The pact

While I was walking home, I couldn’t help but smile. This day had been perfect. First my perfect time alone with Vic in the bus. It hadn’t been awkward at all. It gave me chills all over my body just thinking about it. I did needed to remind myself to ask him which song he sang to me. It was so beautiful.
Then came the evening with the rest of my friends. It sounds weird, but I had felt alive that evening. I never really felt alive, I was always sort of tagging along, but that evening I had felt alive.
I made a little pirouette in the middle of the street. It didn’t matter anyway. It was 1 pm and no one was on the streets. And If someone was, then I didn’t really care.
My good mood disappeared quickly as my house came into view. I got the chills from that house, and this time not good chills. It was weird, because normally your own house should be the place where you feel the safest. For me, my house was the place I felt the least safe.
My mom hadn’t hit me since that one incident, but I would be lying if I said she hadn’t hurt me in the last month. I tried my best to be a good girl, so she wouldn’t have a reason to hurt me. But she was just finding reasons to. Like my clothing style, the music I listened to or the friends I hung out with. She had been pushing me very hard, or grabbed my arms so hard that I woke up with bruises on my arms.
I had considered putting on my old clothes, the ones she approved of, but the guys and Leah would notice that and I didn’t want them to worry about me.
I could hide my CD’s. Maybe that would help a bit. Of course I was never going to ditch my friends. I would rather get beaten up, by my mom all day every day than never see my friends again.
I got my key out of my back pocket and put it inside the lock. I tried my best to be as silent as I could, I didn’t want to wake up my mom.
I slowly opened the door and walked inside. Slowly I closed the door and I was actually very proud of how silent I could be.
I turned around to walk silently towards the stairs, but froze when I saw my mom sitting on the couch in the living room.
“Where were you, Luna? It’s 1 pm. You can’t come home this late.” She said as she stood up from the couch. Normally when I came home this late, because of parties or something, she wasn’t up. I had never been caught.
“I was out for my birthday, mother.” I said in a low voice. I looked at my feet because I didn’t want to look her in the eyes.
“With those poor excuse for friends, I assume?” she said and I heard her walk closer to me.
“Yes, mother.” I said. It took all the strength in me not to yell at her and tell her she was a poor excuse for a mother.
“Do you think you deserve to celebrate your birthday after how you have been behaving the last couple of months?” she said, she was now only a feet away from me.
“No mother.” I said.
“Alright, so why have you done it anyway?”
I shrugged and kept looking down.
“Don’t shrug!” she yelled and the shivers went through my spine.
“I don’t know, mother. Because I wanted to?” I said as calm as possible, but really I was on the edge of crying. I tried to keep it in though. She thought crying was for the weak, it would’ve been another way to piss her of.
“Do you think I care about what you want, Luna?” she said. “You have no right to want something. Are those the presents you got?”
She pointed to the plastic bag in my hand. Panic rushed through me, but I knew that if I’d lie, things would be even worse. “Yes mother.” I said, my voice shaking.
She grabbed the bag from my hands and she put her hand in it. She took out the nail polishes mike got me. “mmm… a little bit dark, don’t you think?” She said and she walked to the sink in the kitchen. Before I knew what was happening she slammed one of the little bottles on the bottom of the sink.
“NO!” I screamed, my head shooting up. I ran towards the sink, but stopped when she shot me ‘the look’. Tears were now rolling uncontrollably over my cheeks.
