Buttercup [H.S]

Chapter Twenty Three

TRIGGER WARNING
This chapter contains graphic description of S/A.

Please read at your discretion.

2011.

Prom Night.

From H:
5.55pm
You don't have to go. We can just ditch it and hang out at mine or something?

To H:
5.56pm
I have to. The limo will be here in five minutes. It's only a few hours. I'm sure it'll be fine.

From H:
5.56pm
Okay. I'll be there soon. Wait til you see my sweet tux ;)

To H:
5.57pm
We both know you're not wearing a tux to this thing. Car is here. Wish me luck.

I hear a knock to the front door on the floor below me, and the click clack of my mothers heels rushing to open it. Jason's voice - eerily  and sweetly polite, greeting her.

My stomach twists and turns, and I try to ease the tremble of my hands in reaction to his voice.

"Breathe," I tell myself, trying to draw in long, slow breaths. "Two more days. Two more days and this is over."

And it was true. This time tomorrow the school year would be officially over. I just had to get through tonight - a ridiculous tradition of Leavers Prom, and then the final school day tomorrow, which would be spent completing my final exam then feigning sorrowful goodbyes to my group of "friends".

They'd all be blubbering their crocodile tears, promising each other that they'd keep in touch, arrange nights out over the summer before they left to start life in the 'real world'.

Little did they know every word I said would be a lie. That my plans differed drastically from theirs - differed drastically from what I'd told even my parents.

Jason, my mother and father, my friends. They were all under the illusion I'd be attending Kings College to study law. That I'd arranged accommodation, that I'd follow Jason and his minions around campus like the docile little girl I'd always been.

Truth was, I'd secured a place in a cooking school, and had gotten a little room in the University halls just a stones throw away from Harry. That he and I had planned out our entire summer together.

He was going to take me to an Arctic Monkeys show in a few weeks, in an attempt to convert me. We were going to drive down to the sea and enjoy the fairground they always had set up during the school holidays.

As of tomorrow, I was cutting Jason and everyone else out of my life. I just had to keep the rouse going a little longer for my parents.

Luckily for me, they took little interest in my comings and goings, as long as everything presented itself neat and tidy on the surface, they could care less. Which was how I'd gotten away with all of this deception to begin with.

"Riley!"

My mothers voice calls me up the stairs - an unusual sound echoing around the cold empty spaces of this grand house. I don't think she'd ever called up to me like that, with a slick of excitement to her tone.