Breaking Slowly // h.s. au

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

*Elsie*

Songs-

Boulevard of Broken Dreams- Green Day

Last Hope- Paramore

Proof- Paramore

I feel Harry's heartbeat in my ear as I lay against him. I didn't lie. I know I won't last much longer under Alex's hold. I used to think that I could just make it until the end of the year and then I would be free.

Hell. I thought that a week ago.

But then I met Harry. And nothing has ever been this unsure.

I might not make it out alive. I might not reach what I wanted to; survival. But maybe that's not such a bad thing. What would I be if I walked out of here? Bitter... broken... traumatized.

Well that's not exactly true- I would have loved to make it out of this hell but I'm near the end of this winding journey life has become in such a short amount of time. Seventeen years.

"I have to go cover these up." I say shifting off of Harry's lap and standing.

"What?" He asks as his model-like face contorts in confusion.

"I have to cover up the bruises before Jen and Mara get home." I don't wait for his realization as I walk into the bathroom and break out my makeup.

I coat it onto my neck and wrists- they won't see my stomach so there's no point.

"You should tell them." Harry says from the bathroom doorway.

"No." I say just above a whisper, "I can't."

"You can Elsie." He encourages. He doesn't understand. No one does.

"No it wouldn't do any good." I challenge.

"You have no idea what it would do." He steps closer lifts my hair as I struggle to brush over the pinky marks in the back of my neck, "They could get you out of here." He says looking down.

"They wouldn't." I say, "They have stable jobs, and friends, and lives... they would just rage at the school until I had a body guard at all times."

"Else-," He shakes his head looking appalled. Sorry I don't value my life enough to ruin there's.

"Or they would take me away." I fix my hair so it's off my neck and not ruining my crafted disguise, "Away from Violet and Clyde- and you."

I put away the bottles and containers of makeup in the cabinet before brushing past Harry and into my room. What is life anyway?

You're born.

You live.

You die.

I was born like everyone else, but I was the fourth baby... the rest miscarried. Not to mention my estranged sister and deceased brother.

I will dies like everyone else, but it might come sooner than it should.

The trick is living. You can do so much with this small period of time we exist. You could write a novel teachers teach in class. You could be the teacher that teaches that next generation or the factory worker that made the paper that made the book. But that's only the beginning. It doesn't touch upon the manufacturer who sold it to the school made up of people who pay the teachers who teach the children. Life is just a matter of who you are and how you fit into the scheme of things.