“stay quiet child! You wake up the neighbours and your dad like this!” She yelled at least as loud as me. It didn’t matter, my dad would probably be awake by now. He just tried to stay out of the fights I had with my mother. If he only knew what she did during these fights…
My mom took the other bottles of nail polish and smashed them in the sink. When she was done, the sink was stained in splashes of deep purple, dark blue, navy green and black.
I couldn’t believe she just did that. Mike had told me how hard he had thought it was buying presents for girls. You should’ve seen his face when I told him I liked his present. Now I needed to think of an excuse why I would never have his nail polish on my nails.
“And what do we have here?” My mom asked as she took out Jaime’s present. “Good charlotte? I assume that’s a rock band?”
I didn’t say anything. I was so mad now, but there was nothing I could do right now.
“Talk to me, Luna!” My mom shouted and I jumped a little from surprise.
“Yes mother.” I said. I felt tears falling on my collarbone.
“You know I don’t like you listening to that, Luna. It’s bad for you. But I guess you’re ruined now anyways.” It felt like the words stabbed a knife into my heart.
For a moment I thought she was going to put the CD back in the bag, but then she opened it, took out the disc and broke it in halve.
I was now sobbing uncontrollably. I put my head in my hands and shook my head. This wasn’t happening.
“This is for your own good, Luna.” She said coldly. I heard the plastic of the bag as she was reaching in it again. I don’t know what I would do if she did anything to Vic’s present…
“Luna, What is this?” I heard her say, the tone in her voice scared me.
I slowly looked up from my hands. My vision was a bit blurry, but I could see her standing with the package of condoms in her hands. I immediately tried to defend myself.
“Mom, you don’t understand!” I tried “It was a joke of the guys, that’s all.” I knew how my mother thought of sex before marriage. I was pretty sure I was going to die now.
“Luna, are you having sexual relationships with one of those rats?” She said, disgust evident in her voice. She slowly walked closer to me.
“No mom! It was joke! I swear it!” I said while I backed away from her, holding my hands in front of me as defence.
But of course my hands didn’t make any difference. “You filthy whore!” She yelled and she pushed my shoulders. The force was too much, I fell backwards and hit my head at the edge of the dining table.
I blacked out for a few seconds, but after that I woke up with an enormous stinging pain in the back of my head. I was lying on the ground. I rolled to my side and grabbed the back of my head with my hands.
I was sobbing uncontrollably as I heard my mom walk upstairs. I laid there for what seemed like hours on the cold floor. Just crying.
It was weird how much I had cried lately. Normally I never cried. I was just an emotional wrack right now.
Slowly I got up. My hands were shaking so it took a while before I was standing on my feet. I walked over to the sink and collected the little pieces of glass of the nail polish bottles and the two halves of my ‘good charlotte’ CD. I took a separate plastic back from a cupboard, put the pieces in it and tied it. I put it in my other plastic bag. For some reason I wanted to safe the pieces. I wanted to hold on to them.
I walked upstairs and put my bag down in the corner of my room. I immediately fell on my bed. My head was pounding like crazy and I knew it probably wasn’t safe to go to sleep like this, but I couldn’t care less. I was so tired.
I was crazy for thinking that this birthday would be any better than any other. It was always going to be like this. Except if… I could move out next year. I would be eighteen by then. It seemed so nice, but at the other hand, I would leave my dad alone with her…
Well, I could think later about this. I was so tired that I couldn’t think straight now anyway. Then I fell asleep with my clothes still on.

