Your emotions are either your most powerful allies or your most fearsome enemies. 

Hiraeth 
(n.) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past 

Monday — September 4, 2023 

My eyes widen once again ever so slightly once recognition settled in. It's her; the girl Chance — Ambrose — had been screwing yesterday at the party before he stormed in and uprooted my life. 

A strange feeling settles into my gut. 

Something that I have no business feeling. 

And then it dawns on me. The what-the-fuck moment that makes me wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole because I'd just shamelessly done what I'd done and someone had been watching all along. Every moment of it. 

My throat bobs as I swallow, the salty, bitter tang of Chance's release still coating my tongue. It makes me want to chop it off and toss it into fire. 

She picks her fallen mascara off the floor and tucks it into her purse. 

I cast a quick glance at Chance but his face betrays not a hint of emotion. The vulnerability in his gaze is gone, replaced by a collected, slightly annoyed demeanor. I tear my eyes away before I start analyzing his features once again and look back at the blonde. 

What am I even supposed to say? 

Lord, give me the strength to survive this. 

A subtle smirk plays on the girl's lips as her eyes bounce between the two of us. 

"Having the new girl give you head in the bathroom, Chance?" She says with surprising coolness in her tone. "How scandalous." 

I narrow my eyes at her.  

She saunters over to Chance and throws her arms around his neck, completely disregarding my existence. "It's the first day, babe, lay it off." She giggles and plants a kiss on his cheek. 

The feeling in my gut intensifies as I stare at them. 

His hands wrap around her back and slowly pull her off him. "Not here, Sabrina." He mutters, shooting a glance at me. 

A scowl paints itself on my face. 

She turns to look at me. "Right." She says flatly, dropping her gaze to the crushed twenty on the floor. I stiffen as I stare at the note and look at Chance with the same defeated look of disbelief that said what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking. Slash why-the-fuck-would-you-do-that. 

He doesn't give me a reaction. 

"You know," The blonde chirps, lazily walking back to where she'd been standing this whole time and spying on both me and Chance, "You should be thankful I was here. You two seemed to be way too lost in your sex-induced world to notice the number of times the door had opened. I sent them all away with a glare before they could enter." She says with a proud smile, drumming her fingers on the closed door next to her that leads to the hallways. "That would have led to a very scandalous start." The jab is directed at me. 

A very scandalous start, my head replies. 

I open my mouth to say something but she beats me to it. 

"Well, come on now!" She says looking at Chance, grabbing his arm and trudging him along. "Everyone's probably wondering where we are." 

I watch motionlessly as she whisks him away, wrapping her arms around his side and leaning her head on his shoulder. Unlike me, she was tall, past Chance's shoulders. 

The door shuts behind them and I'm only just able to catch her fading voice. "You can tell them I was busy giving you head." And another set of giggles. 

Cool air brushes across my damp cheekbones. 

A fresh wave of tears hits me. 

Air struggles to make its way down my windpipe, stuck in my throat and depriving me of oxygen, burning up my lungs. 

I choke back a sob and run into a stall, slamming the door and leaning against it with my head thrown back. The tears refuse to keep themselves at bay but I refuse to let them out. 

So I stand there with stinging saltiness pooling in my eyes, blurring my vision and blinding me. 

I press a fist against my mouth, muffling the sounds that forced their way past my lips. 

Why does it have to hurt so much?  

It wasn't him spawning out of the blue and nuzzling his face into my neck. It wasn't him pushing me to my knees and making me suck him off. He hadn't forced me to do it, my heart knows that. But my head refuses to let him have control over me, fighting a losing battle against the ripples of goosebumps that unfurl across my skin at his every touch. 

He caught me off guard when he shoved me to the floor. The senses that upheld logic screamed at me, commanding me to fight back. But I didn't. I let him do what he wanted with me, probably because I wanted it just as much. It made absolutely no sense; god knows it was downright senseless of me. 

But shivers of anticipation crept up my spine when I looked up at him. He looked so much darker and larger when I was on my knees. 

There was something so compelling — something unexplainable — that turned up the intensity of his touch, his gaze, and his very presence. Something indecipherable that I couldn't look past. Something that made me fear being vulnerable before him for reasons completely unlike the ones verified by rationality. Something that refused to reveal what it was, suspended deceitfully in the atmosphere, dangling itself like a carrot, compelling you towards it like a flame does a moth. 

Something that made my being powerless before him seem not dangerous but lethal. 

Lethal because some twisted part of me wanted him to destroy me — ravish me in criminal ways. 

So yes, I might have tried to push him away at first but the feeling of having him inside me, hearing him curse and groan and murmur filthy words of encouragement, sent currents of pleasure right to my core. 

