So why was I sitting here in my car, feeling entirely too much like the girl I used to be. Violated. Miserable. A failure.

I looked over at the bags containing Flynn’s lunch and knew he was expecting me. I checked the time and saw that I only had a few minutes to get over to the community college before he would start wondering where I was.

It was important for me to remember why I was here.

I was here because of Flynn.

Flynn Hendrick.

My Flynn.

I repeated his name over and over again in my head. Desperately wanting that to be all that mattered.

Flynn.

Flynn.

Flynn.

So why did I still feel sick inside?

Chapter Twelve

-Ellie-

The house was quiet.

Not the sort of quiet that was relaxing and made me want to take a nap.

It was the sort of quiet that had me on edge and hyper aware of every sound.

I had heard Dania out in the hallway earlier. The closed door had muffled her voice. I had also heard Mr. Beretti’s baritone. Their words hadn’t reached my ears and then it had gone silent.

And it had been that way ever since.

I pulled out a notebook from my book bag, instantly tossing aside the homework. I didn’t make a habit of actually completing school assignments.

Instead I flipped through the pages until I found the folded up paper toward the back. I slowly opened it and looked down at the simple sketch. It made my heart beat faster and my lips stretch upwards into a rusty semblance of a smile.

Flynn had drawn it just this evening. I had gone back to his house, which had strangely become our routine. We had eaten his mom’s banana bread and then watched TV. And when it was time for Flynn and his mom to have dinner (I was never invited to join, which hurt more than I cared to admit), and I was putting on my coat he shoved the paper into my pocket.

“What is it?” I had asked, wondering why he seemed so shy all of the sudden.

I had come to realize that Flynn was blunt. His honesty was brutal. He wasn’t the sort to mince words to make you feel better.

We were a lot alike, Flynn and me.

So his vagueness had my curiosity piqued.

I had started to unfold the paper but Flynn reached out, squeezing my fingers tightly, crumpling the paper. “Don’t. Just look at it later.”

I had frowned, not understanding. But then his mother had called him to the table and that had been my cue to leave.

I hated those moments when I transitioned from the warm safety his house provided to the cold, harsh world that I lived in. My feet would hesitate, digging into the ground, not wanting to leave.

I wanted to turn around and run back inside, begging Flynn and his mother to keep me forever.

Because there, with Flynn, I was kind of, sort of happy.

But it never lasted. It wasn’t meant to.

Girls like me didn’t belong in places like that.

I had refused to look at the paper on the walk back, no matter how much I wanted to.

When I had gotten to the Beretti’s house, I had been told to do my chores and get the fuck to my room. Mrs. Beretti was in a mood. And that usually meant her husband was giving her less attention. Which also meant his pervy sights were set on some poor girl. Be it Dania, me, or the thirteen-year-old girl who delivered the newspaper.

I looked down at Flynn’s drawing and felt that bubbly, warm sensation that I only ever experienced at the Hendrick’s home deep in my gut.

Flynn had drawn me.

I was smiling, my eyes twinkling. I knew it was an expression that I didn’t wear very often. This was an Ellie that only ever showed herself to a certain boy who had drawn her.

There was a soft tapping on my door and I hastily put the drawing away.

Dania slowly pushed open the door and padded softly across the room.

“Hey,” I said, noticing the tear stains on Dania’s cheeks. Her lips were red and swollen, as though she had bitten down on flesh…hard.

Dania wouldn’t look at me, her shoulders were slumped and she looked as broken as I had ever seen her.

Then I knew.

Mr. Beretti’s and Dania’s voices outside my door

Then the silence.

I patted the spot beside me on the bed. I didn’t say anything as Dania crawled under the covers and lay on her side, her body shuddering every now and then.

I didn’t touch her, knowing that right now, she wouldn’t be able to bear it. So I let her fall to sleep tucked into my bed, knowing that at least for tonight, with me beside her, she was safe.

My eyes fell to the folded paper once more, and I felt a momentary guilt that I had someone that cared about me. That I had someplace to go that made me feel safe and secure.

Dania didn’t have that.

I was all she had.

**

By the time I arrived at Black River Community College I had calmed down. I grabbed the bags of groceries and headed towards the building where Flynn taught his art classes.

I berated myself for letting a prick like Mr. Beretti get to me. I wasn’t a pathetic fourteen-year-old girl anymore. He was nothing to me.

Less than nothing.

It didn’t matter what he or his horrible wife thought of me.

So why was there a lump of lead inside that felt a lot like shame?

I had been forced to endure random run-ins with my shitty foster parents over the years. Sometimes they ignored me. Sometimes they attempted to engage in awkward, one-sided conversation.

And sometimes they looked at me with judgment and condescension, as Mable Beretti had just done.

I had been able to shake it off, usually by going out and losing my mind in a haze of drugs, alcohol, and no strings attached sex.