Saint Ambrose Academy: Unlikelies

18

NOVA

For a brief second, I am crushed by the words he said, but still, I try to go after Enzo when a hand is clamped around my mouth and waist that lifts me from the ground and pulls me back into my dorm. Panicking I try to bite down on the hand over my mouth when they throw me onto the floor, crashing into the side table that housed my keys and other decorative glass items.

I need to stop Enzo, he's going to get himself or someone else killed, if he drives in the state he's in. 

I start to get up and tell them I just need to stop Enzo from driving, but they kick me in the face causing me to land on my back on the glass shards and I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood at the impact of it. I still want to get up but they hold their heavy expensive boots on my chest and bend down tilting my head up to make eye contact. Looking up I see Matteo is the one who grabbed me and he looks terrible, one of his eyes is bruised a nasty red, parts already turning dakr shades of blue, indicating it happened fairly recently, and the smell of alcohol reeks on him.

"You little bitch. You fucking bit me?!" He's screaming at me, and I feel the tears well up in my eyes as I realize that he looks more evil than he did when he broke my ribs, I genuinely fear he'll kill me this time, and no one will be able to stop Enzo from making a mistake he can't take back.

I don't say anything as I know better than to talk back to Matteo when his eyes are filled with darkness.

I was naive to think that life could be bearable here, that Matteo was changing, becoming a better person and that's why he started to go easy on me, now I know better. It was the calm before a storm, the whole time his anger was just building, and tonight was different from any other time he's hurt me, tonight his eyes were devoid of any and all emotion.

He adds more weight to his foot, and I feel like the air is being crushed out of my lungs, when he suddenly removes his foot, and as I'm left coughing, sputtering for air, he grabs me by my hair and drags me up the stairs. I feel every step hit my back and the shards of glass that are embedded in my skin, and my head recoils off the stairs; my hair feels as though it's being ripped from my scalp, the pain is blinding and I scream begging him to stop even though I know this will only anger him.

"Shut the fuck up, Nova. Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you honestly think that it was smart to get involved with one of my friends?!" He pulls me up by my hair to be level with his face as the tears are streaming down my cheeks.

"I tried so hard to be good to you, last year, I was genuinely interested in you. But you just wanted my daddy's help with a college letter of recommendation," I'm confused by his words when he continues in a snarky growl.

"Oh yeah, Cassia told me all about how you use people, come let's go look at the evidence." He throws me up the last remaining step onto the second floor of my dorm, and I try to crawl away but he kicks me in the ribs. He picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder and brings me to my walk-in closet.

He's pointing to the little dream board I made and still, nothing is clicking in my head, "Julliard? Huh? It's so convenient that my father is a recruiter for Ivy League schools and prestigious academies such as Julliard. So convenient, that you went to a party as MY date only to hook up with the sons of the founding family of the Julliard Foundation, and owners of prestigious dance companies. I had cared about you, enough to push back against Cassia's 'hate on Nova agenda'. But then you disappeared at the party, only for her to show me pictures of the exact reason why. What a fool was I to think you were anything more than an ambitious slut." I know exactly what he's talking about now, and I feel sick to my stomach.

I try to shake my head no, as the tears are coming full force now, but he just backhands me and gets onto the floor to my level.

"Oh? No? that's not how it happened, the pictures are very telling Princess," his tone is full of satire and hate, he starts to stroke my head and wipe my tears away while looking at us through the mirror. I flinch away from his touch, and this only makes him angrier; he slams my head against the mirror and pulls me up to my feet with him. I'm bleeding, it's slow enough to not be fatal but enough to scare me. My blood stains the plush carpeting lining the closet, and he brings me out to the hardwood floored room I use to train for dance in the dorm, I don't have full wall mirrors in here so I try to train in the athletics department whenever it is safe to.