Beat Of My Heart

Chorus (Ten)

Jason took me home that day.  A week later and I was still surrounded by the ache in my chest.  Every day I tried as hard as I could to avoid Dylan and his minions, but it was always without fail.

It was Monday again and I had just barely managed to escape our shared class unharmed.  That was, until he cornered me by the stairs.

The halls were thinning, and no one was around except for Dylan and two of his friends.  I knew one of them, his name was Austin and he used to be a good kid until Dylan got his hooks in him.

Josie had a crush on him.  He had blonde hair and blue eyes, she always joked that they would make the perfect Barbie and Ken couple with beautiful babies. 

The other guy with them was Malik, he towered over the rest of us and his dark brown eyes stared into me with such intensity that it almost scared me.

I backed up, hitting a wall beside the stairs.

"What do you want?" I asked him, my side still throbbing from where he'd kicked me the Friday before. 

I cursed myself for pulling away from Josie.  I just couldn't face her and be happy with her when I had this huge cloud of pain hanging over me.  If only I had asked to walk to the next class with her, this wouldn't be happening.

"What do you think we want?  What do we always want?" Dylan sneered, stepping up close to my body but I put my arms up stopping him.

I tried to side step him and move to walk down the stairs but one head nod at his goonies behind him and they moved forward, both grabbing each arm.

My eyes widened in fear and surprise.  They had never done this to me before.

"Let me go or I swear to god I'll scream," I said, my voice wavering and showing how scared I was and how much I didn't want any of this to happen.

"And what will you say when they come running?  Or we could just do this-"

He put a hand over my mouth and I felt my breathing quicken, my heart about to beat out of my chest.

I felt the traitorous tears escape my eyes and leak down my face onto his hand.  It smelled like car oil and gasoline and cigarettes.  I gagged.

I opened my mouth as much as I could and tasted the salt on his hand and almost threw up right then and there but I gathered as much mental strength as I could and bit down on the skin invading my mouth.

He cursed but his friends didn't let me go.

"You stupid cúnt!"

I cried out as he gripped my side, squeezing the skin next to my ribs and the pain was almost unbearable, his grip like steel.

"You're going to regret that."

I regretted a lot of things, but I would never regret biting him like that.  It was a small victory in a war where all I did was lose.

He lifted my shirt up high enough to expose my bra and more tears left me.  Why was he targeting me like this?  Why wasn't I strong enough to stand up to him?

Was there something wrong with me?  Why was I so weak?

I felt a surge of anger flood my bones, the ache turning into a searing hot branding iron being shoved down my throat, agony coursing through my veins.

I allowed the anger to propel my actions, no longer allowing myself to be victimized by them.

I reared up and kneed Dylan in his balls, he really didn't learn when it came to that.  I didn't even know how many times I'd used that move on him.

He cursed and the two guys holding me looked confused, like they didn't know that I was going to fight back.

Hell, even I didn't know I was going to fight back.

Suddenly and without warning, Dylan got close to my face, the stench of tobacco flooding my nostrils and I recoiled from him.

He gripped both of my arms, causing his goonies to let go.

His mouth was directly beside my ear and his breath fanned my neck.  I shivered in disgust from his touch.

"You'll pay for that."

I didn't have time to pull away from him in shock after what he'd just said before his arms picked me up into the air.

I started flailing around and screaming as loud as I could, begging for someone to help me but it all fell on deaf ears as the bell rang immediately as he lifted me up by my arms.

I knew he'd leave bruises there.

Little fingerprint shaped brushes.  It would probably look really silly.

I didn't know why my brain chose to think about something so insignificant right before I was to be thrown down the stairs.

And then I thought of something brilliant.

If I was going down, he was going to go down with me. 

I somehow pried my hands up since his arms were gripping me and holding me up right above my elbows.  I clawed my hands up onto his face and started scratching, my fingernails catching skin and drawing blood wherever they could find.

They made their way up to his eyeballs and he started screeching in pain, but that was when his friends stepped in. 

They tried to pry me away from him, thankfully away from the stairs, but one of them lost their footing as Dylan was swinging me around still screaming in agony and my hands were still scissoring up his face.

One misstep was all it took, and down we went, sailing towards the stairs.  I said a quick prayer to whoever was above that  I wouldn't die, but I figured it was wishful thinking.

I thought of all the things I'd done in my life, not nearly as much as I'd wanted to accomplish but I'd done things some people would only dream of.

I'd met a super celebrity, I'd gone on a couple family vacations with Josie out of the country.  It hadn't been perfect but I had been happy.  My best friend made me happy.  My mom made me happy.

At one point in time, my father had made me happy as well.

And, for however brief it had been, so had Sebastian Jennings.

I wondered what would have happened if we'd stayed friends, if he hadn't shoved me out of his life for good.

It was a sad thing to reminisce over, and I didn't want my last moments tinged with depression and pain.

So I thought of my favorite memory.  Dancing in a field of daffodils, spinning around in a pretty blue dress my mom had just gotten for me.

I felt the tears of joy in my eyes from the memory as my body made contact with the stairs, and I subconsciously twined my arms around my head to protect it from the fall.

There were three flights of stairs, and I was sent careening down them at a treacherous speed, so I knew before long I would be at the bottom of all three flights, my body not able to stop the free fall at which I had been thrown.

I didn't even have time to scream before my face hit the bottom.