Only the "Strong" Survive | Paul Lahote |

*chapter four*

It was almost light out when I came to, I was still in the woods. Naked. My hands no longer tied together, but the gag still around my mouth. I sat up slowly, gripping my head. When I moved my hand back, there was blood on my fingers, meaning my stitches might have snapped. On my thighs I could see bruises, they looked like finger tips almost, and there was a small pool of blood between them as well as on them. I began to cry knowing this meant what I was afraid of.
I looked around, praying he wasn't near by. Praying I was alone to deal with the embarrassment of the situation all by myself. About 20 feet away from me, further into the woods, I saw something move. I sat still, covering my mouth to muffle the sounds of me crying. From behind the bushes, I saw a paw and my eyes trailed up the leg to see a large grey wolf. It's eyes fixed on me, following my movements as I shuffled my hands around trying to find something to cover myself with. I watched the wolf turn and run further into the woods, and made sure it was gone before I stood.
My uniform was laying next to me, my eyesight was blurry but I put it on anyway, and walked out of the woods. First to my car, I grabbed my phone, wallet and keys. Everything I had had with me was still sitting there, despite the car door having been left open the whole night. When I entered my room I locked the door behind me, and checked it three times. Looking into the bathroom mirror I noticed markings on my wrists from the rope, bruising around my neck that looked more like a hickey, multiple actually. Same with my breasts and my stomach. He had used me, used my body, and I felt destroyed.
The warm water of the shower didn't help. I sat in it and cried for what felt like forever. Before moving to the bed where I did the same.
Most my life I had been physically and verbally abused, I had been torn down and made to feel worthless. But nothing felt as bad as this, nothing felt more heartbreaking than the realization that my body was no longer mine. Due to obvious reasons, I had never had a boy over to my house. Or been on a date, or a had a date to a school dance. I had been saving myself for something special, something real. That chance had now been ripped away from me.
The pit in my stomach and the voice in my head were yelling different things at me. If I hadn't left my parents house, this wouldn't have happened. If I had stayed things would have gotten worse than a beer bottle to the head. If I had taken Nancy up on her offer I wouldn't be staying in a seedy motel. If I had never been born at all I wouldn't have put a strain on my parents marriage, so my father wouldn't have picked up drinking again, and I wouldn't have had to leave and so on and so forth. Everything that happened is my fault. Mine. Had I not been born... Wiping my eyes I put on clothes, grabbed my wallet and keys. I knew where I was going this time. It was too late for me to have never been born, but it wasn't too late for me to not exist at all.
I reached the cliffs of La Push beach in about 10 minutes. I left the keys and my wallet in the car, I wouldn't be needing them anymore. At the edge of the cliff I stood, pulled a small razor blade from my pocket and held it against my wrists. Two cuts, one on each side. They began to bleed quickly, I took another step to the edge, followed by a deep breath. And I let myself fall.

I'd often given much thought to how I would die - a bad earthquake, a semi-truck tipping onto my car, drowning in the ocean, at the hands of a stranger - all of those were potential and very possible options. I realized when I was young that I would never grow old, I couldn't picture myself with children or grandchildren running around, youth sports, dances classes, family holidays or any of that. Never imagined being grey haired, sitting on the porch holding the hand of the husband I'd loved for 40-some-odd years. Those thoughts never quite fit into the puzzle of my life, at least not the one that I had created in my mind.
When we were little and they asked what we wanted to be, I used to say "the president", "a lawyer", or "a popstar". Because as a child, those jobs seem easy to obtain, within grasp - and since we were told we could be anything we wanted I believed that too. I stopped believing when I was about 11, things changed and I realized that those things weren't in the cards for me. Nothing I had wanted as a child was. The point of my life became survival, my own survival and that of the image my family had created for themselves in the small town of Forks, Washington.
And when I felt as though I couldn't handle just surviving anymore, I had planned a way out a long time ago.
This was it, my plan for when it became too much. My existence on the earth was meaningless, to my parents, to my coworkers, to everyone from high school. But most importantly, to myself. The entirety of  my self respect had now been completely destroyed and there was no reason to continue.

|Paul|

She looked so small sitting there in the middle of the woods. I wasn't trying to be a creep by watching her, but I had heard her crying and since it was my shift for patrol I had to make sure she was alright.
Her body was bruised, her head bleeding and no general cause in site. When she locked eyes with me, she didn't seem scared of me. Of course, whatever she had been dealing with may have been worse than an oversized wolf. I turned and ran into the woods, giving her the impression that she was alone now while I continued to watch to make sure she was safe.
When she looked at me, it was just like Sam said, the world...stopped. I felt pulled to her, I felt the need to hold her while she cried. The ground felt shakey, I felt dizzy and like I was floating. I imprinted. Of course unlucky me would imprint on a girl I don't know, a stranger who I didn't even know if I would see again. I could feel her pain, all of it. From the body aches to the broken heart, and I longed to make it right even though it wasn't yet my place to do so. All I could do was watch.
Sometime went by and I watched her get into a car, looking scared, frantic almost. She was still crying, had wet hair and she wasn't even wearing shoes. I followed the car from the treeline, and found myself up by the cliffs where the guys and I had been jumping from three days earlier.

"What are you doing?" Sam thought to me, I showed him the girl. I showed him me imprinting, I showed him how sad and defeated she looked.

"Do you know her?" He asked me.

"I've never seen her before today "

"You should go back to the house, your patrol is over."

I growled at him, and glared as he now joined me in sitting up by the cliffs, "I need to know she's okay."

For a moment, I felt okay again. It was like her pain had stopped, I turned my head from Sam back to her and watched as she began to slit her wrists. My eyes grew wide as she fell over the edge. I shifted quickly, and jumped over the edge after her. Hoping it wouldn't be too late.