*

I walked into the cafeteria and saw that our little group was complete again. Mike, Jaime and Tony were standing at their usual spot, but this time they were joined by Vic and Leah.
Maybe the incident that had occurred before the weekend was a good thing. It meant that Jaime, Tony, Mike and Leah officially didn’t ignore Vic anymore. I think that was a huge step forward in the right direction, because the boys were actually quite popular.
Well, actually I was sure that it was a huge step in the right direction. Ryan had said that the pact was still going on, but some people didn’t obey him anymore. When Vic and I were walking through the halls today, some people said ‘hi’ to us. Yeah to us, not only to me, but also to Vic. It was mostly people we didn’t know. I guess that was their way to let us know that they were on our side.
My feeling was confirmed by Leah. She didn’t really belong to one group, she sat with another group every other break. So she kind of knew a lot of opinions from people at our school. “Everyone is talking about it. It’s insane. I think a lot of them are willing to do something.” She said as I was walking towards them. “Oh hi Luna.”
“Are you okay? You look a bit pale.” Tony asked. Damn turtle, why do you always need to see everything? I was indeed not okay, I hadn’t slept for very long of course and my head was still a bit painful because of last night. I also felt a bit sick for some reason.
“Yeah I’m alright. Just a bit tired.” I lied and I took a bite of my apple.
“Why would that be?” Jaime said smirking. “would it be because of a certain birthday party?”
I forced a smile while they started talking about last night. I didn’t really pay attention. My mother had ruined this birthday for me, but she didn’t need to do that for them. So I kept my mouth shut about last night. The only one who knew my mom hurt me was Vic and he only knew parts. Actually, he only knew what he had seen for himself. I didn’t need to wake him from his happy dream in which he had friends again and one of them was his little brother.
“Luna?” I heard Vic say, waving his hand in front of my face.
“Hmm?” I said looking up.
“We were just asking if you liked your birthday yesterday.” Leah said.
“Yeah, sorry, I was just dreaming off. Yeah, I loved it! It was really much fun.” I said as I tried to push the thought of my mother aside.
“Good.” Mike said. “But what are we going to do about the pact?” I was happy he had changed the subject.
“What do you mean?” Vic asked and he raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not going to let my big brother be ignored by the rest of the school if I can do something about it.” Mike said grinning. “well, at least not anymore.”
Vic shrugged. “What do you want to do about it? And by the way, it’s okay I’m fine like this.”
“Stop trying to be strong for me, Vic. You’ve always been strong for me, now it’s time for me to return the favour.” Mike said smiling.
Before Vic could say anything back, Leah started talking. “We could meet up with the leader of each group. Well, at least the groups that might want to take our side. That would probably be the lower groups and alternative kids and stuff.”
“All the basket cases.” Said Jaime smiling. “I like it.”
“If we have all those groups ignoring the pact and standing up for other bullied kids, then the higher groups won’t stand a change.” Mike said with an evil smile on his face. He kind of looked like a villain from a Disney movie right now.
“Okay let’s do it then.” Vic said to my surprise. “You guys are right, this has gone too far. Ryan and his minions have terrorised kids for too long.” He came of as strong. It was a handsome look for him. Not only that, but he had a wise tone in his voice when he said it. It made me realise that he would probably be a good leader.
“Yes!” Mike said as he put up his fist. I chuckled at him. I knew he felt like he was in a super hero movie or something.
Then I suddenly felt a little dizzy. It happened a few times earlier today, but I was then sitting in class so I could easily cover it up. Now, my legs shook a little at the weird dizzy feeling. I closed my eyes, hoping that the feeling would go away and the rest of the group wouldn’t notice. But closing my eyes made it only worse and my legs gave in. I fell to the ground.
I heard several gasps from the guys and Leah. Before I actually hit the floor I felt two hands underneath my arms, dragging me up again. I knew it was Vic, because he was standing closest to me. “Luna? Can you hear me?” He said waving his hand before my eyes again. His hand was a little bit blurry and it seemed like two were waving at me. “Yeah, I’m alright.” I said and I tried to stand up again.
“Oh hell no, You’re not alright.” Jaime said, picking up my backpack that had fallen to the ground.
“I’ll take her to the nurse.” Vic said and he took my arm and put it around his neck so I was leaning on him. How could he always be so calm in these kind of situations? He also had been this calm when he saw me cutting, when my mom hit me and when I had a crying attack in class. If I were him I would’ve freaked out and run away at either of them. But I guess his calmness was just what I needed when I felt like this.
