Lost in Bewilderness

Hart of Stone

Warning: This chapter contains coarse language. 

Here I was knocked out. Knocked out - Jade Powell knocked out by Ryan Hart. Ryan fucking Hart. Waking up in the tiny hideout Ryan had bought me, I found myself shivering and huddled in a corner. Huh? What was I even doing in the corner, what time was it even? It was summer for goodness sake, why on earth was I freezing. Why did it feel like every bone in my body was hardening each time I moved?

Then it hit me like a baseball except I wasn't in the field, I was sitting alone in the shadowy corner of God knows where- naked. Not fully but just enough to keep me from freezing to death. But why was I here? Oh right, Ryan Hart enticed me with his pretty teeth, dosed me with some Happy Little Pills and stripped me to the bone. It was hard to believe that I even thought he had it in him. I was sick of him anyway, and his stupid enigmatic expression which left girls clueless and maybe guys too.

Then I heard someone pushing at the door, I tried to pushing against it but I was too weak, emotionally unstable and engulfed in self pity and hate. Besides, where did Ryan even get the pills, did he already know that Lucinda was cheating on him? But someone kept knocking at the door and even shouted something in Spanish, shit it was the janitor.

My clothes were dumped like dirty laundry in the opposite end of the room, and if I was to go there, it'd mean I'd have to let go of the door and let the janitor in. So my plan was to one: drag the mop and wedge it through the door. Two: make sure the mop was actually holding the door in place. Three: make a run for my clothes and lastly, take the mop out and let the janitor in, I would apologise and never show my face to her again. I did all this, mumbled sorry in Spanish and sprinted.

I was scared. Did Ryan get me pregnant? What did he do, why did he feel the need to knock me out and treat me like an object? Was I just getting it all wrong?

With an overwhelming urge to kill myself I walked straight into Ryan. He laughed. He freaking laughed. "Shut the hell up Ryan. You should be grateful that I still call you Ryan." I said with an awful glare.  He grunted and shrugged and continued laughing with his friends, who then pushed me out of the way. That was it, I'd had enough of him. 

"Why the heck was I naked Ryan. Why?" I wanted to ask him. But instead I punched him. Just as he had punched me. 

"What the fuck?" He shouted rubbing his cheek. 

"Yeah, what the FUCK! Go away Ryan, you useless ratbag, you belong nowhere. Okay? Your parents are so damn rich that you belong nowhere. You have your own world and you don't belong here. You just don't, and you're just as dumb as your friends. They're not there for your friendship, and you're not there for them!" I said pushing him against the locker by the throat. "So yeah what the fuck, you don't have to worry about a black eye cause your parents are anyway  going to pay your damn private health insurance."

Look at him, a whimpering chihuahua all lost without its little rich bitch and her purse. 

"Where did you get those pills from?" I hissed. "Where."

"From, from, fru-" he muttered.

"Spit it out!" I interrupted with agitation building like lava within me.

"From my parents! From your parents! To be honest I don't know. I just wanted you to get a taste of your own medicine! I wanted you to know about what the shit your mum sells does to people. Now you have it firsthand are you glad?" He blurted shaking and sad. Wow, he was actually sad. 

Our parents were linked. Our families were linked to the same drug syndicate, and Ryan was sane enough to realise that drugs destroyed lives. My life, Ryan's life. That explained everything. It was a coincidence really, how I ended up in the same school as Ryan, the same year as Ryan and with the same sort of parents as Ryan. It was like Ryan was so similar to me he might as well have been my twin brother. 

"Ryan," I asked as I released my grip, "Where are you from? When were you born?"

He replied in and turned in an actual attempt to face me, "I don't know, sometimes I think I was adopted, but who wants to be adopted."

Maybe he was right, maybe he was adopted just as I was adopted. But maybe we weren't at all, because all we really all crave in the end is rejection. For Ryan it was his parents, for me it was everyone I had ever known.