Hate Me

It takes me a moment to realize what just happened before I pull myself out from under him. Then I see it, the blood pouring from his head. I don’t even think to check if he’s okay because I was too busy throwing up. Whether it was from the rape or from the look of Sloan’s wound or both, I was still retching into the bushes that I had crawled to.

As soon as I finish wiping my mouth, I launch myself up the hill and towards the road. My pant were ripped and torn from the rough ground and the struggling I don’t remember doing. I know there’s blood on my face along with tears and maybe even vomit. My shirt was undoubtedly ripped and dirty, like my pants. I know there’s blood flowing from where he entered me, most likely staining my jeans.

My spine was throbbing with pain and my face stung from when Sloan hit me.

I felt lost and disoriented, before I felt to my knees not far from the site where Sloan is. I hate our road. No one ever goes down it. I needed help. I needed someone. I was so scared.

Questions raged through my mind. What happened? What did I do? Did I kill him? Would I go to jail? Is he alive and will he kill me if I don’t get away from him?

Even though the fear that he’ll get up any second and run after me was present, I can’t seem to pick myself up from the grass so I just bury my face in my hands, pressing the tears back as I shook.

Then I hear tires screech near me and I’m jolted out of my stupor. I look up to see an unfamiliar van. A girl jumps out of the car and I recognize Amy’s face.

“Nero! Nero?” I can hear her calling my name as she sprints over to me. “Oh God…” I could see the many questions she had in her eyes but she kept quiet.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” I heard the voice of Ryan next to me. For once he’s apologizing.

I feel myself being lifted into Ryan’s arms. I don’t care that it’s him, all I care is that there’s something solid to hold onto. Which is what I do.

“Where is he?” Ryan asks. “Where’s Sloan?”

I barely have enough energy to point down the dirt bank and to Sloan’s still body. Amy follow after my pointing and slid down the hill and stumbled down to where Sloan was. I looked up at Ryan and he seemed to know what I was asking. I felt safe enough to see if Sloan was still breathing.

Ryan carefully made his way down to the bottom as we stood in front of my ‘brother’. Amy looked up at us and shook her head. “He’s…”

“Yeah…,” was all Ryan said.

It was only then that I saw the real damage that the stone had done. His skull was broken and you could see inside. It was a tangled mass of blood, hair and skull fragments.

”I ki- I kill- I k-k-killed h-h-him,” I choked out.

I killed him, I killed him, I killed him, was all I could think. I’m a murderer.

“Shh… Nero, shh…,” Amy came over to push the tangled, leaf encrusted hair out of my face. “It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay… It’s not your fault.”

Then she looked up at her brother. “Take him to the car. I’ll call the police,” she said as she pulled out her cell phone.

Somehow Ryan got us up the bank again and he sat me in the van. Until I whimpered and cringed from the pain of sitting and lay down instead, coiling myself into a ball.

The door near my head was opened and Ryan sat down on the floor next to me. “I wish I had made it here sooner,” he whispered as he started pulling leaves from my hair. “When you and Sloan weren’t at school… I knew he was going to do something. I… I didn’t think he would… Anyways… I asked nearly everyone what happened but they wouldn’t answer me. They just…. Laughed and said that you were, ‘being taken care of’.”

He kept babbling about how sorry he was until I grabbed his sleeve, the only gesture I could muster enough strength up to do. For some reason, it shut him up. It pleased me to know that he didn’t hate me. That he, in fact, cared enough about me to know Sloan was going to hurt me. That he’d help save me.

I mean, even though Amy helped me, she couldn’t have gotten the information from Ryan’s friends because they would’ve known that she would help me.

“I’d like to examine the victim, please,” a woman said from behind Ryan. Ryan instantly stepped aside and allowed access to me.

“Okay, honey, this might be difficult for you, but can you tell me everything he did to you?” She asked.

“I killed him…” was all I could utter in my trance-like state.

“No, no one blames you, dear. None of this was your fault. Now, let me treat the wounds on your face.”

I turned my cheek as I sat up but then I instantly was on my side again. “Listen, we need to get you to a hospital so we can do a rape kit. Are you okay with that?”

Rape… I was raped. For some reason it didn’t register with my mind. Either way, I nodded. “We need transport over here.“