Adrift

3 | A L O N E

I stayed in my room for the next three days. Or at least I thought it was three days. It could have been two or even four. I slipped in and out of consciousness.

The attic door remained locked over that time. He unlocked it last night. Luckily, I was awake. He didn't come in.

I wasn't surprised that he had kept the door locked. I was too bad a shape to attend school. Not that he was concerned about my wellbeing. No. He knew that if I rocked up to school with too many bruises and unable to walk then someone would start asking questions. He didn't like questions. It was part of the reason why last night had been so bad. A teacher had talked to me. A teacher had asked if I was okay. I knew that made him feel threatened.

No food had been left for me. Even if there had been, I wasn't sure if I could stomach it. Besides, I was exhausted. If he had dropped food at the door, I wasn't sure if I could physically pull myself up from the bed to go and get it.

The pain in my stomach had pretty much gone but I was still cramping. That was normal. Although I wasn't sure if you could call this whole situation normal.

I rolled over away from the door to face the window. Sunlight was streaming through the glass and the newspaper, filling the attic with warm, light.

I was grateful for it to be morning. It was freezing last night. It only made me feel worse.

I heard the front door slam shut. He's gone to work, I thought.

I forced myself to sit up, crying out in pain as I did so. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and painstakingly made my way over to the sink.

I sighed in relief and leaned against the wall while I splashed some water over my face. After, I cupped my hands underneath the water and then brought it to my cracked lips to drink. Once I had finished drinking, I made my way over to the bed, leant down on my hands and knees, and pulled the loose floorboard out of the way.

Ignoring the pain, I reached in and grabbed the closest textbook. I grumbled when I saw that it was science but, deciding that it was far too painful to reach in and grab another book, I stood back up and laid back down on the bed.

I let out a large sigh of relief. I was glad that I was feeling better today. I had done absolutely nothing but sleep. Even if I felt up to studying, I wasn't sure if I had the physical strength to actually get out of bed without being in blinding pain.

I opened the science textbook up to where the class were up to at the beginning of the week. Introduction to Molecular Biology.

I sighed. Fantastic. We had just starting learning about cells and the makeup of the human body in my Human Biology class. I always enjoyed learning about the body and diseases a I wanted to study something in medicine, but I was absolutely hating learning about cells.

I began to read the chapter, forcing my eyes to stay open. I wondered what I had missed in school. Absences were unfortunately quite frequent for me. I never had teachers question my absences. It wasn't that they didn't care. He had told the school that I had severe anaemia. It wasn't a lie. I did. But it was because of my diet.

Doctors didn't question me either. He took me to only one doctor anyways. They were friends.

Above all, he knew how to keep me quiet. I wasn't going to be speaking out any time soon. Besides, I only had three more years.

I had endured worse that this.

Eventually, I grew tired and placed the book down beside me. I had read about four chapters of the science textbook which I knew we were covering this week. I hoped that it was enough. I was conscious of attempting to stay up to date with my schoolwork. I wanted to finish high school. I wanted to go to university.