I Still Feel Him

Danielle Roberts tapped her pencil against her desk, in irritation. She was sitting in her last period, Math, class and the last thing that she wanted to be doing on a sunny Friday afternoon was Quadratic Equations. She rolled her eyes at the simplicity of it and she still couldn’t believe that she was the only one in her math class that actually understood it. She was in an Advanced Sophomore Math class, no less. Danielle glanced at the clock, running her fingers through her jet-black hair, in impatience. Only ten more minutes to go and she would be free to go home and finally be able to spend a nice, relaxing weekend in the comfort of her home. Maybe sit around the house, watch some TV, or even work on a story that she had started last week.

Her idea of the perfect weekend, though, and the weekend that she was going to have were two totally different things. Sure, she would have liked to sit in her room and read a book or listen to music; however, sometimes we don’t always get what we want.

Once the bell rang, indicating that school was finally over, Danielle sprung out of her seat and ran to her locker, not caring if her class looked at her weird. She hated them all anyway. She took all of her books and binders out of her backpack and shoved them into her locker; she didn’t want to miss her bus. Just as she was about to put her last binder into her locker, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She froze and she resisted every urge that she had not to let out a blood-curdling scream.

Ever since she was young she had this phobia called, Aphenphosmphobia. Which means that she had a fear of being touched. It wasn’t to bad that she had to go see someone about it, but her parent’s always kept a close eye on her. She never told anyone else about this fear because she didn’t want people thinking that she was a freak because of it, and she, herself, didn’t fully understand her fear, either.

Danielle took a deep breath and slowly turned to face the person that had caught her attention. Danielle’s mouth nearly dropped when she saw that it was Trevor, the most popular guy in school. She looked up at him and felt herself blush slightly, there was no denying the fact that he was hot. His brown eyes sparkled brightly as the bright afternoon light hit them; his hair was something that all the girls loved. Pitch black and spiked at the top; it probably took him an hour just to get his hair like that.

“Hey Danielle,” he told her, giving her the most breath-taking smile she had ever seen.

“H-hey,” she managed to stutter, mentally cursing at herself. She was always so stupid when it came to things like this, “what’s up?”

“Oh nothing,” he told her, “I’m having this party tonight at my place, and I was just wondering, if you’re up to it, if you wanted to come?” he asked her, his eyes never leaving hers and his mouth formed a light smirk.

---

“Mom, Dad, I’m home!” Danielle shouted, absent-mindedly, as she walked into the living room. She could see both her parents sitting comfortably on the couch, watching TV. If it were any other day, and if Danielle didn’t have so much on my mind, she would have smiled at that picture. Danielle didn’t wait for her parents reply, she just threw her backpack onto a nearly chair and rushed into her room. She couldn’t believe that she had actually done what she did. The incident kept replaying in her head.

Danielle couldn’t believe that one of the hottest and most popular juniors in school was standing right in front of her and had asked her to go to the biggest party of the year. Anyone who was anyone would be there. She probably looked like an idiot just standing there with her mouth gapped open as Trevor waited for an answer.

“Yeah, Totally! I would love to go,” she blurted out, enthusiastically, without thinking.

Trevor smirked, “awesome, it starts at 9, don’t be late,” he told her, winking, as he walked away to catch his bus. It took Danielle a minute to catch her breath and gather her thoughts before she took a deep breath and walked to her own bus.

Everything rushed in a blur to Danielle as she walked into her room and began looking for an outfit to wear for the night, and it wasn’t long before it was almost 9 o’clock and she was walking downstairs, waiting.

Just waiting for when she would be at the dreaded party. She could not believe that she had actually agreed to go.

What was wrong with her? Didn’t she realize that by going to that party she wouldn’t be able to do anything? She would just sit in a corner, hoping to death that no one would come near her. Who knew what she would do if someone had the guts to put a finger on her. It would probably end in her screaming her lungs out and breaking down into a fit of tears, which wasn’t Danielle’s idea of “fun”.

“You look nice, Danielle,” her father commented, looking at her outfit, “you going anywhere tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m just going to spend the evening at the mall with some friends,” she told her father, lying through her teeth, as she formed a reassuring smile. At this moment she was glad that she had talked one of her best friend’s into letting Danielle carpool with her.

He smiled at her, “alright, just don’t be out to late, we have an early morning tomorrow,” he reminded her. The next morning Danielle and her family had to go to this important brunch meeting with her Dad’s boss, and Danielle was forced to go to.

