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Chapter Two

*BEEP BEEP BEEP... BEEP BEEP BEEP...* My eyes fluttered open as I heard the all too well known sound of the fire alarm. Reluctantly, I pulled myself out of bed and proceeded to wake up Nylana and Myrn, who were apparently very heavy sleepers. As I went over to Nylana's bed and tapped her and shook her slightly, she slapped me in the face. That was not appreciated. Ny left a red mark plastered across my face. I literally had to drag her out of her bed and onto the floor. Now it was time to try and get Myrn to wake up. This would be significantly harder due to the fact that Myrn slept on the top bunk. Out of stress and worry for my new friend I came up with a desperate plan. I grabbed my water bottle from the desk and as fast as possible I unscrewed the lid and poured it all over Myrn. I received a mixture of screams and profanities but at least Myrn wouldn't burn to death if this fire was real.

    As we walked outside it was quite obvious that Ny and Myrn were royally pissed off. I did not care however, In my mind I saved them from possible death. "Did you seriously need to dump an ENTIRE water bottle on me?!?!?" Myrn snapped at me. "I was merely trying to wake you because of the fire alarm.." I replied back. "Whatever." It was quite obvious that Myrn was not happy with me whatsoever. Nylana wasn't quite as pissed at me; she didn't have a water bottle dumped upon her she simply was just pulled out of bed.

    As we meandered through the parking lot of the campus the anger evaporated off of both Nylana and Myrn, slowly but surely. I was glad that they were growing less and less angry with me, I hate it when a someone is mad with me. It makes me feel as if I did something horribly wrong and it left a horrid feeling within myself. Finally, we came to a halt at the end of the parking lot among all of the other students.

    As we were standing there I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a guy slightly taller than I. He proceeded to tell me that I was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. I blushed hardcore as I turned my face towards the ground. As I looked back up I met the young man at his eyes. Smiling, he said, "Hello, I'm Ace." Inside my mind my emotions were at war over Ace. Yes, he was pleasing to the eye, but I wasn't ready for a relationship again just yet. I didn't think I would ever be ready for another relationship after him.

    His name is not something I wish to speak ever again. He was the first love of my life, and the last as of right now. I loved him so deeply and strongly it physically hurt. When we first started dating he was one of the sweetest guys I had ever met. We dated for about 5 or 6 months in freshman year, and then broke up for the entirety of a summer or so. Then we got back together during sophomore year. But the thing was, he was different, or at least he was in the eyes of my few and limited friends. To them, he was abusive towards me. Yes, he would play mind games with me that left me in tears or staring at blood ridden wrist, yes he would ram me into walls and push me around and tackle me, yes he would take advantage of me. But in my eyes, I didn't think he was abusive. As my friends put it, I was blinded by love. I loved him so much I refused to believe that he was abusing me. That was all until the incident.

    It was a late summer evening, the time of night where everything started to cool off, and it was very apparent that he was well, hot and bothered. He made it very evident he wanted something from me, that I was simply not ready to give. I had never witnessed such anger and such force thrown upon a human being; that human being was me. He clearly wanted one thing, and one thing only. To have sex with me. My tears that night should tell the story of what happened. I was not ready to have that experience. I did not give consent, but that matter was ignored by him. That night I cried until my pillow was a sopping mess. The emotions were all just so incredibly overwhelming; I needed a release. I took the blood stained razor to my wrist and sliced it open. Afterwords, realizing what I had done, I cried even more. Some of the salt ridden tears entered the fresh cuts as I cried out in pain for that sensation of burning was not pleasant. That night I broke all my hard work of being 7 months clean. I hated him for it. I wanted him to pay.

    I never did report that incident, or tell a soul. I was too afraid of what he would do. This was precisely why I did not ever want another relationship again. Anyways, I responded to Ace with a "Hello, I'm Hunter."

    "You seem very lovely Hunter. Would you like to get to know each other?" As Ace finished his sentence I began to shudder in fear. I did not want to be in a relationship. Not now, not ever. He had ruined that for me. Out of panic I quickly spurted out, "I don't want to be in a relationship again." To which his eyebrows furrowed out of confusion as I mentally face-palmed myself. This always happened, I blurt out things I don't want people to know about.

    "Hunter, are you alright? I am not asking to take you on a date, just simply to become friends." I realized what I had done now. I was going to have to explain to him about the incident. However, I had never told anyone. Maybe it would be helpful to let it out.

    "Yeah.. I'm fine. I've just had a really bad experience with guys in the past." I hoped Ace would understand. Maybe I would like to get to know him; he seemed very nice and caring, and it would be nice to have a guy friend to talk to.

    "Alright if you say so Hunter. Would you like to talk about it sometime?" As soon as Ace finished his sentence I immediately weighed out my options. Rather fast I came to a conclusion.

"Yeah, I'd really appreciate that. How about tonight? We could order a pizza and watch some netflix maybe?" I silently hoped Ace would agree. As time went on, the more and more excited I was to talk to some about what he had done to me.

"That sounds great. Here, I'll give you my number." As we exchanged numbers I felt an odd sensation within myself. It felt similar to a feeling of joy, but not quite the same. I grew confused, and somewhat worried as to what emotion I was developing. But as usual, I pushed it deep down inside myself to be dealt with later.

As the day went on, I texted with Ace nonstop. It was evident that we were both looking forward to tonight.