⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Chapter 11

In good timing, the doorbell rang throughout the house. "Thank God, Olive! I was worried sick, you idiot!" I opened the door, but froze at what stood in front of me.

Olive was still in her uniform. Her hair was still pulled back into a ponytail with a sheen of tears staining her cheeks. Those eyes that always held a sparkle in them were dull with red surrounding the iris and they were puffy underneath.

"Holy shit! What happened?" From the crown of my head to my toenails, I was rendered paralyzed at seeing my best friend in this condition. Her shoulders were trembling and a tremor was in her hands, dropping her keys to the ground.

There was no color in her face. She looked ghostly white. I wrapped my arm around her back and guided her to the couch where the boys were sitting. They looked like statues with jaws dropped and their eyes accessing her distressed features.

Olive struggled to get the words out. She couldn't breathe without sobs escaping her lips each time she opened her mouth. I instructed Zach to bring her some water and once he did, Olive sipped all of it in one go. She was finally able to take deep breaths once she had water in her system, albeit they were coming out shaky and fast.

"After practice, I was the last one in the locker room. This man came in and looked years older than us. I... don't even know how he was able to get in the school. I immediately felt uncomfortable being alone in a girl's locker room with a strange man so I tried to tell him to leave as politely as I could. He..." She sniffled and tears were rushing faster toward the edge of her chin. "He said that he was sorry, but he had to do this. And then he... he... touched me."

I was in denial.

No.

No.

It couldn't have been him.

There are plenty of perverted assholes out there that could've been the one who touched her. I refused to believe it was Gray.

Suddenly, my own emotional wounds haunted me every time I blinked. It wasn't only the physical pain that I felt everyday. It was the feeling of his hands all over me and of him pinning me to the bed that followed me to this day.

I couldn't sleep without being reminded of him being inside me. I would take hour-long showers to get the feeling of him off me. My hair would be sore after he tugged on it hard.

My smile would disappear for days because I had no reason to be happy. Not after what he did to me. The boys and I shared a knowing glance. They shared the same thought, but we remained tight-lipped. We shouldn't say anything until we were sure.

"I don't know what would've happened if Angela hadn't come in to get her phone. He might-I can't even think about it."

"I'm so sorry this happened to you, Olly. I know this isn't going to make you feel better, but you're not alone in this. Without... going too much into detail, I know, first hand, how it feels to be harassed and being scared."

Lines creased her forehead as she narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean? Someone touched you too?"

In more ways than one, sweetheart.

There was a painful lump sitting in my throat.

His lips harshly attacked mine while his hands were pinning me to the bed.

Sobs were the only sounds I could hear while he slid my panties down my legs.

Eventually, I gave in. There was no point in trying to fight him.

"Yeah." My voice cracked. I was staring off into space with tears rolling freely down my cheeks and dragged my head up in a nod. "Yeah, they did." I snapped myself out of my dark thoughts and my eyes were met with Olive's.

My heart broke for her. She was a cheerleader for a reason. She always wore a smile. For someone who wasn't a morning person, every time I met her at school, she had a happy attitude. Seeing her in this condition broke my heart in hundreds of pieces.

-

Sean picked Olive up from my house to help get her mind off everything. When he came over, he didn't say a word. Most men would've flipped out when they found out their girlfriends were harassed.

They would've threatened to beat the crap out of them, but Sean expressed his anger through silence. His face was bright red and his hands were balled into fists the whole time he was inside. My inner voice kept repeating that it wasn't Gray that touched her.

It could've been any other psychopath. My arms wrapped around my stomach and I swallowed a painful lump in my throat. Sensing something was wrong, Zach wrapped me in a blanket and allowed me to rest my head on his lap.

Everywhere I looked, Gray was there. Tormenting me. Abusing me. The tears stopped, but a frown was stuck on my face.

"How would he even know who she was?" The thought only just struck me. He couldn't have known she was my best friend unless he had been watching the house. The curtains were always shut, so it wasn't like he could watch me get dressed. He could've, at least, seen Olive and I walk in together. The vile thoughts that were running through his head as he watched her leave elicited a shudder to crawl the length of my spine.

Kayden scoffed. "Maybe he was watching the house."

