My Submission Is Your Addiction

“Here we are.” Travis smirked pulling into a driveway to a one story brick house.

I squinted, but didn’t ask questions. Once he put the car in park I casually undid my seatbelt, then popped open the door and sprinted the other way.

Too bad Travis is stronger and faster than me.

He pulled me back towards the house, while squeezing my arm a bit, too hard.

He huffed some curses under his breath and pushed open the front door, pulling me inside and slamming it. We headed through a dirty kitchen, laundry room and through a hallway before entering a bedroom. I know what comes next.

“Clothes off, now.” Travis snarled. I stood with my arms crossed, unmoving. He mocked my position for a few moments before taking action.

---

I was laying in bed on the phone with Jon, mumbling quietly into it and praying Daniel would leave me alone.

“So, you have to work on a project with Travis?”

“Yeah, uh, let’s not talk about that.” I said, quickly. Jon chuckled.

“That stinks, but it’s cool that you got out of school to work on it.”

“Yeah, it was nice.” Lies.
“Hmm. So do you want to hang out tomorrow?” Jon asked. I stayed silent for a moment thinking. What was tomorrow? Wednesday…maybe.

“Uh, maybe. I’m not really sure what I’m doing.” Who I’m doing.

“Okay, well if you want to.”

“Dude, I have to pee.” I mumbled.

“Then, uhm, go.” Jon laughed.

“I’m too lazy.”

“Wow.” Jon drawled out, laughing a bit.

“Oh, crud, I have to go.” I hissed into the phone as I heard Daniel laughing down the hall.

“Then go!” He exclaimed still thinking that we were still on the previous topic.

“Shoot, I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.” I hung up quickly, popping out the phone’s battery and dropping it behind my futon, before practically knocking over my standing lamp while attempting to turn it off.

“Dale,” Daniel said loudly, knocking on my door. I dove onto the futon and put my head against the wall and half into my pillow. I heard my door open and relaxed, trying to look unconscious.

“Get up.” Daniel said grabbing my arm which was slung half-hazardly over the edge of the futon and yanking on it, sending me to the floor.

“M’sleepy.” I grumbled squeezing my eyes shut tighter.

“Come on, we’re going out.”

“What?” I questioned squinting as he pulled me into the hallway.

“Out.” He repeated giving me a little shove, I caught myself on the banister of the stairwell, cringing at the pain in my ankle and slowly ventured down the stairs. We got into his car and I layed back, trying to fall asleep again to no avail. Eventually the car stopped.

“Get out, we’re here.”

I sat up to see an unfamiliar empty driveway with a lot of cars in it and an empty old house.

“Hey, man!” James (Wait, what?) yelled, coming up and doing that guy handshake thing with Daniel. Travis followed behind.

“So, Travis said we had to try this. I hope it’s worthwhile.” James shrugged as if he were talking about the newest fast food restaurant or energy drink, too bad he wasn’t.

I quickly walked around the car and leaned against it bouncing my foot up and down for a few moments while Daniel, Travis, and James spoke, occasionally glancing to make sure I wasn’t running. I thought for a few seconds before leaning down to tie my shoe lace tighter.

“Don’t worry about it, hun, you won’t be needing shoes soon enough.” Travis called. I looked up at him and sent a sarcastic smile, before standing up and bouncing on the balls of my feet.

That’s when I’d decided what I’d do. I was a slow runner, so running was a stupid idea, especially when Travis is abnormally fast. I waited until all of their attention was off of me before running at Daniel.

It wasn’t a very successful attack, but it did a bit of damage. I was quickly on the ground, courtesy of Travis, and struggling to get up. I was sitting up, struggling to get onto my feet when something struck my thigh, hard. I squeaked a bit in pain before kicking out my other leg and trying to get whoever’s knee it was off of my thigh. It worked until their foot came down onto my leg.

“Dude, don’t do any damage that will put her in the hospital.” Daniel’s voice came through suddenly serious, “Stop, stop.” He snapped suddenly, “She’s not fighting.”

That’s about as far back as my vivid memory goes. I faintly remember some shouting and then a car driving off, before I was helped up and hobbled to the passenger side of Daniel’s car.
---
I woke up, breathing hard and sweating. It was semi bright outside and I sat up, groaning at the pain in my leg. Well, at least I got out of my appointment last night. If you could call it that.

I stood up with some difficulty, and when I changed for school I could only manage to get into some sweatpants without crying from the pain of the giant bruise that had formed on my upper leg. It was hard to walk and I had a huge limp. School would not be fun today. At all. At least it was my left leg, so I can still drive. I pulled on a tshirt and pulled my hair into a ponytail, leaving my fringe in my face to block the fact that I’m not wearing any make up. I managed to get down the stairs with some trouble and into my car with even more.

I got to school and sat in my car for a second, trying to convince myself that I was totally composed and wouldn’t just freak out any minute from anxiety.

“seven hours, seven hours, seven hours.” I mumbled to myself. Seven hours, then I could go home and rest.

I headed into school, still limping terribly, when Rachel approached.

“Dale!” She greeted happily before pausing, “Did you get hit by a car?”

“Something like that.” I laughed, pained.

“Dude, why aren’t you at home.”

“I can’t miss. We have a test in Chemistry tomorrow, we’re reviewing today.” I shrugged as I made it to my locker.

“Seriously though, you look like you got hit by a car and then fell into an ocean and had to fight the under currents.” She said before noting my expression and adding, “No offense.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I shrugged dialing in my locker combination while resting against the locker next to mine.