A party and being forced to go to a brunch with your family and your father’s boss? In the same weekend…jooyy…

“I know, I know. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t be out to late, promise,” she told her father as she heard a car horn sound from outside. Saved by the…horn, “bye guys! I love you!” she called out to her parents as she rushed out the door and ran to her friend’s car.

“Damn, you look hot!” her friend greeted her, as she got into the car. Danielle looked down. She really wasn’t wearing anything to out of the ordinary; she only dressed up a little bit. Wearing black skinny jeans, a deep olive silky jersey knit top, whose shoulders were cut off into tank top look, and she also wore a pair of black platform pumps.

“Really? You think so?” Danielle asked, as she sat down in the front passenger sear, next to her friend. She glanced into the rear view mirror and began fluffing her hair.

“Totally, if you don’t score tonight, it’s going to the guys fault,” her friend told her, laughing, as Danielle blushed a deep shade of red. She didn’t have “scoring” on the top of her agenda for the night. All she wanted to do was go to the party, try and have a good time, and then go home and sleep for the entire rest of the weekend.

It didn’t take long before her friend was ranting on about something that had happened to her earlier that day and Danielle was finally able to zone out and get lost into her thoughts, resting her head delicately on the window of the car. Within half an hour they were finally at Trevor’s house, Danielle let out a barely audible whimper as she got out of the car and followed her friend inside the house.

Every inch of the house was filled with teenagers, obviously drunk, dancing – or grinding on each other as the music blasted loudly throughout every part of the house, Danielle wouldn’t have been surprised if she noticed strobe lights later that evening. It was obvious that Trevor’s parents were out of town for the weekend and they had no idea about this party.

“Danielle!” someone shouted, in an attempt to compete with the volume of the music, she looked over at the person only to be greeted my Trevor, “I’m so glad that you made it!”

Danielle smiled, “I’m glad that I came!” she shouted back at him. Danielle looked down and noticed that he was clutching a red plastic cup. She sighed as she guessed what was in the cup.

This is going to be a house full of drunks by the end of the night, she thought to herself as Trevor grabbed her hand and let her downstairs to the basement.

If you thought that the living room was bad, the basement was even worse. There was a huge stereo that was blasting the music that was filling the entire house; there was double the amount of alcohol down there than there was upstairs, and it didn’t help that there were teenagers using the support beams as poles to “dance” on.

Jeez, where did he get all this beer? He’s only 17, Danielle thought, looking around at the huge table filled with snacks and drinks.

“So, since you haven’t been to one of my parties before, food and other drinks are upstairs in the kitchen, music is over there,” he told her, pointing over to the stereo, “but I think you figured that out,” he laughed, “if you’re looking for something more illegal, though, just come to me and I’ll show you,” he told her with a wink.

Danielle laughed, trying her best to humor him. She didn’t know if he was joking about the “illegal stuff” but she didn’t want to take that chance.

“oh and if you’re looking for a place that’s quiet…you could always go outside and hang out. You might be able to get a room…but I wouldn’t recommend that,” he told her chuckling.

Danielle laughed, “yeah, I kind of figured that.”

“Hey, yo, Trevor!” called one of his friends from across the room, “come over here! You have to see this!”

Trevor chuckled as he looked back at Danielle, “I gotta go, but in the meantime, mingle…have a good time.” With that Trevor left to go talk with his friends as Danielle made her way back upstairs.

Great…now I have to mingle? What the hell am I supposed to say? Hi, I’m Danielle! I don’t know if you know me or not because I like to keep a low profile during school because I don’t want people touching me or else I’ll freak out!, Danielle thought to herself, sarcastically. That wouldn’t work at all.

She tried though; the walked around the house, made comments if a conversation struck her as interesting but never went out of her way to start an intense conversation with someone. An hour into the party and Danielle had already made her way outside onto Trevor’s front steps. The night air was nice and cool and it felt good against her warm skin. She liked the peace and calmness of being outside alone.

That feeling didn’t last forever though, next thing she knew the front door opened and out walked Trevor. She looked over at him and the state that he was in almost made Danielle want to vomit; it was totally obvious that he had just finished doing something with someone. His hair was messier than usual, his black and red checked flannel shirt was completely unbuttoned and his belt was open.

She shuddered to herself as he made his way over to her, having a drunken strut to his step.