“We’re going with you, man.” Said Mike.
We all walked to the nurses office. When we got there the nurse told us that only one other person could get inside with me. They let me chose and of course I choose Vic. So that left Mike, Jaime, Tony and Leah waiting in the hall way.
Vic told the nurse what had happened a few minutes earlier and she started to shine a little lamp inside my eyes. I had always wondered what doctors were looking for when they did that.
“Have you eaten today, honey?” the chubby nurse asked me. She had bright red hair, definitely not her real colour, it didn’t look natural at all. She was probably in her late fifties.
“Yeah, not much, but enough.” I said a bit absent.
“What’s enough, honey? I can’t look inside your mind or your stomach so you need to clarify things for me.” She said.
I chuckled. She was cool I guess. “Two crackers with cheese on it this morning and an apple just now. I have felt a little sick all day so it didn’t go in easily.”
“Hmm…” she said. “Have you hit your head recently?” Damn, the lady was good at her work.
“Yeah, I tripped yesterday and fell against the edge of the dining table.” I said. I looked over to Vic to see that he turned a little pale. He probably had put the pieces together in his head by now. He knew.
“Okay well, you’re gonna be okay Ms. Fall. You have a slight concussion, but it’s nothing to worry about. Let someone wake you up every two hours when you go to sleep tonight and take a lot of rest. That’s the only cure. I would also go home now” She said, giving me a sad smile and I nodded.
“I will write a note to your teachers.” She said as I stood up from the seat I was sitting in.
“Can I walk her home? Just to know she’ll arrive home safely.” Vic asked the nurse.
The nurse raised an eyebrow, but then smiled. “That’s really sweet of you, boy. Yeah, I’ll write a note for you too, but only for you next class, so come back immediately after dropping her off.”
Vic nodded and we walked out of the office, Vic with his arm around my waist.
He told the rest about the concussion and that he was going to drop me off. Luckily he didn’t say anything about my mother.
The others went to their classes and me and Vic started walking home. He had his hand around my waist the entire time and I leaned on him. I felt a little bad that he had to worry about me again. I tried so hard not to make him to, but it just backfired in my face.
When my house came into view he surprisingly led me away from it. “You’re not going back there. Not today.” He said.
“Vic, it’s okay. I’ll be alright.” I said, but it came out a little weakly.
“Yeah and I’m a very tall guy.” He said. “I know she did it, Luna.”
I sighed and started telling him what had happened last night. When I was done talking, I saw the usual fire in his eyes, the one he always got when he was being protective. “Nope, you’re definitely not going home.”
“Fine.” I said with my teeth clenched shut. I knew there was no fighting it. “So where am I gonna go then?”
“My place of course. I can sleep on a matrass tonight and you can sleep in my bed.” He said, turning left towards his house.
“I don’t want to be a burden.” I said. “And what do we have to tell your parents? And Mike?”
“You’re not a burden at all. My parents love you, I’m sure they don’t mind. And we can just tell them that you’re parents are not home this week. If you insist on keeping it a secret.” He said. I knew he wanted me to tell it, but that he couldn’t make me, especially because he was a very secretive person himself.
“And clothes?” I asked. I had already given in, but I just wanted to make sure everything was alright.
“You can borrow an old jeans from my mom, or maybe you fit one of mine. I doubt it though, you’re a little smaller than me I guess. But you can borrow a shirt from me. You can even borrow my blink-182 shirt if you want to.” He said. Wow, he was so proud of his blink-182 shirt.
“You’re forgetting that I need panties. I can wear my bra again tomorrow, but it would be gross to wear the same panties again tomorrow.” I said.
He blushed. “ I didn’t think of that.”
“Maybe you can climb through my window after school to get them.” I said. “But just make sure you do it, not Mike or Tony or something. You’re the only one I trust with my panties.”
I suddenly realised that sounded a bit weird so I added. “No pun intended.”
He laughed. “Well, I’m glad you can still make jokes.” He said as he opened the door with the hand that wasn’t on my waist.

Notes

heeeyy guys!

So yeah I'll probably update very soon, because I'm really excited about going on with this part of the story. So much inspiration :O

What do you guys think? Shall I make this story 30 chapters or 35? I'm not sure. At one hand I have still loads of ideas, but at the other hand I will maybe a bit too long if it has 35 chapters...so let me know please.

And I would also like to know what you guys think of this chapter :) so if you have something to say about it, please do.


Ugh I love Chelsea smile so much <3 maybe I’m using too many bmth songs as chapter titles, but honestly, I couldn’t care less.


xxxxx

Nicky
ps. I love you (nothing to do with the movie