FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS OF THE CHEATER.FAKER.TROUBLEMAKER SERIES (WATTY'S 2016, FICTION AWARDS 2016, HACHETTE AUDIO 2017), JENNY ROSEN & KRISTEN MAGLONZO.
After bullies, braces, and brutal heartbreak shatters his faith in love, soon-to-be fre...
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NOTE: THIS EXPLOSIVE PERFORMANCE BY kaelking12 IS NOT ONE TO BE MISSED! TUNE INTO THE AUDIOBOOK TO EXPERIENCE THE CHAPTER IN A NEW AND EMOTIONALLY INTENSE WAY!
Trigger Warning: This chapter deals with issues of domestic violence/abuse. If you or anyone you know is going through a similar situation please know that you're not alone in that experience and there are always people you can reach out to here if you need someone to talk to. Kristen and I are happy to talk anytime :).
CHAPTER 32
Elias
It feels like I'm not even me when it happens.
I slip out of the moment, out of myself.
Like I'm some fly on the wall watching a car accident play out.
Slowing.
Changing.
Realizing.
Far too late.
That real life playing out in real time makes itself known way faster than you could ever be ready for.
There's this high-pitched tension fading into and out of the silence.
Filling the room.
Hanging thick in the air.
Robbing me of time.
It's two seconds too late for me to be worrying about the eggshells I'd been walking on ever since the front door flew open. Dad's iron grip shifts from from my wrist to my throat in the space of a second. I don't have time to react.
To escape.
To breathe.
He rams the slope between his pointer finger and thumb straight into my Adam's apple and digs his nails into the back of my neck. The force of it makes me dizzy and sick like I'm dropping from a hundred foot roller coaster and losing all the air in my lungs. Pain explodes inside and around my throat as he lifts me off the floor one handed.
I break into a full-on panic and stupidly grab at his hands, silently begging him to let go of me like begging will make a difference. But the person who's staring back at me isn't my father. He's someone else. Someone full of hatred and anger and so much disappointment. All of it aimed at me.
"What the hell do I have to do to get you to stop lying to me, Elias? You skipped out on class this morning, and now you expect me to believe that you're sneaking out of here to go to church?"
