**Chapter 5******

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Davian

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Even after I’m out of those hissing doors, and the painful doctor smell fades, I still find myself running. My lungs burn, my muscles beg for just one tiny break, and my heart . . . I don’t think I deserve to feel it thrashing in my chest. But I do, I feel my heart, I feel the burn of my lungs, and I feel my legs. Running. Existing. Alive.

I start to slow down when the sidewalk I was running on begins to vanish and all I’m left with is leafy, dead grass on the side of the black road. I have a destination in mind, the same place I’ve gone to for years of pain, the perfect place to cry. Something I feel forbidden to do, but can’t seem to stop.

I can’t help but let my lips curve into a tiny smile, when the abandoned bus stop bench comes into view. The glass window that sits behind the wooden, rotting bench, with the small roof that looks as if it’s about to collapse at any minute. There’s nothing better in life, well in my life. This place is filled with memories.

Mostly of Dad. The day we stumbled upon this place was crazy. I was twelve, my eyes wet with tears when Dad found me in my bedroom. Crying my eyes out. He’d pulled me off my bed and wrapped me in a warm hug. Then suggested we go for a walk, it was late out, still not black but the sky wasn’t cotton candy pink anymore.

I was so terrified when Dad asked me what was bugging me. It was two reasons, well three. And the first two weren’t really something I ever wanted to tell Dad. So I told him the last reason, the reason that really made my heart snap. I’d been doing homework, all happy because I knew Allie was going to come by. But when she did, her and Tommy had just gotten together or something. They didn’t tell me, I just saw them in the door way when I raced out of my bed room, they were kissing. Not in a big way, that’s defiantly not their style, but they were kissing. Tommy was kissing Allie, not me.

I told Dad the details of the kiss, I told him about my little secret crush on Allie. I told him everything about my feelings. The way my heart literally broke when I saw them. I didn’t think a heart could actually feel in that sort of way, but mine did.

Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulder and told me in his serious, but still comforting Dad voice: “Girls and relationships, totally suck.”

I’d asked why he married Mom if he thought this and that’s when he gave me his speech, that I knew would be my reason for love too: “Because she was a light, she was glue for my heart that I didn’t even realize was broken. She was and is my best friend. I didn’t marry her for her looks or because it’s what my parents taught me I had to do. I married her because she was the one who held my secrets, as well as my hand. She was the first person who made me feel as though life without her, would be even suckier than other girls and relationships.”

And that’s when we stumbled across the bench. We sat down, Dad putting his leather jacket around my shoulders as he let me cry, as he held me.

I’ve never admitted it, but that was the day I realized I didn’t like Allie anymore. It’s not that I liked her just for her looks or because I felt I had to, but it’s because I realized she wasn’t the person to hold my hand and secrets. That’s who she was for Tommy, not for me.

I lower myself slowly onto the rotting seat, letting the small creak of the wood bring me peace. Bring me back to that day.

The two things that I didn’t tell Dad, sometimes I wish I had. Now they’re things only I know, things I have to deal with on my own. Number one, the only guy I’ve never been able to get out of my head. Jace Polisner. Well, it’s not him I can’t get out of my head, but his words. The day he finally got to me, the day I finally hit him back. He hasn’t talked to me since. Sometimes I wonder if I should say sorry. I mean I’m not a bully, but I do know that people don’t just bully for the sake of it. They hurt others because they don’t want to be the only ones in pain. Although in Jace’s case he picked the wrong guy. I was already in plenty pain before his fist crashed against my face. I think the reason I never fought him off until just a few months ago is because I needed him. I needed the punches and the pain, the physical pain. Because if he wasn’t going to give it to me, then I was.

Which is number two. Me, my troubled mind. Not much to talk about, not much to do. It’s the way I am, it’s the way I’ll always be.

I feels like only seconds have gone by before the sun starts creeping up past the forest in front of me. The golden light shines in my eyes, blinding me, reminding me of that day, the same thing the sun always does. The same boring old thing, the one thing I can’t stop thinking about, the one person who’s always in my mind.

. . .

Jace shoves me against the brick wall of the gas station. I let my legs fall beneath me, feeling the pain run up my spine as I hit the ground.

“You’re so weak!” Jace shouts, his voice shaky as he bends down, grabbing the collar of my shirt. I keep expecting his two other friends to come over and hold me while Jace beats me up. But they aren’t here today, it’s just Jace as his cold, wet eyes.

“Shut up!” I try to scream, but my voice fails me. Every word Jace speaks is the same thing I hear from my mind. I’m weak, pathetic, nothing, stupid. I’ve heard it all way before Jace started telling me. He just proved me right, I’m am everything he says I am.

“You wanna know something?” Jace hisses as he lifts me to my feet, his fists both scrunching the collar of my shirt. “You wanna know the truth?”

I shake my head softly, avoiding his teary eyes. I don’t wanna hear it, why he hates me, why I’m stupid. I’ve heard it before, and once is enough.

Jace shoves me back against the wall, the sharp corners of the red bricks digging into my back. “You’re nothing,” he whispers, his voice cracking as his face becomes inches from mine. “You’re absolutely nothing to me.”

I part my lips, searching for something. Words, a scream, anything.

“You’re not worth it,” Jace says, a single tear sliding down his shaking features. “Why won’t you hit me?” He asks so softly I can barely make it out.

He pushes me deeper into the wall, now I can feel little pricks of blood, dripping down my back, followed by a stinging pain that I’ve grown used to.

“Why won’t you hit me!” Jace screams, pulling me away from the wall before pushing me right back into it. I don’t tumble to the ground this time, I stay standing, watching as Jace wipes his wet cheeks.

Before I can say anything, Jace is already up next to me, his fist crashing against my cheek. My hand flies to my face, as my legs begin to shake. “Hit me!” He cries. “Hit me!”

My cheek burns where his fist was, I can already feel the bruise forming. And still the only thing I can think about is that I won’t have my mommy and daddy comfort me anymore. I have no one.

“You’re so pathetic!” Jace’s hands fall to his sides as he stares me straight in the eyes. “You let me beat you, and then what? You run home? You cry? All because you lost your parents! Well . . . Get over it!”

All my breath gets taken away from me. But not because of Jace’s fist, it’s because of mine.

A loud scream floats around me, as Jace grabs his face falling to the ground. I gasp, my hand shaking as I hold it out in front of me, my knuckles shining with red blood.

Jace scrambles to his feet, his cold eyes now human. He backs away from me, his hand still on his face. His words still echo around my mind. Get over it. How can he tell me to get over it? To get over their death, when he still has his parents to protect him? When he has what I don’t?

I never saw him again after that day. It was the last week of school, it’s only been two weeks, but it feels like it’s been more. And he’s still the person that comes to my mind when I’m alone. When I think of Mom and Dad, I think of him. And I hate it.

. . .

I rise from the old bench, the wood creaking softly as dry leaves crunch under my feet. My face is wet with tears that I don’t bother to wipe away. I just start walking with no idea where I’m going. But I don’t really care, nothing even matters anymore. My life sucked back then, and it sucks now. I can’t believe after all my pain, it’s my fault that I’ve just handed it to someone else. To someone I don’t even know. Jace is right, but he left one thing out. I’m weak, pathetic, nothing, stupid, and a murder.

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