“Stay still, little girl”—he drew the knife closer to her face—“or it’ll just hurt worse.”
Looking at his abnormally large, black eyes, she was sure she was looking into the eyes of the devil …
“Chloe!”
Waking up to a hand coming for her, she jumped up from the bed. Her breathing was heavy and rushed, feeling as if she were slowly suffocating. She couldn’t catch her breath.
Elle quickly turned on the bedside lamp so she could see she was no longer in her nightmare. Then she ran toward Chloe’s side.
“It’s okay. It was just a dream. Breathe, Chloe.”
Taking deep breaths and looking around at her surroundings, Chloe realized she was no longer trapped in her nightmare.
Exhausted, she sank to the floor, holding her knees to her chest and silently crying into them, unable to show her face to Elle. She knew what Elle would think of her now. Freak.
Her skin still crawled from the devil’s touch. That was how vivid her nightmares were. It was as if she were reliving it all again.
Elle sat on the floor beside her, making sure there was plenty of space between them. “What you dreamed about really happened to you, didn’t it?”
Chloe didn’t respond, continuing her silent cries.
Taking that as a yes, Elle asked a different question, “Will you tell me what happened?”
Again, no response.
Elle took a deep breath. “I come home every day and lie straight to my parents’ faces, telling them about all my friends and how I had such a great day at school. It’s a heck of a lot easier than telling them how scared I am at school to even use the girls’ bathroom.
“When the kids started getting violent, that’s when I told them I joined the soccer team. It helped explain why I was getting bruises every time I was pushed into a locker or whatever mean thing they had planned for me that day.
“My parents believe whatever lie I tell them because they haven’t figured out how to handle my father becoming paralyzed yet. My dad’s addicted to his painkillers, so it’s like he’s not even here, and my mom is working as much as she can to support us all, along with caring for Josh and now Dad. I help with whatever I can when I get home, but I mostly fade into the background. I can care for myself, and I pretend that everything is fine.”
Chloe looked up to see that some tears had fallen down Elle’s face.
“I have a feeling that whatever happened to you doesn’t compare to what happened to me behind the school that day. But I do understand what you’re going through more than anyone else probably.
“When I came over to your house yesterday, I thought your dad’s drinking might be like my dad with painkillers, but now I’m not so sure. I asked my dad to take it easy since you were coming over, and he did. His pills also don’t make him mean; they just make him non-existent.”
Chloe didn’t know what to say.
“Now that you know all my secrets, whatever you tell me about what happened to you or about what it’s like at home, I swear that I will never, ever tell anyone. I lie and pretend every day, too, and I don’t want my parents to suffer with the truth, and I definitely don’t want Cassandra or Sebastian to find out that my dad is addicted to pills. I wished every night to find someone to talk to so I know that it’s real, and now I can with you.”
So I know that it’s real … That was Chloe’s problem; she was stuck between realities, questioning if her nightmares or what they said in the papers was real.
It was as if Elle could read her thoughts.
“What everyone is saying happened to you isn’t real. The car wreck wasn’t real. No one knows what really happened to you, but now you can tell someone you can trust.”
Chloe knew, if she were going to ever tell anyone, it would be Elle. She believed her when she had said she would never tell, and they did relate to each other in many ways. She’d had no clue of the extent of Elle’s suffering, and she was glad she had told her everything.
Chloe wanted to tell her, but she was afraid to, because once she said it out loud, she couldn’t take it back. Once the words were spoken… Then it is real.
“What really happened to you, Chloe?”
Taking a deep breath, she mustered up enough courage to unzip the thin jacket she had worn to bed. Slowly, she removed the jacket and revealed the various scars that marked her arms. This was the first time she had revealed the fact that she wasn’t just marked on her face.
Elle covered her mouth in shock, having no clue Chloe had been hiding further injuries.
Wiping away the tears on her face, Chloe rested the back of her head on the wall. Then she looked up at the white ceiling, her nightmare starting to play from the beginning.
“T-The day you got beaten up was the n-night … I got my scars.”
Twelve
The Murder of Elle Buchanan