Lie Until You Laugh

28- Attacks (Again)

On Saturday night, I’m sleeping alone in my room. Stella texted me at around nine at night telling me that she is going to stay the night with Drew, so that gives me the room alone, which is kind of nice, I guess. After I left Penn at around ten, I came back here to the room because I was so exhausted with all of the confessing and talking. It’s really a lot of work for me to tell people things, so I’m proud of myself for telling Penn even that little bit about my home life. Anyway, after I told him all of that stuff, we kissed a lot and that was also pretty tiring too, but it was so worth it.

I fall asleep in my top bunk at about eleven at night after receiving an adorable ‘goodnight’ text from Penn. I’m only asleep for what feels like ten minutes before I’m woken up and that makes me mad. I’m not woken up by Stella’s chirpy voice or my alarm clock like usual though which is weird. What wakes me up is a rough hand clasped over my mouth. My first instinct is to scream, but the hand is pressing so hard against my mouth that nothing comes out. In a panic, I start to thrash around but it’s so incredibly dark in the room that I have no idea where the person is or who it is and that’s aggravating. The hand that’s not holding my mouth is holding my hands down on top of my belly so I can’t swing them at all.

“Don’t freak out,” The person says in a hushed tone. It sounds like Anthony and I can feel myself start to grow even more irritated than I already am. “If you don’t freak out, I’ll let you go. Okay?”

I nod because I don’t know what else to do and when I do, the hand releases my mouth, but he keeps my hands pinned down which is probably a good idea because I’d punch him in the face or something. My breathing is heavy and I don’t know if that’s because I just got the shit scared out of me or if it’s because I’m so pissed off at whoever is waking me up in the middle of the night, especially if it’s Anthony.

Suddenly, the lights turn on and I blink a few times so that my eyes can adjust to the light and when I’m finally adjusted to it, my eyes land on Anthony as he is kneeling beside me on my small upper bunk. Before I can say anything, he hops off of the bunk and stands by the door of the dorm as if he’s trying to make sure that I can’t leave.

I stay on my top bunk and glare down at him, trying to catch my breath. “You have about two seconds to tell me what the fuck you’re doing before I murder you,” I snap at him.

“Calm down,” He hisses in a whisper. “I just want to talk.”

“And you felt like sneaking in to my dorm to just talk? Are you insane?” I wonder incredulously. My phone is under my pillow, so if he tries to climb back up onto my bunk, I’ll text Penn or something. It’s a little bit damsel-like of me, but I don’t like being in a room alone with this guy even though I’m fairly confident that if I need to, I can win in a fight.

“It’s the only way you’ll listen,” He says. “And I’m really tired of trying to get you to listen.”

“Maybe I won’t listen to you because you’re a psychopath,” I suggest, sitting up so that I can glare down at him.

“You can call me all the names that you want, just listen to me first,” Anthony reasons, sitting down at Stella’s desk, spinning the chair to face me.

“I don’t really have a choice right now,” I mumble, running my fingers through my hair before putting it up in a messy bun. I’m very conscious of the fact that my pajama shorts are very short and my pajama tank top is pretty tight and I don’t want to have to get out of this bed and have to kick his ass because I’m barely wearing anything, which is another reason that I’m ready to call Penn at any second for help. The dorm buildings aren’t far apart at all, so it wouldn’t take him that long to get here. Hopefully though, the text bing on his phone will wake him up if he’s sleeping already.  “You have five minutes starting right now.”