Saint Ambrose Academy: Unlikelies

8

NOVA

I wake up and pain shoots through my body as I try to get up. I swallow the bile that has threatened to come up and try to get an idea of my surroundings. I'm not in the studio anymore, it looks like a dorm bedroom, but it's not my dorm.

I look for clues, but everything feels too bright, and I have to close my eyes to fight the nausea the pain brings.

"oh, you're awake." It's Matteo's brother, Angelo, he seems timid and wary of me.

"Uhm I was going to put these on the side table for you, but I'll just give them to you. They're pain meds, they'll help you move around better. Matt told me to get him when you wake up, I left a glass of water on the side table..." He looks terrified to be alone with me, and his sentences come out rushed, he draws the ending out as he heads towards the door.

"W-wait!" I call out, hoping to stop him from getting his brother, though it's no use and he doesn't hear me. I must be in Matteo's dorm, and I am definitely not safe here, so I start looking for a way out. I fight against the pain screaming at me for moving and head into the bathroom fully planning to jump out a window if I need to. But there are no windows, not in his bedroom or his bathroom.

Why would he take me here? What does he have planned? I can't stay here.

The thoughts run through my mind a million miles a minute when I catch a glimpse of myself. There are bruises on my face from where he grabbed me, where I hit my head there's a cut, my lip is split from biting it as he hit me, and there's more of me that is black and blue and red and purple than there is actual skin tone. There are welts and deep cuts on my back and thighs where he hit me with the belt. Bruises in the shapes of handprints from where they held me down, it all feels too familiar and I feel sickened by the sight of me.

I lose the battle against my nausea and beeline to the toilet, it hurts but I can't keep it down. I'm throwing up blood and I get freaked out, panic rising in me that I'll have to get medical help.

"It's not as bad as it looks, I uh had my family doctor come by and look you over, there's no internal bleeding, so that won't happen for too long, in my experience give it a day or so and you won't be throwing up blood." Matteo is standing behind me, he holds my hair back when the second wave of nausea hits and I throw up again.

I don't say anything feeling drained from vomiting, and unsure how to respond to him, he turns on the dime, and I can't handle another beating right now. He comes towards me and I whimper at the pain of flinching away from him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to take you back to the bed," he says and I panic more tears rolling down my face.

He sighs, " So you can rest, and put some ice on your ribs, they're broken." His voice sounds shaky, and he doesn't look at me.

My hands are trembling, and my breath hitches as my ribs feel on fire when I try to get up. I start to panic because I can't breathe.

"Calm down, you have to take shallow breaths it'll hurt less, I promise. Can I help you up now?" He's being too nice, it's suspicious.

"W-w-why am I h-here? W-why are you b-b-being nice to m-me? Y-you hate me." I hate how weak and broken I sound. But I am, broken. weak.

He just looks at me disgusted and exits the room, sending his brother in. "I can take you back to your place if you want. Your folks have a place in town, right? I could take you home. Wherever you feel like going." He says it softly as if talking to a child.

"M-my dorm." I grit out between shallow breaths.

~

I stay home from classes, for a few days. Till the vomiting stops, and the bruises become more hideable. There isn't much I can do about my ribs or the pain of sitting down on the skin made raw, but I wrap them in bandages and clothes will hide them. I can't afford to miss much more, not if I want to stay on track and I think now more than ever I need to focus on leaving here.