I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Seven

*Author Note. Mature situations ahead, please refrain from reading if you are against violence or drug use. Furthermore, if you are in a similar situation with someone, you have a voice and a way out. You are greater than what has happened to you.*

Ellie

I dialed my friend's number again, silently pleading to a God I'd never met that she would pick up. It went to her voicemail after four rings. That was the fifth time. What did I expect? It was three am. I swallowed the lump in my throat as the knob on the bathroom door tried to turn again, followed by three loud bangs.

I closed my eyes hard and leaned against the bathtub. My face was soaked from tears. My hands were shaking which matched the movement of my whole body, but nothing else was happening. There was no sound coming from my mouth, no words processing in my brain. Nothing but silence and fear.

Fear. This was fear. I almost forgot what it felt like. It'd been at least seven months since something like this happened. Seven months nearly to the day, but once you've experienced trauma, you never forget what it feels like, how it tastes, or smells. It becomes a living, breathing, part of you.

The last time this happened was different. We were in different places, Barns and I. We were younger, more fragile maybe. I drank too much at a bar and some guy gave me his number. It wasn't anything past innocent, and I didn't accept it, but Barns blew it up and out of proportion. At first, I found it oddly attractive that he was so protective of me, but the gleam of that was replaced within minutes, replaced with violence. He fought the guy, beat him to a bloody pulp, only pausing when his band mates drug him out before the cops could get involved. We dodged down an alley a few blocks away and tried to catch our breath, and that's what it happened.

The sting of his hand against my face was fire and ice at once. The shove of my body against the brick wall was numbing. I didn't fight back. I didn't even move, and I knew better. I was smarter than this, smarter than the type of girl who let her boyfriend put his hands on her, but fear has a grip you can't understand until you've been in it.

Fear had that same grip on me now.

I can't explain what happened.

One minute things were fine. I was working on some articles and uploading pictures to a blog. The next minute, Barns came in smelling like weed and whiskey and could barely stand. He leaned across the bed and pulled my laptop from me, demanding to know what I was enthralled in. He immediately saw pictures of a Benji and Van, and tossed my laptop to the floor. I still wasn't sure if it was broken or not.

I yelled then, yelled out for him to stop and accused him of being drunk. It wasn't a lie. Since I arrived Barns had been on some type of bender either during the day or at night, both if I was lucky. In the off chance he was sober, he'd tried to apologize for his remarks he made the night before, or his accusations of me being unfaithful while he toured. He'd get drunk and ruin the apology though, and I just kept going along with it, thinking that this was just the way things were. I loved him more than I hated him, and loving Barns was never easy. I knew that. He'd always been a little too much for me, but that's what I liked about him.

He hit the wall then. Right hooked it like it was the guy at the bar all those months ago, only this time, no one fought back. Blood poured from his knuckles and onto carpet below as he cradled his fist to his chest and sank to the floor, stuttering and choking on shots of whiskey he should have never taken. I ran to his side instinctively and attempted to view his ruined knuckles, but he retracted from my touch and pulled his arm closer to him, but not before striking me with his other hand.

And not just striking me, but striking me...hard.

I tasted the blood before I knew I was bleeding. Tasted the salt in it and the bitterness that coated my tongue. I felt the tears well up in my eyes and knew I had nothing to do with the way I was reacting. I was scared, I was shocked, I was hurt, and all of that manifested into the only thing it knew how to; tears.

I felt them roll to my face and I wiped them away, attempting to wipe some of the blood of my lip in the same moment. Barns grabbed my face then and pulled my jaw to his, gripping it with a force so intense I was certain he would break it. He spit as he talked, slurred his words as he threatened me.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? You're here with me. You're here for me, don't fucking forget that.Quit paying attention to other talent. Quit sidestepping me." He hissed his comments at me and pushed me backwards into the bed frame. I howled out in pain as the small of my back grazed the wooden corner of the frame and knocking the wind out of me in the process. When I tried to move, he yanked my arm back to him and started in again. I eventually pulled myself away from him and freed myself from his grip. The red marks on my arms he left were already haunting me.

I began moving to the bathroom then, but not before grabbing my phone. Barns staggered after me, screaming out my name in anger at first, but when I made it to the bathroom and locked the door, he began crying as he pleaded with me to come out.

And that lead me to the present.

I held the washcloth to my face again as dabbed at the wound on my lip, tears pouring quicker with every pound on the door. Eventually I knew he would stop, eventually he'd pass out, probably by the door, and in the morning he'd feel like shit about it all. But I would hang onto these memories, and lug them around like I wanted to keep them forever. I would remember this tomorrow, and now I had the wounds to wear, too.

Shit.

What would I tell people? How could I walk up to someone and pretend it was anything but what it was. What could I tell them to make them think it was something else.

Barns moaned outside the door, no doubt due to his hand. I knew he needed to have it looked it. It was his right hand, his guitar hand, and if he tore something, he wouldn't be able to play, and if he wasn't playing he wasn't touring, and if he wasn't touring, we had no income other than the blog.

I typed in his drummer's number, he answered on the first ring and asked me if Barns made it to the room okay. He had liquor on his voice, too but it was watered down and not as deadly.

"I need you to come get him and I need you to get him some help."

I could hear the rustling of clothing and the jangle of his wallet and chain. "Is it bad?"

I opened the door lightly when I heard Barns' moan again, hoping to find him crumpled at the bottom of the floor. I whispered his name with no response from him.

"It's bad. Come get him."

Before I could end the call, the door pushed open and flung me across the room. I cradled myself in my arms, gasping for air where the door crushed my ribs. Barns barged in bleeding and sweating and kept calling me crazy. He told me I drove him crazy, told me I drove him to do this. I was dizzy from the slamming of the door into my ribs and the panic I was still reeling in from moments before. I collapsed to the ground in a deep breathing mess.

Barns screamed as I fell, and raked both of his hands through his hair.

I don't remember what came next, but I remember feeling nothing. Not fear, not pain, nothing. Just a round room, with no edges.

*I realize this is heavy and a hard topic to discuss, but I want you to understand why Ellie is the way she is, and what she's living through. There is no Van in this chapter, but he'll be back very soon. Barns, in my opinion, fits the villain card, and although more of his motives will be explained later, you can kind of understand that it's all about control for him. New update soon!*