Her eyes flashed with fear, while her cheeks burned with what I saw to be embarrassment. I frowned a little, staring at her with concern.

“We have to do this,” I encouraged gently.

“You didn’t tell Tony, did you?” she asked quietly.

“No, Alyssa. I didn’t tell anyone. This is just for you,” I said. I stroked her cheek gently.

“Should we tell him?” she asked, her eye brows knitted with thought.

“That’s up to you.”

“If I’m going to tell the p-police then I should probably tell him, first…” she said lowly. Her eyes fluttered around and she traced her fingers around the design on her old comforter, the one that still remained unchanged from when she was in high school. I carefully picked up her small hands, holding them in mine to gather her attention.

“Lis, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with any of this; it’s all entirely up to you. But I want to get you help…and justice. It’s important…”

Alyssa didn’t say anything else. Instead she just nodded slowly, her eyes still trained on the design on the comforter, past our hands.

“It’s probably important for him to know, too,” she said, nodding slowly again.

“Okay. I’ll give you some time.”

“But what do I do, Vic? Just go up to Tony and casually say, ‘Oh hey brother, just wanted to let you know that I was abused by my employer for four years but was too desperate for a job to say anything about it so I let him do as he please for money because I failed at every other thing in my life and I was already dead inside anyway so why did it even matter—”

“Alyssa Stop!” I exclaimed before she could even finish. My voice raised a little so her eyes widened, like the perfect little doe I knew she would always be. Her mouth dropped a little and she stopped rambling immediately.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, shaking her head. I didn’t say anything, her words were shocking and etched into my brain. I hated that she thought so lowly about herself. And then it struck me—once upon a time, I had the same thoughts of self hatred that she had to sit around and listen to as well. And then another thing: was she like this because of me?

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me for a hug; I held her back carefully. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Don’t even try to say it is, I won’t be hearing it. And neither will Tony. We’re both here for you,” I assured.

“Except remember when he yelled at me when he found out about how I used to cut?” she said into my shoulder. I sighed a little. The specific memory was hazy for me—that entire time of my life existed inside of a fog in the back of my mind—but I remembered.

“He only yelled because he cared too much and didn’t want you to go down the same path as us. It was more of him yelling at himself. And he became more gentle and supportive almost instantly,” I reminded her. She nodded.

“Vic,” she sighed. “Do you think… do you think the police can even do anything about this?” she asked nervously.

I stroked her hair. “I don’t know, love. To be honest, they probably won’t be able to get him for your case… he’s all the way across the country and everything… but it’ll be good to get his name out there just in case there’s other girls he’s hurting,” I reasoned.

“Yeah, yeah that’s true. Maybe we should go to New York.”

“Do you really think you’d want to do that?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows because I figured she’d be terrified to go back in that vicinity.

She laughed a little bitterly. “No, definitely not. Not right now at least.”

I nodded and kissed the side of her head. She sighed loudly. “Lissy?”

“Mhm?”

“How did you get out of there, anyway?” I asked curiously. I felt her body tense up but then I felt her try to disguise it—but I knew her movements all too well, even after all of this time.

“I, um,” she fumbled on her words. “I didn’t really, Vic. I just kind of left…he was always really threatening so I never did… but I heard about mama being sick and I knew I had to make a change so I just got out as fast as possible… he’s pretty mad…”

“How do you know?” I swallowed thickly.

“Well I mean, he was blowing up my phone, I had to get a new one…” she burrowed her head into the crook of my neck. “I lived with the man, Vic. He had his dirty nails under my skin for so long I just couldn’t…” she shook her head. She didn’t want to say anymore and, honestly, I didn’t want to hear it. “I let myself go. I gave up. I’m so sorry I gave up.”

She sniffled. I shook my head and pulled away from her so I could look her in the eyes. “No, you’re here now. That means you always had hope.”

“I was so weak,” she cried softly. “So weak, so pathetic.”

“No, no, no, no. Absolutely not.”

“I should be able to protect myself. I shouldn’t’ve let it get to that point—”

“Alyssa Perry, listen to me. We all have our time. You know that. I’ve been a prisoner of my own mind before, sometimes I still am. But you were a literal prisoner, baby, and you’re still here. You’ve protected yourself as best you could. You got out, that’s all that matters. And you did it all by yourself,” I said firmly. She nodded, taking in my words.

