tristful

Cage

Shan was walking through the school halls, she had incredibly heavy eye bags and her long hair was a mess. This was a few months after the sleepover. Shan and Margo were still 'happily dating' in Shans words, but she wasn't allowed to tell anyone that they were together for some reason. She stopped by her locker and frantically grab books from her bag, shoving them into it. As she was doing so, she felt someone touch her shoulder and she slowly turned around to face them. It was Tobias, the track team guy, or '[multiple slurs Margo can't reclaim]' as Margo had liked to call him. Shan slightly turned her head to her side, her eyes scattering around the halls before looking back at him and giving him a nod as to say 'hey'. He gave one back and put his back to the lockers beside her and put one leg over the other, as well as folding his arms.
"Did I do something to you?" He asked, his voice having a bit of a pitiful tone. "No? What? Why would you ask that?" Shan questioned
"It's just, like-" he shrugged "You haven't been answering any of my texts or calls in a while, I thought you were mad at me or something."
Shan shook her head, placing her hand onto his shoulder. "I'd never be mad at you, you're one of my best friends." Hearing that, his face dropped a little but he stayed silent about it.
"So, then, why haven't you been answering me? If I didn't do anything to you, like..I just don't understand it."
Shan placed her hand in the back of her neck and looked to the right "Um..I just forgot. I've been busy, yknow?" He nodded before his face turned sour "Oh, hey, what's up?" Shan raised an eyebrow, then turned around to be faced with Margo. She was smiling but was staring daggers at Tobias. Shans heart began beating out of her chest, or, it would've.
"Margo, hey-" Shan stammered for a bit after that until Margo interrupted "Can we go and talk?" Shan wanted to interject but before she could Margo had grabbed her arm with an incredibly tight grip and was already practically dragging her into an empty classroom.