There was something about the way he just took from me — took without asking — knowing that the answer would be yes — not including the words my head conjured and forced me to say — that ignited life inside me. Something about the sloppy wet sounds that bounced off the walls and clashed with the sounds of my gags and moans and his vulgar words that turned me on so much. 

But of course, no good outcome can be expected after any sort of interaction with Chance Ambrose because he would take, take from you without reluctance, and then he would rip apart the sliver of hope you had that maybe not everything was all black and white. 

He practically reduced me to the level of a sex slave. 

He got what he came for and then walked off without a care, leaving me to deal with the cracked shards of my sanity. 

The barrier of control shatters and tears stream down my face, unstoppable by any force. 

I want to scream so bad. 

How can I be so blind? 

I knew from what had transpired the previous night that a switch had flipped and Chance no longer was the same. No longer a trace of what he'd once been. And I still believed that he wouldn't hurt me — that he wouldn't shred me to pieces. 

So I have no one to blame but myself for giving him anything at all. 

My legs struggle to hold my weight. 

I half-slide to the floor, the door now supporting my weight entirely as I lean against it, sobbing silently. 

It's the way he flat-out called me a prostitute that cut through me so deeply. You can be, he said. 

Another surge of frustrated and angry tears slide down my cheeks. I need to stop letting him do this to me. 

He's the one who tossed money at me — literally tossed it at me while I was still on the floor like I didn't have a morsel of dignity and was content with scraping fallen bills off the tiles — like I was a whore and yet I was the one who was defending him from his own fucked up words. 

Fucking irony. 

I wince when I inhale my next breath, a sharp pain spreading across my chest. The ache grows with every other breath. I rub my palm over the area, the pain subsiding only for a couple of seconds before resurfacing once again. 

I curse and undo the first few buttons of my shirt, peering at the skin between my breasts that is now slightly reddish before cursing again and kicking one of my legs with the other. 

Chance fucking Ambrose. 

The high from when he pressed his knee and pinned me to the wall has been washed away, sharp jolts of pain replacing the adrenaline. 

"You're fucking better than this," I mutter to myself, harshly rubbing at my eyes and wiping away the tears, and buttoning up my collar. 

I unlock the stall and exit with my head hanging low, praying for no one to be there. But the universe apparently refuses to grant me any of my wishes. 

When did she get here and why was she here—  

Destiny stands three feet from me, her eyes widening as she takes in my puffy eyes and stained cheeks. I halt in my tracks. 

"Christ, Callista, who the fuck— what the FUCK happened?"  

She crosses the distance between us in two strides and wraps her arms around me, and just like that the barrier disintegrates once again. 

Hot lines of saltwater trickle down my face. Unhinged sobs make their way up my throat. I let her hold me and bury my face in the crook of her neck, way too tired to be pissed at her for ditching me for the first half of the day. 

I sniffle and pull back, wiping my face with the sleeve of my blazer, not meeting her eyes. "I thought you weren't coming today." I croak out between silent hiccups. 

"I wasn't, but I felt like a bitch for leaving you all alone so I decided to surprise you." She looks me up and down. "But, bitch, you look like someone just stole your hamster and delivered its dead body in an Easter egg on New Year's Eve." 

Despite my sanity hanging on the finest of threads and seconds away from tearing apart, I choke out a laugh and walk around her to the sink to wash my face. 

I really do look like a mess, I realize, as I look at myself in the mirror. 

I feel an arm wrap around my shoulders again. 

"Let's get out of here. I've got takeout in the car." She says with a small smile. "Your favorite, by the way." 

●⁍●⁍●⁍●  

"Okay, now that we're shut off from the outside world that's crawling with slimy whores," says Destiny, dumping a carton of Indian takeout on my lap, "Start talking." 

I gingerly lean forward to turn down the air conditioner.  

I am currently strapped to the passenger seat of Destiny's Lexus, parked under a nice little tree in a corner of the school's parking lot. The admin block stands tall before us but the building does nothing to shield us from the overhead rays of the sun. 

That's where I almost got run over thanks to Blondie, I recall as I let my eyes skim over the place. 

Food bribery is her ticket to getting me to open my mouth and today is no different. 

Three years ago — before I'd moved out of Blackthorn Creek — I used to attend Sparrowville High. Chance and Destiny were my only friends from the neighborhood who attended BCA. The rest of them weren't exactly welcoming. 

She knew Chance lived next door, she knew that the two of us were close friends, and she also knew about my crushing on him since I was thirteen. Until I moved away. My attraction toward him died when I moved out of the States. 

Or so I thought. 

I rub my temples and wonder if sewing people's mouths shut is a crime or not. 

