I Don't Need You To Save Me

When I woke up the next morning, my head felt like lead. I could barely lift it a mere few inches from my pillow. I cringed and reached over to where I had left my phone the night before, on the bedside table. I felt around the bedside table, not wanting to lift my head. When I couldn’t find my phone I attempted to lift my head a few inches just to see where it was, but I gave up after the second attempt.

I groaned and collapsed against the pillow. I hadn’t slept at all the night before. Probably because I’d snuck out of the house as soon as everyone else had gone to bed and just walked for miles, not really going anywhere. Whenever I hadn’t slept for long, I always woke up with a really bad headache, worse then when I had a hangover. And I think I had actually started considering going to sleep at about five that morning.

I buried my head into my pillow and resisted the urge to scream. I wanted to go back to sleep but I knew I wouldn’t be able to.

I forced myself to sit up and brushed my hair back away from my face, knowing I probably looked like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, but I didn’t really care. I wasn’t really in the mood to fix it any time soon plus I planned on avoiding certain people for most of the day today, so it didn’t really matter what my hair looked like.

It was then, once I had sat myself up, that I noticed my phone had been thrown on the floor. It was halfway across the room, nowhere near where I usually left it. I frowned and managed to haul myself out of bed to go pick it up.

When I had it safely in my hand and I was warmly tucked back up under my bed covers, I checked the screen. I had five missed calls. I frowned. Who would have called me during the night? I attempted to check who they were from, but the bright screen hurt my still tired eyes. I gave up too quickly and dropped my phone onto the duvet covers in front of me.

The previous night started flooding back to me, each memory coming back more powerful then the first. First I remembered Darren showing up, then my little disagreement with Joe, and then everything that happened between Joe and I before we had even left for the gig at the coffee shop.

I sighed and put my face into my hands, blinking back my tears. I had embarrassed myself to what I thought was an irreversible point and I was completely annoyed with myself. The tears started to flow freely then.

There was a knock on the door and I automatically sat up straight, sniffing the tears away. Whoever was knocking on my door stayed outside patiently waiting for me to tell them that they could come in.

I stumbled away from my bed and checked to see just how red my eyes were from both lack of sleep and from crying. They didn’t look as bad as I thought they would.

I cleared my throat before speaking, it was so dry. “Come in!” I croaked and cringed. I needed a drink of water or something like that. I coughed again and brushed my hair back with my fingers. I turned around and saw the last person I expected to see standing at my door.

“What do you want?” I asked Joe coldly and turned back around. I could feel Joe’s eyes staring into my back, so I glanced quickly at him over my shoulder. He didn’t look pleased at my greeting.

“I wanted to see if you had actually made it back home, seen as though you disappeared last night.” He replied as coolly as I had. I spun back round to face him face on.

“What are you talking about?” I played the clueless card. I had been sure that nobody had so much as stirred when I had gone out the night before, I had been absolutely sure of it.

“Last night, when you snuck out of the house.” Joe sighed. “I called you four times, did you not notice?”

“Actually, no I didn’t.” I sighed and glanced at my phone discarded on my bed. “I needed time to clear my head so I walked round the block once, that is it. You didn’t need to check up on me.”

“Actually I did. You were gone hours.” Joe also sighed.

“You don’t have to know where I am all the time Joseph.” I scowled and walked a little closer to him. “I don’t need looking after.”

“Technically, you do. You’re our responsibility while you’re here, so we need to know.” Joe whispered and looked down at his feet. “Can you blame me for being worried?! Its not the first time you’ve ever done anything like this.”

“You better not be talking about what I think you are Joseph. Because I’ve told you that is not my fault.” I pointed at him and approached him even more. “Don’t you even dare bring that up.”

“Why? Its no use avoiding the truth is it?” Joe asked me and I glared at him with as much anger as I could muster, because even though I was mad at him his eyes made me go weak at the knees. They almost made me want to forget whatever I was talking about.

“Why! Can’t you just forget about it, like I'm trying to do!” I cried and threw my arms up in the air. Joe grabbed one of my arms and held me still. I tried to turn away but he had me held fast. Instead I dragged him away from the doorway so I could sit down on my bed. I angled myself so I was facing away from him, although it really hurt my arm I wasn’t going to complain about it.

“And why can’t you see that I only want to help you!” Joe asked me and I felt the bed shift as he sat down behind me. “If you keep things bottled up they don’t disappear.”

“God Joe!” I cried out again. “Will you give it up! I don’t want to tell you, so quit bugging me about it.” My eyes started to fill with tears and I blinked them away quickly.

“I’m only trying to help you.” He replied softly. I was thrown back by his sudden change of tone. “Anything could have happened to you.”

“I don’t need help Joe; I don’t need your sympathy. I don’t need looking after and most importantly I don’t need you to save me! I don’t need protecting from anything.” I replied, trying almost to convince myself the same thing.

“And why is that? Why do you think you’re not worth the trouble?” Joe asked me, softly once again. I forcefully pulled my arm from his grasp and walked over to the window. “Tell me?” Joe requested one last time, gazing over at me patiently from his seat upon my bed.

“It would be like fighting a battle where the winner has already been decided.” I replied quietly, quickly wiping away the stray tears. "There's only one thing that you could do to make me feel any better about myself, if you make some kind of time machine that would take me back so I could change everything."