“Seriously though,” She stated before glancing at the clock hung in the hallway, “Crud, let’s go.” She said grabbing my books and closing my locker, before slinging my arm over her shoulder and venturing down the hallway.

“You’re kind of impatient.” I mumbled as she sped up the pace.

“I get that all the time.” She shrugged as we entered first hour.

---

My leg was seriously throbbing, like oh, my gosh. I should have taken some advil. I walked –or…kind of walked- into lunch and sat down.

“How has your day been?” Brendon asked as I kind of sat down, not before wincing.

“Ugh.” I groaned.

“Well, that stinks.” He shrugged taking a bite of a granola bar.

“Hey,” I heard someone say sitting down next to me, since Rachel took the last seat on the other side of the table. I looked over to see Jon and did one of those awkward head nods.

“You look,” He paused, “Kind of tired.”

“Oh, I thought you were going to say like I got hit by a car then fell into a lake and got sucked under the water by a whirlpool.”

“It was an ocean and you got sucked into an undercurrent, God!” Rachel corrected. I shrugged, putting my elbow on the table and my head on my hand. Jon’s hand came up to rest on my back for a moment and I really, really wanted to smile, except for the fact that Ryan would make fun of me, and Rachel would tease me, and the fact that Jon doesn’t really like my like that. He pulled his hand back, awkwardly, after a moment and I could still feel the warmth it left behind. I smiled inwardly, before Rachel shifted and bumped my leg, causing me to hiss.

“Dude, I’m so, so, so sorry. Oh, God, are you okay?” She asked wide eyed. I laughed a little and shook my head.

“No, just.” I waved my hand a little and let the subject drop, luckily Rachel did, too, as William Beckett passed our table, going to his own. Remarkably Daniel’s new friends haven’t bugged me once today.

“Oh, God, did you see his pants!” Rachel said wide eyed, still glancing in his direction.

“Mhmm.” I hummed, humoring her.

“Dude, his waves. Like, not just his hair, but like his waves. He has waves, everywhere.”

“Yup.”

It was shortly after this that Ryan let out a snort and started laughing, followed by Spencer. Brendon giggled a bit and Jon was grinning.

“What? Okay, he totally does!” Rachel defended.

“It’s an ongoing obsession she’s had for a while now.” I explained quickly.

“I bet he smells good.” Rachel said quietly, and even I let out a small laugh at that.

“Hey, what happened last night?” Jon asked quietly.

“When?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“On the phone.” Jon clarified.

“Oh,” I said, “Daniel came in and he’s kind of a huge jerk at times…all the time, actually, as you know. So, he was just being stupid.” I shrugged.

“Ah.” He nodded slowly.

Rachel shifted again.

“Seriously?!” I groaned flexing my foot a little, but only cringing at the pain.

“Okay, what is happening?” Brendon asked, “I feel so out of the loop.”

“I’m accidentally bumping into her leg under the table.” Rachel said, sending me apologetic looks.

“Okay…?”

“And it hurts.” She finished.

“Did you hurt it?” Brendon asked suddenly.

“Yeah, I guess.” I shrugged.

“How?”

“Uh,” I paused, “I was fighting with Daniel last night and he landed on it with his knee.” I shrugged.

“Ouch. You should file that under abuse and have him arrested.” Spencer smirked.

I rolled my eyes, “Yes, because the bruise on my leg is really worth all that hassle with going to court and everything.”

“It so is.” He stated.

I groaned as the lunch bell rang minutes later, before slowly getting up as we parted our different ways.

“Hey, is your leg broken?” Jon asked suddenly as I gripped the edge of the table.

“No.” I shrugged.

“Did you go to a doctor about it?”

“No.”

“Can you walk on your own?”

“Obviously.”

“Without excruciatingly horrible pain?”

“Uh, kind of.” I shrugged again.

“I seriously think your leg’s broken.” He said, “But that’s just my opinion.”

“Well, I don’t want to get my parents involved, so I don’t want to go see a doctor about it.” I took a small step forward moving my grip to a chair.

“Here,” Jon offered sliding an arm around my waist and pulling my own around his neck.

“You don’t have to,”

“It’s fine.” He half-shrugged.

“Thanks.”

“But I really do think that walking on it is not the answer.”

“I have a big test tomorrow and I can’t miss reviewing in class today.”

“Nerd.” Jon joked.

“No, I just really don’t want to repeat this year, thanks.”

“Wait, wait, stop.” He said pulling me to the side of the hallway. Move your leg like this.” He said lifting his own leg and moving it back and forth.

“I can’t bend my knee.” I told him wincing at the thought.

“Okay, that’s really not good, like you physically cannot or it just hurts really, really bad.”

“I physically cannot, is that bad?”

“Yes, Dale,” He sighed rubbing his forehead, “It’s bad, c’mon.” He mumbled passing up my locker.

“What?” I asked suddenly.

“I’m taking you on a little trip.” He shrugged.

“I have test review today.”

“Spencer’s in that class, he’ll email me the notes tonight and I’ll study with you, just come on.”

“Where is this little trip?” I asked suddenly.

“It’s a surprise.”

“I’m not going to a doctor about this.”

“Let’s just have them check it out, okay?”

“No.”

“You really, don’t have much of a choice now.” He said darkly smirking. Obviously he was joking, but I couldn’t help the shudder that rushed through me.