Seventeen year old Safaya Bennett must navigate young adulthood under the stresses of her sins, her crumbling relationship with her twin sister, Rue, and a crippling mental disorder that makes her very dependent on her relationship with Nate Jacobs...
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I've never wanted to kill someone so badly in my life.
I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling. Something deep inside was telling me that there was something wrong but because I was getting over my depression, I couldn't really spare the brain cells to figure it out further. Safaya had been gone for over an hour and not answering her phone. While I contemplated an appropriate time to organize a search party, I heard my door creak and sat up, seeing a figure in the doorway.
"Saf?" I called out. "Saf, what happened?"
She didn't speak. I could hear her faint cries and sniffles. I thought she had been at Maddy's this whole time but I was mistaken. Immediately, I noticed that she was only in her leggings and tank top now, even after she left the house in one of those God awful East Highland hoodies that Nate let her have. She trudged into the room like a scared child waking up from a nightmare. In her hand she had her blue teddy bear, battered and falling apart from over the years of being by her side. Clutching onto it like it would slip away from her.
Safaya crawled onto my bed and settled herself next to me. I turned myself to face her and that's when I saw it. Her cheeks and chin had bruising. And there was something shimmering in her hair. Gently I grazed her face with my fingers and when she winced, I recoiled.
"I went to see Nate." She managed to choke out. In the moonlight I could see her eyes welling up, tears beginning to fall. "You were right, Rue."
I ran my hand through her hair in efforts to comfort her. "He did this to you?" I asked, the pit in my stomach already knowing the answer. I picked a piece of glass from her head and examined it. "What the hell? Is this glass?"
"Nate slammed me into a m-mirror. Maddy told me e-everything and so I went to his house. And things went bad." She stuttered. Her hands close to her chest. "I shouldn't have gone. It was stupid."
"It's not stupid to get the answers you deserve." I cooed. "I just wish you would have called Fezco, so he could have been there with you."
There's no easy way to understand why someone would hurt your sister, in fact I didn't understand it at all. Safaya is harmless and never would deserve for a guy to touch her like this, let alone throw her into a mirror. Sure she was an asshole at times, but who fucking wasn't? My worry for her and hatred for Nate Jacobs kept growing as I stared at her. I think I was in shock. Trying to find something to say or do to attempt in making her feel better. But what can you say to someone who's just been assaulted? Especially when you and that person have had a rocky relationship for years.
I tried wiping her tears but she moved my hand away. "I don't like that." She shook her head. "He would do that to me. I don't like it."
"I won't do it anymore. I'm sorry." I said softly.
