonight. I can’t regain my footing, I can’t find the hole in the brick to support my weight. My foot scrapes at the brick desperately, my body paralyzing with weakness as memories of their pain against me lights up my mind. I see my father’s belt hitting my body, I see my mother’s grin as she holds the wet flannel over my face. I hear their justification again and again.

  You must be cleansed.

  You are riddled with sin.

  We must clean you.

  My eyes fall on to the scar that’s imprinted into my left palm and then I remember the agony of when they poured boiling water over it.

  Whenever I’m in a situation where I have to be strong, I always go back to the thousand and one ways that they took it away from me. And I can never get past it.

  I fall to the floor, which greets me quick and sudden, and I try to hold in a noise of pain as my backside smacks into the concrete. I observe my legs first, making sure there are no visible marks, but there doesn’t seem to be any, however, my arm aches like someone has punched it.

  I rise to my feet, wiping off gravel from my clothes, before turning to meet Nathan’s panicked face as he abandons his car across the street to charge over.

  “Are you okay?” he says as he jogs towards the end of my lawn.

  “Yeah,” I say, still wiping myself down. I turn my attention to my hands which are plastered in small cuts where my skin has broken, leaving patches of dry blood. “Dammit. How am I going to explain that?”

  Nathan stares down at my hands and confusion mounts on his face. “Just say you got up early and went for a run, and fell in the forest.”

  I glare at him.

  “What?” he says with a shrug. “It happens.”

  “Not to people like me,” I mumble.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” I say and then I smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he says, leaning in to kiss me. I wrap my arms around his shoulders as our lips meet and then I have to retract them as my arm begins to sting.

  “Ouch,” I wince. “I think I’ve done some damage to my arm.”

  Nathan rolls his eyes and takes my hand, dragging me to his car. “Come on, wuss, you’ll be fine once you get some alcohol in you.”

  I agree with him silently, and I slip into the passenger seat of his car while he drops into the driver’s seat and turns the engine on. He might think I’m just overreacting, but he doesn’t realise the consequences that something like this will have on me at home. How am I supposed to explain that I developed a bruised arm and cut hands from having eight hours’ sleep?

  Nathan doesn’t know about it. He doesn’t know about anything. He knows little things, like how religious my parents are and that they’ve got strict views on the world, like rejecting the idea of technology or allowing me to date. But he’s oblivious to the other things, the things that will scar my mind until the day I die. To the physical and mental abuse that I’ve been subjected with since I was a child. I know that how my parents treat me is wrong, I’ve always known that, I’ve just never had the courage to challenge them. They’ve got the church behind them, they’ve got an army of religious, brainwashed allies to back them up if it ever got serious.

  When I break their rules, I feel like I’m secretly getting revenge on them and that’s enough.

  As Nathan’s car begins rolling off the side walk and into the road, I glance towards my house aimlessly, feeling that satisfactory victory creep into my bloodstream.

  But as I attempt to grin, as I attempt to enjoy the moment when I can deny them—a tug of dread courses through me as I swear, just for one moment, I see a face in my bedroom window.

  Chapter 3

  Nathan parks his car in the enormous driveway of the grand three-story house that belongs to the wealthiest family in town. The brave child of Simone and Luke, Henry, is throwing one of the wildest parties I’ve ever seen.

  As I climb out of the car, all around me, drunk teenagers are screaming and jumping on cars that are piled together on the driveway. Party-goers are everywhere, some are standing on balconies pouring bottles of beer onto the heads of those below them—some are dancing in a daze to music that isn’t there, others are kissing or getting more than friendly with each other on the ground.

&n
bsp; And this is just the outside.

  “Thought you said I wasn’t missing much?” I say to Nathan with a smile.

  He takes my pained hand and leads me towards the steps of the house. “That was an hour ago,” he says. “I’m pretty sure your imagination can work out the rest.”

  “I don’t really think I need to imagine,” I say as I step over a drunk girl that has fallen at my feet.

