Heartbreakers

-9-

Trigger Warning: Assault

I fumbled with my keys and pulled a pack of cigarettes from my bag. They could calm me, right? I was panicking and hyperventilating at the same time... Are those the same thing? I couldn't even tell anymore, my mind was absent, I kept having to remind myself simply to breath. Breath. I exhaled raggedly. My palms were shaking as I lit the end of the dusty white cigarette. I was clutching the cherry red convenience store lighter like it was a 7/11 made lifeline. I only allowed myself one deep breath of the tobacco smoke before I started the car and tore out of the school parking lot. I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't be there, it felt like I could suffocate in the teenage bullshit. Breath.

My thoughts began to overwhelm me, I had worked so hard, my place there had felt so secure... I was secure... I felt safe. Reinvented as the new me I had always wanted to be. The untouchable me. What could the new Clarke possibly do now? Breath. God, how stupid people can be. God, how naive I was. Breath. And I had even known Ivy was planning something, I had felt her spiteful revenge festering in the marrow of my bones, she needed to be right. She needed to get her way. She needed to win. Breath. I was breaking traffic laws all over the place, but I just needed to get home. I needed the familiarity of my bed. Breath. I needed to sit and let the world cave in on me; that's what it was doing, it was drowning me in my own problems and smothering me like the end of a cigarette into the sole of a shoe. I couldn't let it happen again. Breath. It was all happening again. I was the class slut. I was the whore. It was me who had naked photos circling the Internet. Breath. It was my fault. It's always my fault. Breath.

Flashback

_____

My head was spinning- and honestly- I was starting to doubt it was the alcohol. I mean, I had never had alcohol before, but I didn't think it was this bad. I still couldn't see Juli, and the man who had been dancing behind me had now dragged me into a private room. There was only a small portion of my brain that was coherent, and I couldn't make myself move. I couldn't control my body. I couldn't even control my words, they all came out jumbled and slurred if they managed to escape me at all. His face was completely obscured by the foggy twisting of the room around me. I could see only the dim lights above and the beige and brown comforter of the bed I had been thrown on. Was he helping me?

Darkness.

Three people were above me, holding me to the bed. I was so cold, exposed, too bare and unable to cover up. I tugged at my arm, but I was so weak all it did was show the person who had pinned me down that I was conscious. They tightened their grip. The lights had turned off. Their faces were just swirls in the dark room.

Darkness.

All I could feel was something small scratching my legs, rolling across my inner thighs. I could smell the toxic scent of the sharpie, which was my only other clue. I didn't know what he was writing, I didn't know my own name.

Darkness.

I felt intense, horrible pain from my legs. My entire lower half was burning. I tried to wriggle free but it was like pushing through a tub of peanut butter. My mind had been turned to jam. The next thing I remember is the scent of synthetic cherry, like lipgloss. It was overpowering, and as my vision cleared I could see a pair of piercing blue eyes with eyelashes caked in mascara. Her face was too close to mine. The pain wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop. I've never been religious, but I prayed for words to come out. I could only whisper a choking, "no." I smelled the cherry on her breath when she laughed in my face. It was venomous.