Could have fooled me.
He was still laying on me and my renewed struggles weren’t nearly as energetic as before. God, it hurt. I’d never broken a bone in my life. I hadn’t imagined how badly it would hurt.
“Please, Josh, I need to go to a hospital.” Trying to think through the pain, I asked, “Will you drive me?”
He was quiet for a moment and I hoped this craziness was about to end. But then he said, “Not yet. Later. When you love me back.”
So . . . never? Maybe I could fake it. “I do love you, Josh. I always have.” Despite the tears and pain, I thought it sounded pretty convincing.
Josh groaned, smashing his lips against mine. Guess he bought it. I forced myself to kiss him back before turning my face to the side and whimpering, “It hurts so bad.”
No faking there.
“Can we please go now, Josh?”
But it was as if he hadn’t even heard me because he was fumbling with his pants again. In his messed up head, he thought I’d want to have sex with him, broken wrist and all.
As he reared back onto his knees to unzip, I took my chance and brought one of my own knees up into his crotch. I kneed him with a force that had him bent over in pain. He groaned, cupping himself. I scooted away from him on my back and managed to get up off the ground.
I heard, “Bitch!” right before a hand grabbed my shoulder and threw me back onto the ground.
The back of my head smacked against the hard surface, making me dizzy. Thankfully, my wrist hadn’t taken any impact. When the momentary dizziness faded, I saw a fist flying towards my face at the same time I heard him yell, “You lied!”
His fist met my cheek and pain radiated over my face. I was lucky the blow hadn’t knocked me out. I wasn’t so lucky the second time when he punched my jaw as I felt excruciating pain and passed out.
I was unsure how long I’d been out but when I woke up, I realized two things. Josh was still there with me, hovering menacingly, and I was pretty sure he’d broken my jaw. I tasted blood in my mouth and my vision was still fuzzy.
Trying not to cry, because I needed to focus on the situation, I figured my best chance at that point was to pretend to be incapacitated. It probably wasn’t far from the truth. I closed my eyes, pretending to pass out again.
A foot nudged my hip. “Quit faking, Gianna. I know you’re awake.”
From behind my closed lids, I could tell when he shone the flashlight on my face. I opened my eyes, but couldn’t see his face with the bright light shining on mine. I tried moving my mouth to say something, but the pain prevented speech.
“You bitch!” He moved to stand over me, straddling my calves. Crouching down to sit on me, he said in a strange voice, “You know what your problem is, Gianna?”
Helpless, I laid there unmoving.
“You’re a cold bitch. I bet you never even gave it up to Caleb, huh?” He barked out a laugh. “Well, let’s find out.”
I was confused about his meaning at first, but soon came to understand. Despite broken bones, I struggled as hard as before.
Maybe harder.
When he broke my other wrist for hitting him again, I barely felt the new pain. It simply blended in with everything else that was hurting.
When he started hurting me with the large metal flashlight, I kicked out my legs, screaming through my clenched teeth at the pain caused by the invasion. Never did I give up or give in to his abuse.
Until my vision went fuzzy and I finally passed out for good.
In the last seconds of consciousness, I prayed I wouldn’t wake up again.
CALEB
“Really, you don’t have to wait around. I can tell Gianna you said hello,” I told Ian while giving him another look of disdain.
I was the boyfriend, not him. It was my job to wait around for Gianna after a game, not him. She wanted only me waiting for her, not him. Ian smiled, knowing how much his presence was irritating me. Deciding to try another tactic, I ignored him.
He refused to ignore me back. “What do you think is taking her so long? My guess is we’ve already seen all the other cheerleaders leave.”
Ian was right. Most, if not all, of the other cheerleaders had passed us in the parking lot on the way to their vehicles. Where the hell was she? Starting to feel anxious, I told Ian, “I’m going to go look for her. Maybe she thought we were supposed to meet somewhere else.”
I went walking off in the direction of the locker rooms.
“I’ll go with you,” Ian said casually, coming into step next to me. Of course he would. There was no getting rid of him.
We circled around the gym, yelled Gianna’s name through the girl’s locker room doors and checked the parking lot again, texting and calling her phone the entire time. No luck. Her phone was going straight to voicemail and she was nowhere in sight.