Beautiful Girls Really Are The Loneliest (James Bourne)

7- "Unchanged"

⚠️- Trigger Warning.

"Are you sure? You can stay with us, Brit, you're always welcome" Jennifer's mum offered as they sat in the car outside her house. Britney desperately wanted to say yes, but she didn't want to give up on her dad just yet, surely she shouldn't.

"No, I should see if my dad's okay... thanks for the offer though" Britney said and before she got out the car she said, "Thanks for coming to the hospital and all"

"It's okay, Brit" Jennifer's mum smiled, it was a sympathetic smile, you could see it in both hers and Jennifer's eyes that they didn't want to let her out the car and into that house. But they couldn't do anything, they watched helplessly while she walked up to the door.

Britney was thinking about Mr Bourne, or James as he insisted she called him. He had stayed with her while Jennifer and her mother had to speak to the police too, Britney guessed it was about the obvious bruises that covered her body. They had talked a lot, she asked him why he had given her his address and he replied with, "You need somewhere to stay." He seemed to see right through her lies about the bruises. About most things. She liked to think he was her friend, she had his address.

She reached into her pocket but it wasn't there, she assumed it had fallen out while she was being pushed around.

Britney reached the door, she didn't bother knocking, it was about 3pm now, her dad could be anywhere. She didn't think he would be in the house, that was certain. She threw her school bag down, she sighed. She was still doused up on painkillers.

"You wanna tell me where you were?" Her dad said as she walked past the living room, "Or shall I tell you?" he added, swirling some whisky in a glass.

"What?" She asked, she didn't sound scared of him but that was the painkillers.

"Where were you?" He asked again, sitting up on the sofa, nearly falling off.

"At the hospital" She said, pointing to her eye.

"There's nothing wrong with it"

"If you turned-" She flinched back and stopped talking when the glass just missed her face but smashed around her wrist. She went around the corner, but he went after her.

"Britney!" He yelled as she headed for the stairs. She was up the stairs and in her room in seconds, he was staggering due to the drink and that's where she had an advantage. Britney was quick to shut the door and push her desk in front of it, it would at least slow him down. She opened her wardrobe, he dads fists pounding on the door. She stuffed the remaining clothes, which was mainly underwear in her bag and dropped it out the window. She was lucky, her bedroom was at the front of the house. She looked down as it fell and hit the bushes. She would survive the fall, but she didn't care if she did or not. She stood on her chair but the desk was pushed forward and the door swung open. "You little shit!" He snarled, grabbed her by her tshirt and dragged her off the chair. She tried to grab onto the desk, onto the door, onto the hand bar. Nothing was working. She had forgotten the glass in her wrist.

Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, he flung her across the room, she hit the door. She wished it was open so she would carry on going. She was happy she had kept her shoes on.

"What's this?!" He demanded, holding a piece of paper in her face.

"I don't know" She said, her voice sounded so small.

"It has an address on it" he grinned, slightly slurring now. She hadn't dropped it at school, she had dropped it here. "You planning on running away?"

"No-" He cut her off.

"You won't be able to" he took out a lighter and lit the paper. Britney half expected him to throw it at her but he didn't, he turned to walk away, Britney stood up and walked to the sink to try and save it but as she turned back around to head for the door a hand came across her face. She fell to the floor again and whacked the back of her head on the corner of a cupboard. She blacked out for a moment but when she came back around she felt her head, there was blood there again. She felt sick. Britney stood up with a struggle, she started to stagger to the door. Her vision was too blurry but she managed to get there. She stopped for a moment but she shouldn't have. "You can't leave! You can't get away!" He shouted. She looked to him, she blinked a couple of times. He was holding a chair. She pulled the door open and pulled it shut when she got through, she heard the chair crash at the door. She ran to the bush and rummaged for her bag. "Britney!" Her dad shouted at the door way. She froze, her hand on her bag. She covered her mouth to stop her heavy breathing. Silence fell again, and then she heard the door slam. She moved again and stopped, still silence so she carried on. Pulling out the bag from the bushes and putting it over her shoulder and started walking. Walking turned into running. Britney can remember the address, That's where she would go. Not Jenny's, her parents would fuss about it all, Jenny would. They would phone the police.

She went to the school, she needed to get her things, the school was still open, it didn't close until 5pm. She ran down the hall, nearly falling down. 190410, she pulled it open and pulled the two bags that were in there, they were her clothes, then she took out the one with her laptop. She wasn't planning of coming back to this school.

Britney ran. She didn't stop. But she needed to, she kept feeling sick, she was going to throw up. She turned onto Mr Bourne's street. It was so far away from her dad. He couldn't find her here, surely.

Britney had to stop on the corner. She flopped to the ground. He hadn't changed. Nothing about him had changed. Not one thing. She was losing her vision again. She remembered the glass in her wrist. She shot up and took a deep breath as if she had just come up from water, she tried to look at her wrist to take the glass out, she felt someone warm trickle down her face, the stitches, she thought. Then she thought of the back of her head, was it still bleeding? She just didn't know. She tried to stand but she couldn't, her legs gave way underneath her. She thought, maybe if I close my eyes for a bit. But she knew that was a bad idea, still she let her eyes go.

A figure. Britney could see someone. It was just a shadow at first, only the colours were visible. To Britney it looked like black jeans and a grey jumper. She knew it wasn't her father, he wouldn't of been able to find her. Britney struggled to move away from the figure but as they got closer, she could see the colour of his hair, he was blonde. Then the outlines on his face came into view, she looked down as the man crouched in front of me. "Britney" He said, he repeated it over and over, until she looked up. She frowned but then she came to realize who it was.

"Mr Bourne?"

"Call me James" He said, lifting Britney up while taking three of her bags. He had to hold her up, he couldn't see the state she was in, it was pitch black out. They walked down the street, Britney seemed to have gained some strength. "Do you want to talk about it?" He asked her as they approached the door.

"I'm sorry, you don't mind do you? I mean I couldn't really go anywhere else" Britney rambled on, not noticing the people in the window. Or the size of the house.