Know Your Worth ✔️

Chapter 10 - This Is What A Friend Does

⚠️ Warning - This chapter contains descriptive scenes of violence and abuse ⚠️

~ Daniela's POV ~

The pain in my body was among many of the things that were keeping me from falling asleep that night.

Carson and I ate dinner when the nice guard brought it to us with some more ice for my bruises and then after that we decided to try and go to sleep.

Of course I'd been sleeping most of the day which meant I wasn't that tired, even if my body did need the rest. Along with that and the pain, I couldn't get the thoughts and images of what happened out of my head. Every time I closed my eyes pictures of George flashed through my mind which would just lead me to start crying all over again.

It wasn't like sobbing crying because I'd already done that earlier and I was too exhausted to do it any more. This was just those silent tears that fell whenever I remembered what happened and the fact I'd lost my only connection to my mother for the rest of my life. I had this sharp pain in my heart which wouldn't go, no matter how many times I tried to push the thoughts away.

She was gone and every time I reached my hand up to hold the necklace for the comfort that I so desperately needed, I remembered it all over again.

I remembered the way he humiliated me, the way he hit me and hurt me like I was just a punching bag and the way he ripped the necklace from my neck.

It was like I was nothing, that he could just treat me like nothing and it didn't matter.

"Dani it's okay, don't cry."

"I'm sorry." I mumbled my apology as I wiped my eyes, hating the fact that I was making our pillow and his shirt wet with all my tears. "You don't have to apologise."

As he said this, he took my hand in his, using his thumb to gently wipe away the rest of my tears from my cheeks.

"What can I do to take your mind off it?"

Although it was pretty dark in the room, the light coming in through our window allowed me to still see his brown eyes which were so close to mine as he spoke in a soft tone.

"Talk to me." I let out a sniffle causing him to smile before I rested my head on his shoulder again. "About what?"

"Anything. I just want to listen, my head is hurting too much to talk right now Carson, but I need something other than my thoughts."

He nodded his head in understanding, taking a moment before he spoke again. "You want me to tell you a story? You said you loved story time."

I could hear the amusement in his tone and as much as I was still on the verge of another emotional breakdown, a smile still tugged at my lips as I nodded my head.

"Can you tell me about your mother?"

It fell quiet for a moment probably caught off guard by my request before he eventually cleared his throat, looking up at the ceiling as he thought. At first I thought I'd annoyed him again since I knew he wasn't happy about sharing things about his life with me, so when he started talking about himself, it definitely did lift my mood, even if it was a tiny bit.

I can't explain why I asked him about his mother, it just felt like something my heart wanted. Maybe to replace the void left my the absence of my own mother.

"The only reason I'm here right now is because of her. She raised me, my younger brother and sister all by herself. She worked so hard just to provide for us, even though she could barely afford food for herself. Sometimes she pretended that she'd already eaten just so that we would eat guilt free."