  The inside of the house is even more chaotic. The music can be heard first, as it blasts through speakers that I, unfortunately, have to wait beside as too many crowd an archway into the main room. I begin swaying, nudging my side into Nathan’s as I go along with the base. He dances back, moving his shoulders in a giddy moment of rejoice.

  He grips my hand tighter as he spots an opportunity to push past people and we both squeeze our way through a gap that, although, seemed like a good idea at the time, definitely isn’t. There’s so many bodies, so many drunks stumbling into me and even though I’m in pain from my throbbing arm, I manage to successfully push them away from me.

  Nathan takes me over to the other side of the wide spaced, luxurious lounge—and I stare at the glistening, polished chandelier on the ceiling. It must be amazing to live in a house like this, to live a lifestyle like this, everything around me, although partly trashed, is still poignant and elegant.

  The white-tiled floor looks as though it’s been scrubbed until someone’s hands bled and there’s a plastic box in the corner stuffed with dozens of antiques that Henry must have stashed away before the party began. Some of those antiques must be worth thousands.

  Nathan stops us at a long table against a wall that plays host to so many bottles of alcohol that I’m spoilt for choice. I take a bottle of blue liquid that I’ve never heard the name of and I use the bottle opener to open it, before bringing it quickly to my lips.

  “Are all of these people from your high school?” I shout to Nathan over the noise.

  Nathan nods. “Pretty much.”

  I scan my eyes around all the drunk faces. Some I recognise from other parties, some I know well because they’re Nathan’s friends, but the rest are a complete blur. I feel like an outcast at this party because they all know each other. They see each other every day, they’ve known each other for years, probably since infancy. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying myself regardless, I don’t come to these parties just because Nathan attends them, I come because I want to feel the thrill of this kind of atmosphere. I want to blend in. I want to make friends. I want to be normal.

  But above all, I just want to hear music. The teenagers here don’t know how much they take it for granted. How much they take everything for granted. And conveniently, I’m always going to be the only one that sees it.

  I tip the bottle vertical above my throat, I don’t know what the hell this drink is, but it’s pretty damn good. I finish it, placing it back onto the table as Nathan laughs at me.

  “What?” I say, reaching for another.

  “And you say I’m the one with the drinking problem.”

  “Oh, you are,” I say. “The intervention is coming soon.”

  “Bring it on,” he says. “Just be aware, I’ll be drunk throughout it.”

  I laugh, bringing the next one to my lips and I eye him over the bottle. “Let’s just have fun tonight, okay? None of that predictable trash-talk.”

  “What trash-talk?” he says, faking an offended response. “Discussing our future?”

  “Yes, no discussions,” I warn him with a grin. “I’m putting a future-talk ban on tonight.”

  “Oh no, not a ban,” he says while snickering. “How many bans have I broken so far?” He stares into the air, blinking at the ceiling. “I think tonight will make five hundred and thirty.”

  I narrow my eyes. “I mean it. It’s a ban ban.”

  “What’s a ban ban?”

  “It will end in you never getting laid again, ban.”

  “Ah,” he gasps, pointing his finger. “You just future-talked.”

  “That doesn’t count,” I say, smiling as I glance away, but then I consider it. “Actually, it does.”

  “And I can’t even be proud of myself for calling you out on it,” he says with a sigh.

  “Your poor future sex life,” I say.

  “Yeah, like I have a present one.”

  “Oh!” I laugh, hitting his shoulder. “It’s like that, is it?”

  He relaxes into me and I use the moment to wrap my arms around his shoulders, while singing to the song that’s playing against his lips.

  “Stop,” he says. “Stop singing.”

  I ignore him, singing even louder and he pushes me away from him, while covering his face in embarrassment.

  He jumps on me, suddenly, picking me up and he twirls me around as I laugh out the last sentence of the song. My body gently glides down his, fitting perfectly against him and we both ignore the party around us as we look at each other.

  I never thought I’d even date someone, let alone fall in love with someone. And although Nathan has been my rock for these past few months, every time I take a glance at the future he presents to me, I see a darkness surrounding it. I know deep down that I can never truly be with him in the open, I can never have that future with him that he believes in so much.

  And it kills me.

