Worth It

(38) This Isn't Over

Warning: This chapter is really, really intense. Proceed with caution! You've been warned. 

"Why do you look like death stared you in the face?" Jo asks me, trying to act casual, but I can tell that the suspense is killing her.

I'm about to tell her it's nothing, but then I see Dean again with his hand in his hair and then to his side. And then, I get a sudden bout of nausea, so sudden and so immediate that it makes me stumble and that stumble makes me lose one of my crutches.

Jo catches it and as she does I hunch over -- which means I fall over because I can't support my body without one of my crutches -- and puke. On the floor.

Meanwhile, to the side of me, Jo is still holding onto that crutch. She lets it go all of a sudden when my puke hits the floor and her hands go to wrap around my hair, holding it back and making sure it doesn't get anywhere near me and my intimate moment with the floor. The crutch that fell made this deafening sound, making people look at the pathetic scene that is me developing.

And guess what? Some pull out their phones to capture the cinematic worthy moment onto film, some even laugh, and some look on with pity and a bit of disgust, but most just ignore it. Like someone puking in the middle of the hallway is normal.

Maybe it is. I mean, as far as I know it isn't.

"Let's get you to a nurse, sweetie." I know that voice. I know those black dress shoes and matching black slacks that are facing me.

Sweetie? Really? Was I a sweetie when he was practically shoving his dick in my mouth? Was I a sweetie when he would beat me? Not stopping, even as the blood dripped from his carpet and tears and mascara smeared my cheeks. Piercing screams filling the room. Was I a sweetie then?

And then my mouth forms the words I wish it didn't, especially with his hands on my crutches. My only hope of getting out of here. "Fuck you." I say it quietly, barely audible over the chit chatter of people getting to class.

"Excuse me?" Dean asks. His voice was as cold as ice. There it is. No more nice guy. There's the Dean we all know and hate.

"Oh my God!" Jo puts her hands on her mouth. "You're old guy!" She doesn't elaborate and I'm grateful because I'd rather her not allude to her seeing him before this moment, even if she knows very little about the kind of person he is to begin with.

And then Jo is lifting me up with her hands in my hands, using strength I didn't know she had. With one hand still holding mine for support she rips both crutches with her other hand from out of Dean Borderra's hand.

She gives them to me and I place them under my pits. "I'll take it from here. Thanks." Jo says to Dean and if looks could kill, he'd be dead. I promise you that.

As Jo leads me away, I can't help but look back at Dean, wanting to see his reaction and if maybe he'd changed. If maybe being here was just a coincidence and he really needed the job. That it wasn't just a ploy to torture me again.

But when I look back at Dean -- no kind eyes in sight -- all I see is a sinister smile on his face and gleaming, wicked brown eyes. His mouth moves and I realize he is mouthing the words: this isn't over.

And when he says those words, I am suddenly not in this hallway with Jo moving in the opposite direction from Dean, but instead, I am sixteen again in his playroom. Under his control.

"All she is is a pet!" Dean exclaims to his wife, pointing at me but looking at Constance. "She means nothing to me!" I would get away, but the master said to stay in place, on my knees in the middle of his playroom.