𝐍𝐎 𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐒, ꜱʙɢ

23

Dominique sat on the bus, her shirt discarded on the floor as she winced every time Ben dabbed a gash around her waist. Her sports bra gave him access to the wounds across her body which needed disinfection.

There was an awkward silence hovering in the air as everyone avoided eye-contact with Dominique, confronted by her condition and guilty of their actions a couple hours prior.

Meanwhile, Dominique was taking it the completely wrong way. Her mind was racing as her eyes danced over the figures of her friends, each of which didn't even cast a glance in her direction. She thought that they were disgusted to see her in such a way, to unable to accept that Dom was able to get hurt, too.

At the end of the day, they forgot Dom was a human. But- too guilty to say anything, they kept quiet. Ben was the only one who had communicated with her even partially, throwing her glances if she shifted in her seat in discomfort or pain. But even he, too, was too embarrassed by his previous actions to communicate with her in any form.

"I'm sorry."

Everyone looked toward Dom in shock, surprised at her apology and by the fact that she was the first to speak up. Her eyes gathered with tears as Ben stilled from tending to her wounds, looking toward her in confusion. Despite the pain, she pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them and covering her face with her arms, blocking out her vison of the group.

"You guys didn't need to see that. You shouldn't have. But I'm sorry you guys burdened yourself with getting me out of my own house." Dominique sniffed lightly, shifting in her seat as she gazed into her palms.

"But its not what you think-" Dominique stuttered quickly, knowing that the group had their suspicions about her home life. She shook her head against her knees, trying to distract her from anything other than the deafening silence consuming the bus. She parted her lips, going to defend her home-life but was interrupted by the dipping of the seat next to her, her chin being lifted from her knees and her arms falling to her sides as silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Then what should we think, Dom?" Tyler asked, grazing his thumb over her jaw as she adverted her eyes from his gaze, choosing to look down at the torn seats of the bus. She pulled her head away from his calloused hands, resting it back on top of her bruised knees and fluttering her eyes closed.

"I really don't want to talk about it, Tyler." He felt his heart pull at the emptiness of her voice, she sniffled lightly, threading her palms together in an attempt to ease her rising anxiety.

"But whatever you're thinking, its not true." She added lightly, her voice cracking as she lied to her friends. She didn't want to, and it broke her heart into tiny pieces by the fact that she had. But she had to protect her father, and its not like they could do anything. She had no family or relatives- that she knew of- anywhere close to her. She would have to leave everything behind; leave her friends, her school, her routine, her whole life.

She had nowhere to go.

And that hit her hard.

Tyler's face pulled into a frown, his eyes locking onto the rest of the group for support. Aiden stood up next, shuffling over to her seat and wrapping an arm around her exposed back, his finger tracing the barcode on her neck as he flopped against her side, breathing out a sigh with a light smile on his face. They dropped the topic for now, but between them, they knew what Dominique was hiding.

Ben shuffled forward in his seat, placing a comforting hand to her scalp and brushing his hands through her hair as he smiled sympathetically toward her, which she returned with a smaller, more tired one.