  It kills me to stare into his grey, homely eyes and see such an extravagant amount of love looking back. The love that I have always wanted. Enough love to make up for the lack of it from two other people. And it kills me because as much as I want to, I just can’t accept it. I can’t accept something I’m not familiar with, even when I know it’s real, even when I see it before me, so perfect and defined.

  Our moment is cut short by fingers tapping against Nathan’s shoulder. I back away from his chest, watching, as a tall, blonde-haired guy wearing a spiky leather jacket whispers something into Nathan’s ear.

  Nathan just nods, absorbing the secretive information calmly. I glance between them, waiting for some kind of conclusion or explanation.

  “How long?” Nathan says.

  “Soon,” the guy replies and then his attention moves to me.

  “This is Elizabeth,” Nathan says, warily wiping his chin. “My girlfriend.”

  The blonde guy smiles, his hazel eyes narrowing slightly as he extends his hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m Sin. Nathan and I go way back.”

  I stare down at his hand. “Funny, he’s never mentioned you before.”

  Sin retracts his hand angrily and places it on Nathan’s shoulder. “I’ll come find you when I need that favour.”

  I watch as Nathan sinks into himself, his eyes on the floor until Sin slowly walks away to join a group of girls at the window. He finally meets my gaze and I project a scowl until he speaks.

  “How about we—” he begins.

  “What favour?” I demand.

  “He just needs to borrow my car, that’s all.”

  He gently rolls his eyes to the ceiling and back down again, unleashing a smile to try and throw me off.

  “I know when you’re lying, Nathan,” I say. “You do the eye thing. What are you involved with?”

  “You’re being paranoid,” he says, moving towards the table to grab another bottle of beer. I place myself next to him with my arms crossed, staring at him until he gives me more. “He just needs to pick something up across town and his car’s in the garage.”

  “Pick what up?”

  “I don’t know, a package or something.”

  “This late at night?” I say. "He’s not insured to drive your car, and something’s off with him, what if something happens and-

  “Beth,” he sighs, eyeing me angrily. “It’s a simple favour. Just let it go, okay? Not everything is about reading people and judging them. You might think you’re good at psychology, but you can get things wrong.”

  “I am good at psychology,” I tease, grinning at him. “Which is why I know that you bringing that up is a defence mechanism to thro
w me off.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Here we go again.”

  “Fine,” I say, turning to place my back against the table. “I’ll let it go.”

  “Thank you,” he breathes and then his attention falls to my hand, he gently takes it, causing me to glare at him. “It’s still bleeding a little. Come on, I’ll find you a band aid.”

  I glance at my hand, observing the blood that’s releasing from one of the deeper cuts. I hadn’t even noticed it had been bleeding, the pain from my arm is still over-riding any other afflictions.

  I follow Nathan through to the adjacent lounge, looking over my shoulder for a moment to catch a last glimpse of Sin, who is still standing beside the window and stares at me with a ghostly expression of stillness.

  Chapter 4

  A few hours after dancing, drinking, singing, and meeting stranger and stranger whose names I probably won’t remember, Nathan and I sit at one of the empty balconies on the top floor, curled up in a fluffy, white blanket that we borrowed from whoever’s bedroom this is.

  It’s been an interesting night. A perfect night. Apart from watching Nathan having another secretive discussion with Sin just before he borrowed his car and after he returned it, I’ve got no complaints. I need to learn to trust, but how can I? I’m always looking for a problem, maybe it’s because I’m always looking for an excuse to make myself seem like a bad person. Either that or I’m trying to find a way to provoke Nathan’s true feelings out.

  He never argues with me, he never expresses anger towards me. I can’t help but try and search for a way to bring it out. I always manage to make my parents mad, I just assume it’s a matter of time before I do the same to Nathan. I’m too damaged not to.

  My head falls into his chest and I listen calmly to his heartbeats that thump against my ear in a precise, slow rhythm. He brings another bottle of beer to his lips above my head and I close my eyes, savouring this moment.

  “So, how long does this ban last for?” Nathan suddenly mumbles.

  I groan, lifting my eyes up to meet his. “A month.”