Where to Begin

Chapter 31

My head was spinning out of complete control as I ran back to my bedroom.

Aubrey and Jackson were still there, no longer making out, just talking and cuddling. I couldn't help but cry when I saw them.

"Celine!" Aubrey ran over to me. "Are you ok? What's wrong?" She held me as Jackson immediately followed her.

"If this is about Connell and Chase then – ''

"What do you mean about Connell and Chase?" Jackson suddenly asked.

"Jackson, go downstairs, for me ok?"

He nodded and quickly left the room.

"I can't – I just can't do it anymore!" I sobbed loudly.

"What do you mean?" Aubrey let out a small laugh holding me out in front of her.

I could barely get the words out. "Sage has Leukemia! Fricking Leukemia!" I sobbed like I did the night my mom left. Aubrey stood and stared at me for a moment, her brain working tirelessly to figure out what was happening. She eventually pulled me into another hug.

"Shh," she said quietly. You could hear the tears in her voice as her voice shook. "It's ok, you had nothing to do with this,"

"Yeah but isn't it such a lovely fricking coincidence that when I arrive, Sage gets cancer!"

"Celine – ''

"Why did I come here? I was selfish and stupid and didn't know what I was getting myself into and I was only thinking about myself the morning I left!" I paced around my room.

"Celine, leaving for college isn't selfish, it's – ''

"It's bullshit is what it is!"

"What?"

I was so furious and frustrated that I gave up.

"It's all bullshit! I'm not here for college! I'm sixteen for goodness sake!"

"Celine?"

"I was running away!"

She stopped – the world stopped – everything around me stopped when I realized what had just come out my mouth.

"What do you mean you were running away?" She asked in a soft voice.

I sighed, defeated. I had already told Wes, who had kept his promise so why not tell the girl who had my back since day one?

"I was running away from my dad, ok?"

She was silent.

"Why?"

"Because my mom left us and he was an abusive drunk asshole who took out his depression on me,"

More silence.

"I'm sorry I lied to you."

She was sitting on the end of my bed, completely still, staring blankly at my cupboard doors.

"What did he do?"

"What?" I asked trying to look at her through the small amount of tears welling in my eyes.

"What did he do to you? After your mom left?"

I could go on for days listing what he did to me but one particular incident would forever haunt me.

"One night, after my dad had spent the whole day drinking on his boat, he came home at, like, ten. I had already gone to bed, tired of waiting for him and I was sick of him not answering my calls. When he got home, he flung my bedroom door open, half falling over and shouted, 'Where's my dinner?' I didn't ever make him dinners because he would usually just scavenge something to eat. I woke up and I could just smell pure alcohol. He shouted again and again asking for his dinner, smashing things in my room until I answered him, and eventually, I pathetically whispered that I hadn't made it. I saw sixteen lashes that night and twelve whippings with his belt. I was so red and fragile after that that I couldn't even lie down to cry myself to sleep. So, when my father saw that I couldn't lie down he asked me why? I didn't know what the hell to say. He shouted at me, asking why again and again until he got the answer he was hoping for which was just telling him that he hit me. He said, 'If a girl isn't tough enough for some discipline then she isn't tough enough for the world' and he took me downstairs where he took a piece of metal from the fireplace, heated it up until it was red hot. He asked me where the most painful place would be but I didn't get time to answer and he held it to the bottom of my foot. I couldn't walk for four days."