Protect me.

Chapter 3- Keep the change, please.

Secrets stop being secrets when people come too close.
Physically and emotionally.

Did Colton know what I was? Did he know what I had tried to do to him? Maybe he had mistook the whole situation as me having an attitude and trying to convince him to forget.

 I almost laughed at the realisation. Of course, he didn't know what I was doing. Nobody knew what I could do. I barely understood it.

 I rolled to the side of my bed and tucked my cold hands under the pillow.

It was Spring now, but even then, my body was never warm. Maybe I had hypothyroidism and just couldn't produce enough hormones to keep myself at an average human temperature.
But why hadn't it worked? Why hadn't I been able to control his mind?

I heard a bang coming from the front of the house and I jerked up into a sitting position. Someone knocked on the front door furiously.

 "Freya!" My fathers voice called. "Open the door!"

 I let out an exasperated sigh and threw the covers off me. The floorboards creaked under my footsteps and the sound of my father knocking on the door and pulling on the handle only got louder. I unlocked the door and jerked it open, my father stumbled in with two bottles of wine in his hand, but at least he didn't smell like alcohol yet.

"Sorry darl, I forgot the house keys at work," My father sighed, dropped his bag onto the floor as untied his blue tie from around his neck and set the bottles on the kitchen countertop.

"How was school Frey?"

"It was alright. Just the usual." I muttered.
I hated the way my dad's personality changed all the time. When it was night, or a day that he didn't have work he was always drunk, ranting about something I didn't understand and always complaining about what I did and how it was wrong.

But when he was sober, he was tolerable. I used to think he cared about me when there were moments like this.
But slowly I grew to resent him for deserting me in this way since mum had died, and now I couldn't stand him, whether he was sober or not.

"Here, order some dinner," Father said, handing me a $20 bill and placing it in my hand. "I ate on my way home."
Like always. I thought.

Everything had been different since mum died. No more dinners together, 2 sentence conversations, seeing each other no more than 3 times a day. He'd turned into a totally different person ever since. And it used to hurt, but after a while, it just became a norm.

"Thanks." I pulled out my phone, leaning on the counter as I opened the local pizza delivery app and scrolled down a whole range of menu items until I came across the meat lovers pizza and added it to my cart.

"I finally got the rego transferred under my name."
"Mum's car?" I asked, not looking up from my phone.

"We can finally sell it now, get a bit of money from it."

"It's not worth much."

"I know."

"You're going to spend all that money on your bottles anyways so there's not benefit." I shrugged.
I heard my father put down the bottle of alcohol that he was just about to open and let out an exhausted sigh.

"C'mon Freya. You can't hate me forever."
"I can." I said, turning around. "Do you even remember what happened last night?"
"No..."
"Exactly." I murmured as I pressed one final button. A blue screen popped up on my phone, telling me the pizza would be on it's way soon.

"Did I do something wrong?" My father asked, his voice crumbling and I sensed a tone of sadness in his voice.

Details of last night washed over me and flashes of my fathers angry expression as he hit my face blinded my vision. My cheek ached in response to the vivid flashbacks.

"No," I rushed out of the kitchen in a hurry and holed myself up in my room again. This was always how it was like after I came home from school. He'd stay in his living room and I'd stay in my room until I was hungry.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out.
Athena: Hey what homework did Miss Merrick give us?
I frowned. I hadn't been able to focus since what happened in human anatomy class with Cole.

Me: To be honest I wasn't paying attention.

Athena: Ugh, I'll ask Mel then.

Me: We probably just have to work on our assignment.

Athena: Yeah maybe. Idk, fuck it.

I stared at the words on the screen in boredom until my screen went black when suddenly an idea sparked. I turned the phone on and a text from the pizza app flashed on my screen. – your order is on it's way!

I ignored the message and opened Instagram. Mel's perfect little model like face popped up on my screen.

I double tapped and a white heart popped up in the middle of the screen. I tapped the small search bar and typed furiously on the keyboard.

Colton... I couldn't remember his last name. Fuck.

