*Final part of this Flashback*
“I know this will take some time to get used to but you love me don’t you?” he slowly lifted his body from mine now sitting on the floor, I followed suit, trying to scoot as far away from him as the chain allowed me to. Not having this he moved so we were sitting hip to hip, facing each other.
Shamefully I dropped my head, “yeah” I whispered knowing not even a fool would have believed me if I lied. “And I love you, spending the rest of your life with me doesn’t sound too bad does it, hmm” he placed his hand on my thigh rubbing shapes with his thumb onto the fabric of my jeans.
Moving my red, puffy eyes to meet him, I smiled sorrowfully, “you know that was always our plan, but this isn’t the right way to go about it Noah, we need to go back, my parents are probably worried.”
“I won’t let them take you away from me” his voice was once again strained, his eyes filled with a burning fury. “No one is trying to take me away from you” I reassured, placing my hand on top of his, seeking to get through to him.
“I heard what Keith said to you today Embry, they all say it, and I won’t let it happen” his face held the look of determination. One that caused a heavy feeling in my stomach. “I would never listen to them, you know me Noah, if we don’t go back soon they will send police and you could get in serious trouble” I tried to reason.
“A bit too late for that” he rolled his eyes, hope filling my heart. “Police are looking for us?” I asked in shock. Shaking his head, “they are looking for you, I’ve already been labelled as the bad guy” he clenched his teeth together, the pressure from his hand becoming more intense.
“That’s why we are leaving here, I’m bringing you to our new home” he moved himself, standing up. If he brought me to a new location there was even less chance of me making it out.
“Noah, please I don’t thin-” flinching back as his voice boomed against the padded walls, “Embry, you said you’d be good, you aren’t sounding too obedient right now” he spat. I felt my stomach churn with a need to vomit at the demeaning words he threw at me.
The fact he was displeased with me didn’t sit too right with me either, I had been told I was a chronic people pleaser and I now finally realised it was true. “Sorry” I whimpered, letting my hair curtain my face as he tied a blindfold over my eyes and a couple moments later secured my hands behind my back with rope.
I would have to wait until I got out of these bindings to try anything if I wanted to succeed. Blindly being brought up stairs I tried to tune my other senses in to try to figure out my location. I was failing miserably to say the least because before I knew it I was being buckled into a car and the engine revved on.
“N-Noah?” I whispered, hoping he wasn’t mad at me. “Yes little bug” he hummed, “can I take the blind fold and ropes off? They aren’t comfortable” I admitted, shuffling my feet around to figure out I had been seated in the back of the car.
“Not until we get to the house babygirl, I can’t trust you knowing the route to the house in case you decide to run away from me” his voice got deeper towards the end of the sentence, as a way of warning me against trying to run.
“Oh, o-okay” I let my head rest against the back of the seat, now realising how bad that headache really was. “Such a good girl” he praised, once again turning up the volume of the radio.
The drive continued in silence for around thirty minutes before I was shocked out of my slouching position by the loud profanity that came from Noah’s mouth.
“F*ck, Embry baby, I need you to duck down okay?” his voice seemed angry and panicked as I did what he said in fear of being on the receiving end of his fury. Then I heard them, police sirens.
I could have let out a cry of relief but I knew my problems hadn’t been solved quite yet. I could faintly hear Noah muttering to himself as I was thrown around the back seat with the force the car was being driven with. Within a couple of minutes, I was sent flying forward, my head crashing into the back of the passenger seat as I groaned in pain.
Noah’s voice was getting increasingly panicked as I heard a couple door slams. “Noah Hill, step out of the vehicle with your hands where we can see them” a muffled voice reverberated through the air. I let out a squeak as my door tore open, my blindfold being gently pulled down as I met the eyes of a man wearing a police uniform.
Cutting me from the ropes, he guided me out of the car towards his own. Looking around I saw Noah being put in handcuffs by another police officer. He was struggling against the other man’s grip, finally coming to a still once his eyes met my now teary ones. “I won’t let them take you, little bug” he shouted from across the road.
That was the last I had seen of him until the court hearing on the 18th of November.
*End of Flashback*
That had been the last day I ever drank a milkshake, as odd as it is to say. I just could never bring myself to even look at one again. It was the reason I was here, god I was so naive. I had been under this roof that whole time and I hadn’t even been paying attention on the drive here, I was just full of one stupid mistake after another.
I was tired. Not the tiredness that you can sleep off, it was a mental exhaustion tied in with an emotional one. I just wanted it to stop, the nightmare, the tears, the panic attacks, the anxiety, the constant fear. Yet I had never attempted to kill myself before because there was this messed up part of my mind that believed things could go back to the way they were before that day.
I had been subconsciously asking for this the whole time, but I never wanted it like this. Right?
My eyesight was blurry with tears as I looked up to the now open door, Noah slithering inside and shutting the door once again. For the second time in my life, I sat on this floor staring up at him with my red and puffy eyes.
“You remember it, don’t you?” he tilted his head, coming forward to sit down in front of me. “I had never really forgotten it” I frowned, my tears coming out silently now.
“You used to think about it a lot didn’t you, think about what you could have done differently because deep down, over the past year, you realised you would have rather come with me that night then go back to that hell you called life” his face held no prominent emotion. Yet it wasn’t blank.
It was a face of peace. He knew he was right. “I told you Embry, I know you better than anybody else in this world, including yourself” his lips lifted up in a small smile.
I let my head rest against the wall, staring at the man in front of me. My lips quivered with my sorrow, I wanted to stop my tears, pretend his words didn’t affect me as much as they did. But I couldn’t because they burnt me so much. His words stung more than any stupid branding did.
Because I never admitted it to myself but there were far too many days and nights I spent wishing I had done anything different that night, wishing the police never came. But that would make me messed up, a label which I had been dodging the most since that night.
“At heart, you were praying I would come back for you again, you knew it wasn’t right so you fight yourself on it but it gets tiring lying to yourself like that Embry” his face was full of sympathy, sickeningly genuine sympathy.
Scooting to sit against the wall beside me, he tilted my head down to lay on his shoulder. My tears quickly soaking the fabric of his shirt. “You’re so attached to my mom because you think she has the answers for you, you think that she can tell you it isn’t worth being with me, because no matter how many people said that to you while I was in prison they never understood the kind of relationship we shared and you think my mother does” his arm wrapped around my limp body, his hand beginning the stroke my hair.
“She will never be able to understand our relationship either Embry, my dad bought her, he fell in love with owning her and she fell in love with the idea of being loved, they are nothing like us” he dropped his cheek to lie against the top of my head.
“But I understand it, that’s why I’ve done all this, I understand you. You just need someone to take care of you, just let me take care of you Embry, you have the weight of the world weighing you down.”
“Let me take all your pain away”