Tell Me The Truth -H.S. AU

11

I wake up with a pounding headache. The pain so intense I can barely open my eyes. I decide to keep them closed and try to stretch, my body feeling incredibly tense. I try to straighten my legs, but when I do, a sharp pain shoots up my right leg and I yelp.

I feel movement on the mattress next to me and try to blink my eyes a few times to adjust to the light. I hear curtain rings roll against the rod and the room becomes much darker, allowing me to open my eyes more comfortably.

"Hi." Harry mutters when my vision focuses and I see him.

"Hi." My throat hurts, my voice barely above a whisper. "What the fuck? Did I get hit by a truck or something?"

Harry doesn't react, his face completely unreadable. Every single part of my body is sore. I lift my hands in front of my face to inspect the slightly swollen knuckles and ripped off fingernails I'm sporting. I raise my fingers to the point of pain on my head and feel butterfly closure bandaids covering a long gash on my forehead.

Suddenly everything rushes back to me and I gasp.

Johnny shoving me to the ground.

Johnny kicking me in my stomach.

Johnny picking me up just to throw me back down again.

Johnny choking me until I almost passed out.

Johnny pulling out his switchblade.

Harry is watching me, his face neutral, but his eyes tell me everything I need to know. I quickly climb out of bed and limp over to the bathroom, flicking on the light. I hear Harry stumble after me, but it's too late. I'm standing in front of the mirror, staring at myself.

Is that even me?

The girl in my reflection looks broken. One side of her face is swollen with a huge cut on her forehead. Her neck displaying long red claw marks that trail down to her collarbone. I watch as she lifts her shirt up to inspect the massive purple bruise canvassing the right side of her body. She looks down at her legs to see them covered in scrapes and cut from the blackberry bushes she ran through to get away from the monster chasing her.

The girl in the mirror tests putting pressure on her right foot and winces when the pain is too much to handle. She fell trying to escape, not looking where she was going, but back at the dark figure that was coming after her, wielding a knife.

Harry grabs my shoulders to spin me towards him, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Violet, look at me." He says sternly, my eyes focusing on his. His hand cups my cheek, trying to comfort me.

"I'm sorry." I blurt out, before he can say anything else. "Oh my God."

I step around him and exit the bathroom, embarrassment flooding my veins and I feel like I could throw up.

"What?" Harry follows me around as I'm searching for my clothes that I came here in.

"I'm sorry for making this your problem." I tell him, looking under things to try and find my stuff. "This is so fucking embarrassing. I did not want to drag you into this."

"Violet, stop." Harry grabs my shoulders, squeezing them once. "You don't have to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong."

"You didn't ask for this." I tell him, shrugging his hands off of me and continue to search.

"Neither did you." He responds, making me stop in my tracks. "What are you looking for?"

"My clothes." I mutter, looking underneath the breakfast table next to the window.