𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐲

Chapter 89

TW: contains themes that may be triggering for some readers.

— Chapter 89 —
Dandelion

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E L L I O T

The days that followed were meaningless.

The planet continued to rotate on its axis. Clocks continued to tick. For everything and everyone else, life still went on.

Not mine.

My bedroom was a coffin in the graveyard of time. Daylight had bled into nightfall over and over, until I'd lost count of how long I'd been buried away from the world.

Here, shielded under the warmth and darkness of thick, weighted blankets, I was safe. Protected. Untouchable by everything except my own thoughts.

All I did was think.

I'd exhausted myself with it. And when I wasn't forcing myself to re-live every bittersweet memory I had of my mother, I'd been unconscious in the sheets, dreaming of brutal hands squeezing around my exposed throat.

I could see him now.

My father's hate-filled stare ripped holes through my head as I clawed at his fingers. Writhing, squirming, I burned with sweat and panic underneath his relentless frame. My heartbeat quickened to a crescendo. The thick taste of terror invaded my mouth.

Then, as if taken away by ripples of water, he disappeared. I burst forward on my bed and woke myself up out of the scene. A violent fit of coughs shredded my throat apart, and I scraped at the sides of my own neck, fighting to get air down the bruised windpipe.

Waking myself up out of the nightmares was never a relief from the pain. Without fail, all it did was thrust me into another painful fit.

Breathing was a chore.

If I'd learned anything over the last few days, it was that my injuries were a lot worse than the adrenaline had first made it seem.

I couldn't breathe through my nose—the air just scratched at my throat and triggered my choking reflex. Mouthbreathing was worse. I wasn't able to take a full enough breath without one of my ribs pinching at a swollen muscle over my lungs, so I had to resort to a deliberate balancing act between the two just to avoid the pain. Or worse, to stop myself from passing out.

Painkillers were no help. Neither was water, except for the express purpose of keeping me hydrated.

Warm tea was the only thing I could tolerate.

I didn't want to try eating, no matter how good Noah's cooking smelled from the other side of my bedroom door. I didn't think I could, anyway. I wouldn't be able to stomach it.

And I didn't want to see him.

I don't want him to see me.

Consciously aware of my breathing, I flicked a glance towards the clock on the wall. It was late in the morning. I'd woken myself up five times throughout the night, then once more when I'd heard Noah's motorcycle pulling out of the lot outside.

We hadn't spoken in days.

He'd approached the boundary of my room once or twice in the last week, knocking on my door just to murmur my name—if only to check that I was still alive. I never answered him, and I never replied to his text messages.

If Chains' posts on their socials were any indication, the two of them were busy anyway. Since the night at the beach, he and Noah had been meeting up daily with other Stray Dogs. Chains' Instagram was a shadowy collage of helmets, motorcycles and biker vests, with the owner's faces always cleverly hidden.