"Nothing much happened, to be honest." I mumble, picking the pieces of chopped garlic out of my food one by one. "Nothing worth repeating." 

She rolls her eyes. 

"Right, because emotional breakdowns in the bathroom are so common." 

"Actually," I point out, "That's true if you think about it." 

"That's not the point. The point is I've been craving some action and I need a name so I can beat a bitch up." She cracks her knuckles. I sink into my seat. "My Krav Maga classes cannot go down the drain." 

"Let's not forget you chose Netflix over me. I was walking through the hallways like a depressed ghost after each class for the entire day." 

"Exactly what this is for." She points at the food with a sheepish smile. I shake my head with a smile. I'm already feeling much better. 

Though I can still taste Chance somewhere in the back of my throat. No amount of water can wash away the intensity of his release. 

I curse internally. 

Ambrose is a dick. His dick is a dick. Speaking of his dick— 

No more Ambrose talk for the rest of the day. 

"So, minus the fact that I found you sobbing your soul out in the bathroom, how was your day?" She asks casually, looking away from me and focusing on her own food. I notice her brows furrow, the way they do when she's debating saying something or not. "Did you, you know, see Ambrose or something?" 

So much for no Ambrose talk, my mind snorts. 

"Uh, yeah, I think I did. First period. We talked a little, nothing else." I keep myself from blurting out the fact that he is the reason my cheeks are flaky with dried salt water. 

"You think you did?" 

"No, I mean, yes, I did. See him. Talk to him." Someone slap me right now. 

"Uh-huh." She trails off, looking sideways at me, seeing right through my bullshit. "You sure he had nothing to do with your little episode a few minutes ago?" 

What surprised me was that she even asked me something like that. I'd never spoken lowly about him, so the fact that she would ask such a thing shocked me. I mean, it's not like she knows about what happened today. 

"Why would you think that?" I ask, fiddling with the temperature of the air conditioner again. 

She sighs. "Look, I don't know if you've spoken to him while you were away and I don't know what happened today, but Ambrose, well—" She cuts herself off, looking for the right words. "I wouldn't exactly give him a gold medal for his character." 

That sparks my interest. 

"I care about you and I don't want anything to happen to you, alright? And if I'm going to be flat-out straightforward, he's like, the King of Dickheads." I don't think she realized she was rambling. 

"He goes through girls like they're labeled use-and-throw with bright blue neon lights. His entire friend circle is the archetype of assholes with mommy issues. And because his family is old money, anything he does is brushed off. He never gets into trouble, the teachers look the other way if he does anything, and he thrives on making others' lives miserable. Like, of course, everyone here has money because BCA is for the elite but you know, he probably has the most out of us all, so he basically gets off the hook all the time and I—" I place a hand on her, snapping her out of whatever world she was lost in. 

She looks pissed as fuck. 

"Want me to make you a custom dart board with his face painted on it?" I brush the crumbs of food that somehow got into her hair. "Or a punching bag with his face taped to it? Anything, really." 

She laughs a little and cools down, running a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry, I know you're close with him and all, fuck, I shouldn't have said all that." 

She throws her head back. I wave her off and mumble doesn't matter, it's alright. If today's events went any differently, I might have defended him."Today's turning out to be a really fucked up day." 

"No shit." I mutter and slump in my seat. 

We sit in silence, neither of us knowing what to say. 

Might as well get all the questions out right now. 

"Do you know a blonde named Sabrina? She looks like she was in our grade, maybe a few inches taller than you, not hard on the eyes, blue—" Her head snaps to meet my gaze. "What?" 

She let out a scoff. "Queen of Bitches." Three words were all it took for me to put two and two together. "Chance Ambrose and Sabrina Lopez, the unofficially labeled King and Queen of the school. You can either be completely in love with them or absolutely despise them. No in-between." 

I'd picked up subtle vibes of concealed bitchiness from Sabrina but I'd have never guessed Chance would ever turn into such a— such a cruel person. 

Such a snob, my mind mutters. I swat it away. He was one of the nicest and truest people I knew. Was. 

"I wanted to smash a hammer into her face." I say, exaggerating what wasn't really a lie. I just keep out the Chance part. "But I couldn't. Those were frustrated tears, not heartbroken ones." 

Jesus, Callista, you had to pick the word heartbroken, didn't you? 

Destiny narrows her eyes at me. "You're so helping me hide her body." 

I bite back a smile. 

I don't know why she hates Chance, but I'll ask her later. I'm not in the mood for more depressing shit. I fold the cardboard takeout box. 

"Binge-watch Netflix or survive two more classes?" 

She shrugs. "I mean, I'm here so might as well make an appearance." 

Sheesh, party pooper.