"And watching Olive at cheer practice. That was how he knew where she was," Zach chimed in. Gray was watching my best friend in a cheerleader's uniform, stretching and reciting cheers. That man deserved to die with a bullet in his head. And I would happily be the one to pull the trigger.

"We don't even know it was him for sure. There are a lot of perverts out there who could've touched her," Zach tried to convince all of us. When Zach started to play with my hair, a weight had been dropped on my eyes.

Sleep was just about to take over my body when Zach suggested that I made myself a cup of tea. My skin was touched by the chilliness in the room when I threw the blanket off me.

"Call Angela to see if she remembers what the man looks like." I moved like a zombie as I dragged my feet to the kitchen.

"Hey, baby. What's up?"

"Hey, baby," I mimicked to myself in a high-pitched voice as I boiled the water.

"Olive told us about the man in the locker room. Do you, by any chance, remember what he looked like?"

"Ugh. That bastard. I cannot believe one of my cheer sisters was harassed by a fucking pervert who shouldn't have even been allowed in the school let alone the locker room. Anyways, he was about six-foot, green eyes, he had big, veiny muscles and a tattoo on his arm."

Six-foot?

Green eyes?

Big, veiny biceps?

No. No.

Don't freak out.

There are a lot of men that fit that description. Maybe it wasn't Gray, but they just happened to look like him.

Just keep sipping the tea and-

"Oh, and he had dark hair. And the tattoo was of a cupcake. Which is ridiculous because what kind of a-"

'Cupcake' was the trigger word. A tremor took over my hands, the mug of my hot tea slipping through my fingers and the glass exploding on impact.

My face was attacked by shards of glass as I was flung into the back door. I was screaming bloody murder while I was flying in the air with my eyes closed. I landed with my face against the grass, but my face felt like a fire was burning on the surface.

"Don't you ever talk back to me, cupcake." His breath stunk like cigarettes and he was close enough that his intimidating green eyes were the only things I saw.

My vision was going in and out. All I saw was black. Then I saw the neighbor's house across the street. My lungs were losing more and more oxygen and my chest felt like it was burning. My hearing was gone; there was ringing in my ear and the boys' voices were mumbled as they yelled.

My screams as I flew out the window bounced around in my head. Gray's voice as he screamed at me that he owns me and calling me a bitch. The sirens when the ambulance showed up. The last thing I saw was the room turning sideways.

Everything went black.

-

"Sorry?! You're sorry?! Really?! Is that the best you can do?!"

My eyes fluttered open to the chaos of mom screaming and dad trying to soothe her in a bored tone. She was pacing back and forth as she was yelling into the phone with, who I assume was a prison guard who worked at the prison Gray escaped from. With my hand on my head, I pushed myself to sit upright.

"Guys, she's awake!" Kayden yelled as he and Zach rushed to my aid with a glass of water.

"I know exactly what to tell you! My daughter's best friend was harassed by this man. If we had known that he was out, we would've taken extra precautions to make sure that didn't happen! But we didn't know! So you can take your-" Mom mimicked a high-pitched voice. "-I don't know what to tell you-" She returned to her normal voice. "-and shove it up your ass!" She hung up the phone and slammed it onto the island counter, gripping the top of her hair with her fingers.

"How is yelling at the prison going to solve anything?" Dad was pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed in clear frustration. "What's done is done. There's nothing that you can do."

"We should've been called when he escaped! What, that doesn't bother you?"

"Of course that bothers me! I'm just saying that bitching to the prison isn't going to magically turn back time. It's not gonna do anything."

"It doesn't matter that they can't do anything about it! They need to know that not telling us was a dumbass thing to do! We should've been the first people they called! What if he came over and harassed Bella next, huh?!"

"Both the boys were here!"

"But what if they weren't?!"

Their fighting wasn't doing anything for the pounding in my head. It felt like I was run over by a semi truck and my head got the brunt of it.

"Guys!" Kayden chimed in.

Both my parents stopped their screaming match to turn to him.

"You're giving her a headache by all the yelling. Mr. Price is right. There's nothing we can do about what already happened. But no more 'what if's. Because, Bella..." Kayden tore his eyes away from my parents and looked at me. "We're not gonna let that man anywhere near you."