Seventeen year old Safaya Bennett must navigate young adulthood under the stresses of her sins, her crumbling relationship with her twin sister, Rue, and a crippling mental disorder that makes her very dependent on her relationship with Nate Jacobs...
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My sister walked into Maddy's house completely drenched from the rain outside.
Safaya was too shaken to get behind the wheel of a car so she walked to Maddy's after Nate left her home. Everything inside of her was screaming, screaming that she needed help. She needed something to calm her nerves and drugs were nowhere in reach.
"What happened to you?" Maddy furrowed her brows upon seeing my sister. She was shaking from the cold rain and breathing heavily. "Come in, I'll get you a change of clothes."
Safaya followed Maddy to her room, tears threatening to spill over as she thinks of what she has to do. "I-I'm not going to be here long." My sister stuttered. Her attention was everywhere but Maddy, looking around at the different posters and photos her friend had up on the wall. "I-I just um, I wanted to say thank you for being a good friend. Even after everything we had done to each other."
Maddy's heart was breaking, watching as my sister struggled to speak or look at her. Safaya's feelings were deeply disturbed and hurt as she found new comfort in Maddy. Her attachment to the brunette wasn't as intense as it was with Nate, but, with Maddy my sister felt safe. She felt genuine love and protection and now she had to give all of it up to protect her.
"That's what friends do, Saf. All of that shit from the past is in the past." She tried stepping closer to my sister, in which Safaya took an anxious step back. "What's wrong? What did I do?"
Safaya shook her head. "He's never going to leave me alone." She admitted, wiping her tears with her wet sleeve. "I thought I was safe. That he had moved on in the shittiest way possible and that I would be free to heal and be happy but he ... Nate just doesn't stop, ya know?" Safaya shuddered. "He came to my house tonight with a gun and pointed it at my head. I-I wasn't even scared to die and he knew that. So, when he turned it on himself and kept pulling the trigger I just ... I couldn't do it. I was saying anything to please him so he wouldn't kill himself on top of me."
"What the fuck?!" Maddy's eyes began to water. "No, Saf, no that's not okay. I'm calling the police!" She fumed, looking for her phone in frustration.
"No! The Jacobs family has the police in their back pocket." My sister shouted. "Maddy you don't understand. This is beyond anything he's done to you, he is forcing people to stay away from me. Nate saw TJ as a threat and literally threatened to get his little brother kicked out of private school. He did the same thing when I was a freshman and someone asked me to homecoming. Anybody that he's threatened by he's removed from my life. He made me think Ruey was my enemy for years." She shook her head in disappointment. "He's going to do the same to you, Maddy. And I'm not mentally strong enough to handle something happening to you because of me. I .. I can't do that to you."
Maddy stepped towards my sister again, placing a gentle kiss upon her lips. The action makes Saf's heart skip a beat before she kisses her back instinctively with tears running down her cheeks. The brunette sighed as she furrowed her brows. "There has to be some way we can help you. There has to be somebody we can go to, Saf, I don't want to lose you."
"Nate will not stop fucking up people's lives until he has me back." My sister shrugged. "He told me that day in the hospital that he would do anything to have me again and he wasn't fucking around. This is a sacrifice I have to make." Safaya wiped her eyes again, smearing mascara around her face. "But, I have to stay away from you. We can't be friends anymore ... for your safety."
"Saf--"
My sister shook her head. "I'm not putting a target on your back. I told you, I would never let him hurt you again and I meant that. You've been a great friend to me, Maddy, and I'll always appreciate you for that. I wish you the best."
Safaya left the room before more tears could fall. She thought this was the only way to make things right, the only way to stop Nate Jacobs. Safaya walked through the front door and into the street, knowing it would be the last time she would be here. The last time she would get to talk to Maddy without being controlled.
*play In My Nightmares by Mariah the Scientist*
The next few days at school had been very reminiscent to last fall. Watching Safaya hold Nate's hand as they walked down the halls together had sent a shiver up my spine. She was now his new doll. Her hair was straightened down her back, wearing a baby blue tennis skirt with a matching white and blue fuzzy crop top. Her makeup was perfect, lips in a glossy pout as she faked a smile through her teeth.
I hadn't talked to my sister in days, almost a week at this point, and it was strategic on Safaya's behalf. She wasn't upset with me anymore for everything that happened when I was looking for the suitcase Laurie fronted me, if anything she was trying to protect me. She isolated herself from everyone that Nate didn't approve of. Which is why Maddy and TJ gave each other a look of knowing, they both knew what had happened to my sister and were too scared to try and help her.
Nate was now the only person she depended on, just like how things used to be.
Safaya blamed herself for everything that was happening to her. She wanted to be with Nate so badly months ago that she put herself in her current situation. Drugs helped her take the edge off, Nate didn't care that she had broken her sobriety. Whatever she needed to do to make her happy he supported her in that.
Breaking up with Cassie was easy for him to do. He was never emotionally tied to her, at least not as intensely as she was to him. While he was done with Cassie, her infatuation for him only grew. He was something she couldn't have and it pissed her off seeing Safaya and Nate together and holding hands. The blonde always saw my sister as competition and even after that argument she and Nate had about Safaya, he still went right back to her.
Safaya passed Cassie in the hall, her brown eyes striking the blonde in frustration. Saf was still working through everything that happened between Nate and her former friend. In situations like these I always say blame the guy, but, I understood why Saf was so upset with Cassie. She was supposed to be her friend and her support system ... not voluntarily fucking the enemy.
The blonde tried her best to have an intimidating look but she quickly backed down as my sisters eyes never left her. Saf brought her hand to her lips and blew a kiss at Cassie, silently telling her that whatever game she played ... Safaya won. She knew that Cassie's blood was boiling and it brought satisfaction to my sister and her shitty situation.
"I don't know what I saw in her." Nate said, bringing Saf's attention back to him.
My sister sighed. "That's what happens when you go looking for me in other people." She retorted.
The new couple disappeared into the cafeteria, leaving behind Kat and Maddy who couldn't take their eyes off of them. Kat looked at Maddy with her mouth open in shock. Of course Maddy couldn't tell anyone the truth about what was happening, out of her safety and Saf's. She thought she was mentally prepared to see them together. To see Saf in fake love and controlled by Nate. The truth is, nothing can ever prepare you when you know the truth.
"She's back with Nate?!" Kat fumed. "She's a snake bitch."
Maddy closed her locker angrily. "Did you not just break up with your boyfriend by lying to him and saying you have a terminal brain illness?" She snapped. "Sometimes people don't have the strength or the balls to let shit go."
And Maddy knew of that feeling all too well, no matter how hard she tried she couldn't let my sister go.