“Heeey…there you are,” he slurred, his voice louder than it needed to be. He was a step away from Danielle when he stumbled, nearly falling on top of her. Danielle moved her body out of the way, not wanted him to touch her as Trevor fell on the grass, “I’m okay!” he said, quickly getting up.

“That’s good,” Danielle mumbled.

“So…what are you doing out here?” Trevor asked her, snickered lightly, as he sat down next to her.

“Where did you think I would be?” she questioned, looking at him.

“I duunno…maybe…in a room with someone,” he admitted, smirking, though Danielle didn’t catch it.

She scoffed, “I’m not that type of girl,” she shuddered at the image of her actually doing something like that with someone.

“Really? Why not?” he questioned her. What was wrong with him, he was acting like it was a bad thing that she was still a virgin. Was it so hard to believe? She was so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed that Trevor had gotten closer to her, their bodies practically touching.

“I don’t know…I’ve never seen the appeal before, and I’ve never found the right person,” she explained to him.

“I can change that,” he told her, a-matter-of-factly, wrapping an arm around her lower waist, and the other hand running his fingers along her jaw down to her chin. Danielle froze and her jaw clenched. Every part of her that he touched felt like there was a line of fire trailing down her body. She wanted to scream.

Before she knew it, Trevor led her up and back into the house, his hand still on her hips. Her body became ice cold and she could hear her heart pounding against her chest as he forced her upstairs and into his bedroom. She would have tried to get away from Trevor’s grasp…if her brain was able to function correctly.

“This is going to be fun,” he muttered with a smirk, throwing Danielle onto the bed, closing the door, taking another swig from his red plastic cup, placing it on the nightstand.

-----

Oh my God…oh my God. I can’t believe that just happened to me. I can’t believe he actually did that to me… Danielle thought to herself, clutching the pillow against her chest, curled into a ball, competently exposed on the bed. She laid there as she sobbed onto the pillow. She hated the feeling, it felt as if every part of her was on fire and she couldn’t stand feeling like that.

Trevor sighed as he finished getting dressed, “I’m so glad I’m going to remember that, to bad after that... you aren’t going to want anything to do with me ever again…”

Danielle finally stopped crying and glared up at him, “I’m going to throw up.” Her face twisting into a look of pure disgust, referring to both, the face that her body felt more than just uncomfortable, but also to the fact that Trevor was the most disgusting people she had ever met. She couldn’t believe that someone who had acted so nice earlier that day could turn out to be a guy that only thinks of women as sex objects.

Trevor motioned his hand to the plastic cup on his nightstand, “feel free…you’re going to need it,” he told her moving to the door, “oh and don’t throw up on my bed.” With that he walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving Danielle there in a state of frozen shock.

When she finally got the energy for get of the bed and move around the room, she went over to the Trevor’s cup. Hard liquor would help calm her nerves, right?

She took one sip from the cup and spit it out on his bed. It was water!

“I. Can’t. Believe. Him,” she growled to herself as she dumped the rest of the cup’s contents onto his bed, “he wasn’t drunk at all!”

I’m getting the hell out of here,” she thought to herself, putting her clothes back on and making her way downstairs and out the door. She was going to walk home. Sure, it would take so much longer, but at the moment, she could care less.

When she got home and walked in, she was greeted by her parents.

“Honey, what happened to your friends?” her parents asked in unison. She just looked at them, glaring.

“Call that Therapist! I’m going to take a shower!” She shouted, as she made her way upstairs. Her parents had been debating for a number of months if they should have Danielle see a Therapist about her fear, or not. They tried everything to try and understand what Danielle was going through. She had convinced her parents to not call the Therapist because it wasn’t to bad and she could manage. After tonight, Danielle thought that she needed to talk to somebody.

As she was walking up the stairs to her bathroom her parents were calling to her. Wanted her to talk to them, tell them what had happen, if she was okay. She didn’t bother responding to them. She didn’t want to talk right now. She just wanted to get clean.

Once in the shower, she turned on the water, striped from her clothes and got in, letting the soothing warm water hit her skin. She let her mind wonder, why had Trevor done that to her? Why did he invite her to the party in the first place? Had he been planning this from the start…and inviting her to his party was an excuse. Maybe to him, acting drunk would make what he did to her perfectly fine. Well, it didn’t.

When she was finally clean to her liking she got out of the shower and began drying off.

She let out a blood-curdling scream, and began sobbing into the towel, “I can still feel him!”