Till The End

Chapter 5.

Jake

I can't take it anymore. It has been over two months now since Aelia took up residence in my head. This needs to stop. I try to avoid her as much as I can, but since she is always home, it's practically impossible. I am not going to move out just because every time I see her or hear her voice, I feel weird things in my whole body. Maybe I should. I decided to finally follow Dylan's advice earlier when I checked Aelia's social media profile for the third time today. I have tried to do it before, but today I am really going to. I called Lucy half an hour ago, and I am on my way to her place right now. She noticed that I was avoiding her and was pretty pissed about it. She came to Pop's several times, she even came to a freaking seminar about anthropology to find me. Anyone who knows Lucy knows that this is the last place you could find her. I have been friends with her for a while now. Well, a little more than friends, but we never dated. We just kind of help each other sometimes. We both made it clear from the start: nothing serious, no feelings, we can see whomever we want, whenever we want.

I am driving to Lucy's place when my phone starts ringing. Why the hell is Aelia calling me at ten in the night? She never calls, especially not at this time. I am a little concerned, so I immediately pick up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Jake?" Fuck, she is crying. I immediately pull over.

"Where are you?"

"Home." She lives in the other direction, so I turn around as soon as I can and start heading to her place. "Are you busy right now?" she asks, trying to hide the fact that she is crying.

"What happened?"

"My... My father just kicked me out. He locked me

outside. Can you please come pick me up? It's okay if you are busy. I will see if I can call an Uber, or maybe I can walk. If I walk fast enough-"

"Do not move from where you are. I will be there in fifteen minutes. Don't hang up the phone."

Aelia

I stand here in the dark, waiting for Jake. I did not hang up like he asked me, but neither of us is talking. A little less than fifteen minutes later, his car stops in front of my house. He gets out and runs towards me.

"Did he-" he asks, using his phone's light to study me. His eyes dart over my whole body, searching for injuries with a worried look on his face.

"No." I don't wait for him to finish his question. My father has never been physically abusive towards me or my mom before. I cannot say the same for all of my mom's dishes, furniture, and walls, though. "I'm okay. Can we go, please?"

"Let's go." He whispers, leading me to the car. None of us talk while he drives. I look out the window, replaying the last hour in my head. If I had not gotten out of my room to go get that glass of water, none of this would have happened. I found my father sitting at the kitchen counter, drinking directly from the bottle in his hand. I wanted to go back to my room without getting the water, but he saw me before I could. He was already so drunk that he had to hold onto the kitchen counter to be able to stand up. He started his usual speech, and, as always, I was paralyzed. I could not move, even if I wanted to. When I lifted my head to look at him, my hands started to shake, and a single tear escaped my eye. The expression on his face, that look in his eyes... I was terrified. My mother is not home tonight, so there was no one to stop him. I was at his mercy, and he knew it. Mom is out of town for the annual seminar the science department holds. She left yesterday morning and will only be back home in four days. Usually I spend the days she is gone at Mia's, but this time she had to leave too. Mia is on the school's athletic team, and they have a competition in Springberg. She will be back in two days. I decided to stay home, planning to avoid my father as much as possible. It worked fine until an hour ago. He was so angry. 'Get out of my fucking house, you worthless piece of shit. You don't deserve to live here. You don't deserve any of the things I gave you.' These words replay again and again in my head. I only regained my ability to move when I heard the sound of the bottle breaking into pieces as it hit the wall behind me. Bottle he threw. In my direction. He tried to hit me with a bottle. Oh my God. What if it did hit me? What would he have done if I had not run out of the house after this?