The Boy Next Door (Editing and Rewriting)

Chapter 13

Sprinting down the hallway to Room 15, I managed to slip inside the room just as the bell rang, I just made it, and I internally sighed in relief as I took my seat at the front of the class. Shortly after I took my seat Mr. Thomas started calling out a list of names off a sheet of paper, attendance list.

The rest of the morning passed in the same way, quickly, I walked from class to class with my head down. Entering each class, I quietly took my seat, didn’t look at anyone, and got on with my work. This continued for the first three classes of the day, Math, History and English, it continued up until the bell rang signalling that it is now lunch time. Every single student in the class shoot up out of their seats and was out of the door before I had managed to even put my books in my bag. When you tell a bunch of teenagers they can eat they will get there as fast as humanly possible, I guess.

After packing all of my belongings back into my bag I headed out of the classroom and towards the cafeteria. Entering the cafeteria I did the same thing as yesterday, walked through the cafeteria without stopping and exiting through the back doors which lead to the outside seating area. Today was one of the days that I wanted to be alone the most, with everything that happened today, with Ryder, I didn’t know if I could face being around people.

Sitting down at one of the many tables set up around the open area, I put my bag down on the seat next to me, resting my head on my folded arms and stared off into the distance, leaving myself alone to my thoughts. Though I was quickly dragged out of my thoughts when I heard a noise, a faint rustling of some leaves, which was quickly followed the sound of footsteps, two pairs.

 Turning around I saw the source of the sounds, Jack and Ryder were walking over towards me, they had come out from behind the trees. My first thought was, why were they here? But it was quickly followed by another, how did they know I was here? I decided against asking the second question and instead stuck with the first.

“Why are you here? Come back for Round 2?” I said, trying to be sarcastic and hide the fear that was now coursing through me as I got up and slowly backed away from them.

“Aww sweet cheeks, why so scared?” Ryder asked, he knew exactly why I was so scared of him, as if the marks on my stomach weren’t enough there were little reminders all over my body. Whenever he got mad for some reason he would always take it out on me, avoiding and obvious places of course.

“You know exactly why!” I half shouted at him while I backed myself against a wall, which probably wasn’t the best idea.

“I think she’s still angry about what happened over a year ago mate,” I heard Jack say to Ryder, looks like it’s just me against these two boys, my only option was to run, or scream and hope that someone heard me. Since I wasn’t very fast and wouldn’t get far before they caught me, I decided that screaming was my best option. A few seconds after I started screaming, no words, apart from one help me; it was just a shrill sound that would hopefully catch people’s attention and they would come see what was going on. Jack reacted quicker than I thought he would, jolting me away from the wall and putting his hand in front of my mouth to cut off the sound. He then stood behind me so that he could restrain me while still keeping his hand over my mouth. Ryder walked closer to where I stood, looking less than pleased as I tried to contain my tears, I wouldn’t let him see me be weak.

“What do you think you were doing?” he yelled at me before raising his hand and slapping me across the face, so much for not in obvious places, I thought. “What was that stunt? Huh, I’m starting to think you like being punished or you would just be a good little girl and listen to me,” he sneered before reaching into his pocket and pulling something out, I couldn’t quite tell what it was before the light danced off it, a knife. At the sight of the knife in Ryder’s hand I could no longer contain my tears; all of the memories of the last time this happened came back. If Jack wasn’t behind me restraining me I was pretty sure that I would have already collapsed to the floor.

“Look at that Jack, little Al isn’t as strong as she thinks she is, a little knife scares her,” Ryder said, looking at me and twirling the knife around in his hand. I struggled to get Jack’s hand off my mouth so that I could speak.

“It’s not the knife I’m scared of, but rather what you are going to do with it,” I said, gathering as much strength into my voice as I could, “you and I both know what happened last time.” I said as I nodded towards my stomach with my head since I couldn’t move my hands.

“Ah yes, I almost forgot, how are my little reminders doing? Still there?” he asked me, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of answering him so he continued, “let’s take a look shall we?” with that he pulled up my hoodie fully exposing my flat, scarred stomach. I tried to make him let go, tried to cover my stomach again, but it was useless Jack’s hold was firm and it didn’t feel like he was in the mood to let me go.

Since Ryder was distracted with examining my stomach I took the opportunity, kicking back I managed to collide with Jack’s leg, causing him to let me go and I bolted as soon as he did. I didn’t get very far before Ryder grabbed my arm and was dragging me back, since he couldn’t stop me I started screaming again, any help was welcome right now.

“Help me!” I screamed over and over before Ryder somehow managed to pin me down on the floor and had his hand over my mouth while the weight of his body stopped me from moving.

“Sweet, sweet Al don’t scream you know that you enjoy this, you enjoy the attention that you get,” Ryder was saying as he dragged the cold, metallic knife down the side of my face, the blunt end against my skin so that he didn’t break any skin. In the feeble attempt to break free again, I bit his hand, I had no other option, but the look on his face made me instantly regret it.

“You stupid girl,” he screamed at me, “you’re going to pay for that,” this time his voice as a little calmer but somehow that was scarier than his yelling and screaming, “ah yes, you’ll pay little girl, don’t worry I’ll try not to hurt you too much,” he promised, still talking in his calm voice. After this he pulled the knife away from my face, turning it around in his hand so that the sharp edge faced me before bringing the knife back down to my face. I didn’t know he had actually broken skin until I felt the warm blood run down my cheek, mixing with the tears that were falling. I hadn’t felt the knife break the skin, I was completely numb. Closing my eyes I started to wish that this was either over right now, or that this was all a dream and in a minute I would wake up back in my bed. It turned out to be the former instead of the latter.

Less than a minute after I closed my eyes to block out the scene that was unfolding around me, I heard a door open in the distance. My eyes flew open to see who was coming, to see who my hero was at this very moment, not that I cared, anyone would do. The person that ran out of the doors looked as if he had been running for a while, his hair was messy and his breaths deep, his eyes widened looking rather shocked at the scene in front of him.