Shan awkwardly smiled at her, putting her arms out for a hug "Margo! I didn't see you this morning!"
"I could just leave, you know." Margo muttered
Shan raised an eyebrow, putting her arms back by her sides "You what?"
"I'm upset, Shan." "Why?" "You're the reason I'm upset."
Shans face dropped at that exact moment, she knew what she was in for and physically couldn't take it anymore. Not right now anyway. "Why, Margo? What did I do?"
"You were talking to him. Without my permission as well. You know I don't like you talking to people that like you."
Shan sighed "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry."
"Whatever, it's not like I care anyway."
"But you obviously do if you're acting like this? Plus, he didn't even actually like me. And I didn't like him. I don't know why it's such a big deal."
"You don't know why it's such a big deal? Are you being serious right now?"
"Yeah, I am. I don't get why you care so much. I let you hang out with Jessica and the rest of your exes, I don't care who you talk to because I trust you."
"..." Margo folded her arms "I want you to stop talking to him."
"What?"
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you."
"But he's one of my best friends—"
"If you really loved me, you'd do what I'm asking you to do."
"But that's not fair."
"Well, it's your fault anyway. You're the one leading him on."
Shans face dropped as she said that "What do you mean 'leading him on'?! I've only spoke to him?!"
"So? Look at the way you dress. It's your own fault that he doesn't get over you. Maybe if you stopped being such a slut." She chuckled
"How am I a slut? I haven't even had sex?"
"Well, you have but I'm calling you a slut because of how you are. Not because you sleep around."
"I can't help how I am but what do you mean I've done it?"
Margo shrugged, going silent for a minute while Shans eyelids drooped. Margo took a step towards her, deciding to make the mistake of speaking up again "You know, I've made a lot of sacrifices for you. So now it's your turn to do the same for me. It's like you don't even care about me."
"I do, what are you talking about? And what sacrifices?—"
"It's fine, I know you don't love me. No one ever has and no one ever will. I would do anything to make you happy, I just wish you'd do the same for me."
"I love you and a lot of other people do too, you know that."
"If you loved me, you'd change for me. But you won't. You hate me and I know you do."
"I never said I hated you."
"You didn't but I know you were thinking it."
Shan sat down on a desk, rubbing her forehead with closed eyes. "Why are you being like this, Margo?"
"You know damn well."
"I do but I just don't understand it at all, it's not fair on me—"
"Not fair on YOU? How do you think I feel? You drive me fucking crazy! You're always crying about how I treat you but you make me do this to you."
"No I don't, I'm nothing but nice to you. I'm sorry if I make you feel this way but if I'm being honest," Shan inhaled "this really isn't a healthy relationship. For either of us. I mean you won't even let me tell anyone. That's probably why Tobias talks to me so often. I don't think he likes me but if he does that's probably why. He has no idea about us—"
"..."
The whole room went silent after a loud smacking noise. Margo had slapped her across the face and left a massive red mark on her cheek in the shape of a hand. Shan stared at the ground while shaking ever so slightly.
"Do you think I enjoy that? Do you think I really enjoy doing things like that to you?"
"No."
"Good. Keep in mind that the next time someone other than me touches you, I'll rip all of their fucking limbs off. You should know in the first place not to talk to anyone other than me. I've told you this. We've been dating for so long, I thought you'd know what I like and don't like you doing. You just don't listen to me. Im your superior and you really need to start acting like it. You should know this is all for you, everything is! I'm the only thing keeping you safe in this disgusting world! And you don't appreciate it at all. Anyone else would kill to be treated the way you do, y'know?"
She placed her hand onto Shans shoulder "Why aren't you answering me?" Shan shrugged in response.
"This is your mess. The least you could do is talk to me and try to make it up. Our love comes first, everything else comes second and i don't care what it is."
...
Margo shook her "Shan? What's wrong? Why won't you—"
"We're breaking up."
"What?"
"I said we're breaking up. I've had enough of this and I can't keep doing this same thing with you over and over and over again. You're controlling me and everyone knows."
Margo snorted "What? You can't leave me. I'm the only person that actually cares about you. Don't be stupid, Shan."
She pushed Margo off of her and jumped down "No, I've had enough of this."
"..if you leave me, I'm telling everyone that you manipulated me."
"Do I look like i fucking care? I'm leaving. Goodbye." Shan tried to talk away but Margo grabbed her arm and sank her nails into her skin until the point that there were clear marks made.
"Get the fuck off of me?!" She tried to push her away. Margo let go. She then kneed her in the stomach, then pushed her as hard as possible which caused her to trip over and smash her head into one of the desks. "How can you be so fucking weak?"
Shan grabbed onto the legs of the desk and pulled herself back up "I'm not fighting you again, please. I just wanna go." She got to the door but as soon as she got it slightly opened she was grabbed by the hair and pulled back, her head was slammed onto one of the desks again but around four times. The slams weren't  hard but the last two were incredibly, and they were enough to cause her to become pretty lightheaded. The door wasn't open very much but it was enough for the people in the corridors to be able to hear what was happening. Shan had fallen to the ground by now and was desperately trying to make her way to the door by crawling there. Margo walked over to her and watched for a minute before putting her foot onto her back and using all of her force to dig into her with it. Shan just put her head to the ground and fought back her tears with a sniffle, she already looked weak enough. Margo shook her head and lifted her foot up and literally kicked her while she was down before leaning down to her level and lifting her head up with her hair, turning her head to look at her.
"This is why you don't go against me, I'm surprised you haven't already learnt this lesson. But I know you still love me, even though I'm a terrible person...don't you, shan?"
Shan mustered up a smile "No. Fuck you, you fat fucking cunt—"
Margo saw red and hit her across the face again. She got up and paced up and down for a bit. "This is why I treat you the way I fucking do! You're such a bad person tha...."
She went on and on while Shan managed to get onto her knees and put one hand onto the door at an attempt to slide it open. Margo noticed and walked over again, grabbing the collar of her shirt to pull her up and get her onto her feet. "It's getting annoying now, hasn't this gone on for long enough? I bet you're tired and sore."
Shan shook her head but at that moment just busted out crying. "This is what I'm talking about. You're too weak, Shan. You need to work out or something. Being as fat as you are is supposed to be taken advantage of. "..says the bitch that weighs more than me-" Shan stammered. Margo went to hit her again for what would've been the final time, but slipped up and dropped her. Shan immediately grabbed at her arm, desperately twisting and turning at it while Margo took  a step forward. She was about to kick her in the face but just then they both noticed a boy standing at the door, neither of them being sure of how long he was there for, but, at that moment Shan ripped her arm clean off. There wasn't much blood gushing out though. A boy was stood looking at the two, Shan couldn't get a good look at him though. Margo started screaming and fell backwards, crawling to get away from Shan and stopped at the boys feet. Shan slowly got up and reattached her arm as quickly as possible. Usually she'd not do this in front of other people but she didn't care. She wanted to get away. She was about to run out but stopped at Margo and kicked her as hard as possible before running out at full speed while almost tripping a few times on the way out.

She had planned to run the whole way home but was stopped by a teacher grabbing her bag.
"Where do you think you're going?! And there's a no running in the halls rule. You should know that." Shan was about to make up an excuse but the teacher heard screaming down the halls and a few other teachers stepped out of their classrooms. Her face dropped as she slowly let go of Shan and then ran into another teachers class to see what was going on. Shan took this as her chance to run home and did exactly that. Once she got home and locked herself in her room for the rest of the day and didn't want to leave.
When school ended, Shan had received a bunch of messages on her answering machine from her classmates and mutual friends with Margo asking her what had happened before she left and there were rumours that Margo had gotten beaten up. Some of the messages were asking if she was ok and some were asking if she was the one that did it but she didn't answer any of them. She refused to leave her room for the rest of the week.