Sticks and Stones

Prologue

How many times had Isabella Montgomery heard those words since she was a boisterous, rosy-cheeked little girl?

'If a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you".

No. If a boy is mean to you, it's because he doesn't respect you or your boundaries. It's because he was brought up to be a horrible human being, lacking the capacity to care and love in a normal way. Taught to be selfish and unkind, no matter who it hurts.

What she should have been told was to run - to run and never look back. That being mean wasn't a sign of affection, but was a red flag from start to finish. 

If she had been told that, maybe she wouldn't have started dating Lucas Baker at the young innocent age of fourteen. 

Of course, to anyone on the outside looking in, it was a perfect match. 

He was charming and charismatic, the son of the mayor, with the ability to talk anyone into doing anything. All he had to do was flash his pearly whites and innocent blues for people to fall to their knees. Whereas she was kind and stable, well-liked and was on track for a wonderful, bright future... why wouldn't it work out?

What many people didn't know was Lucas had a temper.

Whatever 'incidents' he was involved in got covered up and swept under the carpet real quick. It was disgraceful and incriminating to have the son of the mayor caught up in a gossip storm. The impact on voting numbers would be hell to recover from and Mr Baker would not get voted back into office if the people of Beacon Hills did not trust him.

Good publicity was worth the cost, apparently. 

It started off as little things. Small arguments would get turned around on her, which had her scrambling to apologise. Little digs here and there, diminishing and chipping away at her confidence. Months into their relationship, it became worse. He isolated her from people he did not approve of. Tracked her whereabouts, and if he found out she wasn't where she said she was, all hell would break loose. Picked out her entire wardrobe because anything he deemed revealing was 'cheating on him' and it was 'all for his eyes only'. Left her emotionally wrecked and weak before building her back up. 

Once under his thumb, he became physical. Yet he would always apologise and promise it would never happen again. 

Spoiler alert - it did. 

Two years in she had become numb to the pain it caused. She was tired and burnt out, accepting this was just her life now, yet a part of her still loved him because he wasn't always like this. It was good at the start, maybe there was still hope for them...

There wasn't. She should have known that, covering up her black eye with what felt like a hundred layers of concealer that morning before her first day back to school after winter break.

She remembered Stiles' words from their last day at school before winter break where he had cornered her in the car park, catching her alone for those brief seconds.

"You need to open your eyes Izzy" he urged, "otherwise, it'll be your funeral".

He was always blunt and straight-talking, knowing their fading friendship was because of Lucas - not because she left him and Scott behind. The three musketeers, now two. 

She didn't listen.

She couldn't face the truth.

She didn't want to acknowledge how dangerous her situation had become. 

Things could get better, right?

Her black eye should've told her that no, things weren't going to get better. In fact, things were going to get much much worse.