Dozens of options popped up, all with different last names. Colton Blaine, Colton Kutcher, Colton Callahan, Colton Fiezer. I clicked on the top option, and my fingers started to get sweaty as pictures loaded onto the screen.

This was him alright. We already had some mutual followings, even Mel had already managed to follow him on his first day of school.

There were only 2 pictures on his whole profile. One was a picture of him with a wolf at some place with lots of snow. And the other one was just him and his friends at a bonfire. I zoomed in on the wolf, my heart aching in jealousy. I'd always wanted a wolf. I loved how independent and strong they were. The wolf's coat was a beautiful shade of smoke grey, and it's eyes were such an unnatural golden yellow colour.

They were so beautiful, so ethereal. I found myself also checking out Cole. His skin was such a nice warm-beige colour, and his middle-parted jet-black hair and eyes made him stand out from the snow like a pack of highlighters on a white piece of paper. I could definitely see why all the girls in my school were crushing on him.

I guess I would've been too, if it hadn't been for his asshole personality that ruined It all. He got on my nerves in such an irritating and indescribable way that he even made me nervous a little bit.

My screen flashed with a notification from the local pizza place that read 'We're at your door!'

I waited for the knock, and as soon as I heard it I walked out of my room. The living room reeked with the smell of alcohol and I clenched my fist, praying that he was knocked out.

The delivery driver knocked on the door again, louder this time as if it was going to make me come to the door faster than I already was.

I struggled to open the door for a moment, the key was jammed in a strange way. Maybe it was because of all that tugging my father had done.
The door finally opened, and a savoury smell of bacon and ham wafted up my nose.

"Order for Freya Reeves?"
"Yeah, the meat lovers pizza?" I smiled as sweetly as possible.
"Yes ma'am, the total will be $12."
I reached for my pocket when I had the sudden urge to try something risky.
"I've already given you the money. I payed online,"

The delivery driver stared at me without blinking. "You are right ma'am. I hope you enjoy your pizza. Thank you for ordering through us." He said robotically, as if he were in a trance as he turned his back and started to walk away.

"No, no, no," I whispered, tugging at his arm. "I'm sorry, here's your money, keep the change."
"That is kind of you but you've already payed online,"

"No, there's been a mistake. Here, keep the change." I urged.
"I'm sorry ma'am but unless this is a tip I cannot take this money as a payment."

I sighed and turned his body so that he was fully facing me. "I haven't payed yet, now here's the money." I said, holding his gaze.
The delivery man blinked profusely, shaking his head slightly as he took the money.

"I-I'm sorry ma'am, completely had a brain malfunction right there. Let me get you some change."
"No keep the change, please."

The delivery man smiled and nodded before riding off on his motorcycle. I watched as he disappeared around the corner before letting out a sigh of relief. It was good to know I could still do it. Whatever the hell it was.

But why hadn't it worked on Cole?

The warmth of the pizza was starting to seep through the box which was a reminder to head back inside instead of standing out here with a box in my hand like a weirdo. A car rounded the corner, it's headlights bouncing off of houses as I ran inside, holding the box tightly in my hands.

Yet again, as soon as I stepped back into the house, the smell of alcohol overtook the delicious smell of dinner and I started to miss the fresh night air outside.
My father mumbled something, his words slurring as he drank from an empty bottle.

"You need to clean up all these bottles from the floor," I mumbled.

--------

I could never sleep.
The voices that whispered right into my ear, leaving a cold, eerie feeling on my neck never let me sleep. And combined with the feeling of someone watching me was, still hard to get used to. Was my mums death just giving me paranoia like my therapist had said? Maybe I was making this all up.

The sense of someone watching me wasn't scary though. In a strange way, I often felt safe.
I shivered and pulled the covers up to my chest.

I always felt so lonely at night. It was too quiet. It gave me too much time to think about everything that was bothering me and turn it into a bigger problem.

I had so many friends at school, yet, I didn't feel close to a single one of them. I mean, I guess I had Athena. But she was just a school friend. And Mel was cool, but I found it hard to relate to her. She was always deep into tangents about guys and always had a huge list of guys she was talking to that it was so hard to keep track.