“Okay,” she said quietly, nodding again. “Okay.” She leaned forward and buried her head into my neck. I stroked her hair gently. “Okay,” she said again. She pulled away. “Let's go before I change my mind.”

“Are you sure?” I asked carefully. She nodded.

“Yeah. But don’t ask me that again because my answer might not be the same.”

“Okay,” I said. We slid off of the bed together. “Can I hold your hand?” I asked. Before I even finished asking, I felt her hand slip into mine. It was warm from her crying and escalated emotions. I gently squeezed it and together we exited her room. Alyssa wiped her face with her sleeve on the way out.

I looked over our shoulders, glancing back at her room. It was a suffocating sight, the way it looked exactly the same as when we were younger. I almost couldn’t handle the nostalgia pressurizing in my chest.

We walked down the stairs. I closed my eyes briefly as I heard the steps creak. The house was old. The memories here were so old. Mrs. Perry was old—she was in the hospital now. She knew that me and Alyssa were spending time together again; it’s been a few weeks since Alyssa had her last breakdown that led me to her room. Mrs. Perry actually encouraged us to be together—she “liked to see us happy.”

Tony, on the other hand, gave me grief—not Alyssa, though. He didn’t like us hanging around each other. He wanted her to be with either Mrs. Perry or him, because “that was the whole point of her being back.” I felt bad about it, but Tony couldn’t control Alyssa. He always managed to pass me dirty looks or give me the cold shoulder or make snide comments when we were together as a group. He called me selfish. Maybe I was. But he was being selfish too. Alyssa didn’t notice—he was pretty discrete—but of course I did. I knew he was going to be angry when he found out about Alyssa’s problem—angry with me, not her. I just hoped that it wouldn’t get out of hand and that he would get over it soon.

“Thanks, Vic,” she said when we got in the car.

“I just don’t want to feel trapped anymore,” I said, turning the ignition.

“It’ll help. I know the odds of anything being done are small but it’ll make me feel better. Besides, if something were to happen again, they’d know…” she trailed off.

“Nothing else is going to happen, Lyssa,” I assured, squinting my eyes as we drove off to the police station. She was quiet the rest of the ride, even when we entered the local station she didn’t say anything. Her hand shook a little but she had a determined look in her eyes—the kind of look I used to see in her all of the time, especially when I first met her. I still couldn’t help but think that somewhere along the way, I had dragged her down with me.

---

I waited for Alyssa while she talked to the police. They couldn’t do much except listen and put his name into the system, like we had expected. They couldn’t start any investigation all the way out from California, and the case wasn’t even in their jurisdiction, but it was something. It was enough.

“Care for some lunch?” I asked. She smiled a little and nodded.

“My treat,” she grinned, nudging me. I opened my mouth to object but she leaned across the consol of the car and placed her finger over my lips. “My treat,” she repeated.

I laughed and playfully bit her finger. “Whatever you say, little one.” Alyssa giggled and pulled her hand back.

We went to a small, local deli by my place. As we were sitting across from each other looking at the sandwhich menu, I frowned and looked up at her. When we made eye contact, she was already frowning at me, too.

“What are we doing?” We said at the same time. Laughing, we set the menus down and stood up, immediately interlocking our hands and walking out the door. Sit down dates just weren’t really our thing. Maybe one day they would be. Our thing was laying on the couch, cuddled up, eating pizza and watching Finding Nemo—and that’s exactly what we were going to do.

“It’s just how things used to be,” she mumbled into my shoulder. It was just us in my room, so even if Mike wasn’t out of town again it wouldn’t have made a difference. I smiled and closed my eyes. I peppered kisses on her shoulder and breathed her in.

“Things that are meant to last always cycle back eventually, I guess,” I said with a happy smile. It didn’t matter that we had once grew out of each other; nothing mattered except that we were together again. It was meant to be.

Notes

hey strangers

sorry that this entire plot has turned to shit!!! I don't even know what I was thinking with this to be honest, I wish I could go back and change it a bit so this stuff with Alyssa wasn't so cliché and irrelevant and kinda dumb. But oh well, we learn from our mistakes! I'll make due with what I've got to work with and maybe one day I'll wrap this story up. I put in some fluffiness to make up for the dryness that this story has been lately.
Sorry for the delay! I'm just not that into this site anymore but I care about these stories so I'll be finishing all of them… like I said, one day.
Anyway! I hope this doesn't bore you too much. And more importantly I hope you're all doing okay (if any of you readers are still here!)

Love ya! xo