Joe shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "When you say winner, you're not talking about who I think you are? Are you?"

"I don’t know Joseph. I can't read your mind, though sometimes I think that would be quite useful." I sighed and stared out of the window, blinking back any tears that threatened to fall. "And if your going to keep on talking in some form of secret code that you expect me to understand, I'm not going to bother replying."

I felt bad, unleashing more of my unfriendly side towards Joe, especially because he was trying to look out for me. But I didn't need his sympathy any more then I wanted to tell him anything.

Joe got up from his place on the bed. I didn't see him move, but I heard the springs creak. I refrained myself from looking over at him, scared that I would cave if I did.

"Just tell me one thing." He whispered as he stood in front of me, "Does any of this have anything to do with Darren?"

I froze, my back went rigid and my breath caught uncomfortably in the back of my throat. I glanced quickly over at him, his eyes meeting me for a millisecond before I looked away again and stared out of the window.

"What makes you think that?" I tried to cover up.

"I saw the way you acted around him yesterday." Joe explained and I shyly looked up at him once again from under my hair. "I thought I was imagining it at first, but I'm not stupid." Joe sighed and gently rested a hand on my shoulder.

"If I tell you will you stop pretending like you care?" I asked quietly. Joe grabbed my face gently with his hand and forced me to look at him.

"Why don't you understand? I do care! That’s why I want to know." Joe explained. "So I can help you."

"Help me with what Joe?" I cried out, forgetting my attempts to stop the tears from falling. "I am beyond help. You can't change the past so you're not going to make me any better."

"What happened Hayleigh?" Joe asked me simply. "What did he do?"

"I can't." I shook my head. I hadn't mentioned anything about what happened between Darren and I to anyone. I couldn't physically make the words come out. Just the mere thought of it made me feel sick to the very pit of my stomach. The thought of telling someone about it, instead of keeping it to myself like I had been doing, made my head spin. My knees unexpectedly gave way from underneath me and I slowly sat myself down on the floor.

Joe stared into my eyes. "Why?" He followed me down and sat on the floor next to me, still keeping a firm grip on me.

"I don't know if I'll be able to tell you." I whispered and purposefully pulled my face away from my hands. I pulled my knees towards my chest and hugged them, pressing my face against my arms. Joe's arms wrapped around me and I welcomed the comforting gesture.

"Please?" Joe asked one last time. "It tears me up seeing you like this, and not knowing why you're so hurt."

I shook my head, but tried to collect my thoughts and reorder them into some way that would make sense when I said them out loud. I lifted my head and looked over into Joe's brown eyes. I wiped away some tears from my eyes and swallowed before opening my mouth to speak.

"Well, you already know that we used to date." I explained my voice barely audible. "We'd been together for a while, almost a year and a half when I noticed that Darren had started to act... differently, like making all these suggestive comments about me and treating me like I was beneath him." I looked away from Joe and down at my hands. "I didn't think anything of it at first, because my friend James had also changed quite a lot. I just assumed that either I was imagining things or it was just a phase they were going though."

Out of my eye I saw Joe nod. "For my sixteenth birthday James threw me a party at his parents beach house. Darren told me he wanted to speak to me and led me away to one of the bedrooms, I of course followed him. Stupidly, I thought that he would just want to wish me happy birthday in private. I was wrong. He had something else in mind."

"Oh, god." I heard Joe whisper. "I can see where this is going." Once again I looked over at him, his eyes staring back at me all knowing. He knew what I was going to say next, but I still had to say it. Maybe for closure, clearance, who knows. I just had to get it off my chest.

"Well, I didn't understand what he was doing at first. When I did, I told him to stop, but he didn't listen. I think he was already too drunk. I know that doesn't justify it, but in my mind at the time it kind of made sense." I sighed. "After all we had been dating for almost a year."

"It still doesn't make it right." Joe interrupted me, his face nothing but angry.

"I know, but at the time I just convinced myself that it was normal. I thought I loved the guy for Christ's sake." I continued. "But it kept happening, he kept forcing me to sleep with him, and every time I told him no, he got really violent. I had honestly never seen anything like it." I shivered despite still being wrapped in a warm hug. "A few months after my birthday I decided enough was enough, and broke up with him. He wasn't happy about it and kept harassing me. I had to change my number and everything, and I was lucky enough to be working so much I was rarely at home. I never told my father, he just thought everything was because of a bad breakup, that I was heartbroken or something and didn't want people to know."

Joe and I sat in silence for a few minutes. He seemed to need time to take in everything I had just told him. After a few minutes he spoke up again.

"Did he ever hit you?" Joe asked me quietly. I felt his arms tighten around me protectively at the mere thought. When I didn't reply straight away I heard Joe curse under his breath.

"He didn't hit me, but one time he pushed me into this table and my back caught the corner, for some reason it left a bit of a scar on my lower back." I mumbled quietly. Joe dropped his arms from around me and forced me to turn and face him. He reached over and pushed a strand of hair gently away from my face.

"I am so sorry Hayleigh." Joe whispered. "I had no idea." I looked down and shrugged.

"You've got nothing to apologise for. It’s not like any of it was your fault." I replied with a small smile and shook my head.