Perfectly Dysfunctional

“Can you hurry up and finish already?” Emma whined down the phone.

“Hey, I did say you could come if you wanted to,” I defended, “I told you I’d be here for ages.”

“Jenny, it’s half ten at night. Do you even understand that concept? I’m all alone!” I had been at the University’s library and computing centre since about five o’clock that day. Even though Christmas was only a few days ago and my assessment week had been and gone, I had essays to hand in after the New Year, and I figured I should get it out of the way as soon as I could before the New Year.

“I’m not coming home, not yet. I’m almost done,” I sighed. My eyes were killing me, making my head pound and there was no doubt in my mind that my eyes were a little bloodshot.

“Ugh, Jenny,” she moaned, “Seriously, come on; I’ll get someone to pick you up!”

I laughed and stretched back in my chair, flicking my hair away from my eye as I adjusted the phone at my ear, “No,” I laughed, “Nath’s coming to get me in like, an hour anyway, and I’ve only got another hundred-odd words left.”

She sighed, “Well only if you’re sure?”

“Positive; look, I’ll send you the text he sent me.”

“You better,” she laughed, “Alright, I’ll see you soon!” When I hung up I quickly looked through my recent texts and found the one I was looking for before forwarding it to Emma.

I’m still with Jay, I’ll come get you about half eleven? ;) Don’t work yourself too hard :)

“Right, one hundred words; here we fucking go,” I rubbed my eyes then grabbed another journal, flicking to the pages that I needed before typing again. From then on, the words came to me surprisingly easy, and I finished only twenty minutes later. I saved my work and printed it out, so I could proof-read it at home before logging off. I spun from side to side on my chair – I had over half an hour minutes to kill before Nathan would even be close to here. I sighed five minutes later and grabbed my phone, dialling his number.

“Hi you, you had enough?” he answered making me laugh.

“I’m finished,” I grinned, “But I got bored waiting. Would you mind coming to get me?”

“Not at all, I’ll be there in about ten minutes?”

“Thank you,” I grinned, “I’ll see you soon then, bye,”

“Bye, love you,” he said then hung up, but his words rung around my head.

Hold.

The.

Fuck.

Up.

I quickly ended my side of the call then put my phone back into my pocket. I tried not to be dramatic and stereotypical and so fucking girly about the whole thing, but he did just say the words ‘love’ and ‘you’ in the same sentence. I shook my head; you’re tired, just get home and get to bed. After about three months, I guess it seemed a reasonable enough time for it to be said if it ever needed to be said, but I’d never even really been put in that situation, because after everything that’s happened to me, I gave up on love. That and every ‘relationship’ I’ve ever been in haven’t lasted more than three weeks, never mind three months. After five minutes of these thoughts swimming around my head despite me telling them not to, I rolled my eyes at how pathetic I was being and gathered my stuff before heading outside to wait.

When I got outside I was shocked to see the ground covered in freshly fallen snow, and it was still falling gently. I grinned and relished in the freezing blast of air that hit me when I used my student card to open the door. I pulled the sleeves of Nathan’s hoodie that I’d stolen from him for the day down over my hands. I quickly made my way over to the side of the building and sat on the small ledge that jutted out the lower side that had been sheltered from the snow, so at least it was dry. Turning my student card over in my hands as I waited, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and hit answer.

“Hey,” I smiled into the phone.

“I’m gonna be another five minutes tops, the ice on the roads is actually unbelievable,” Nathan said.

“That’s fine; I’m outside already so just take your time.”

“Alright, I’ll see you soon,” I could tell he was smiling as I hung up

I smiled and kept my phone in my hand, playing around with it and my card until Nathan got here. I glanced up to the sky where the snow wasn’t falling as gently anymore, but was falling more thick and fast. I hoped Nathan would be alright, but I knew he’d be careful even if I hadn’t seen him all day. I heard a noise to my left and snapped my head towards it feeling my heart rate pick up, and suddenly I found myself wishing that Nathan would drive only a few miles per hour faster. I became more alert and decided that staying in the shadow of the building wasn’t such a good idea, so stood up and headed further out into the snow and over to my right where Nathan would stop the car for me to get in. I stood under a lamppost and looked back at my footsteps on the snow. Glancing quickly back to where I heard the noise I relaxed a little when I deemed no one to be there and so turned to face the entrance and made patterns in the snow with my feet. I loved the snow. I loved how sometimes when you walked on it, it would crunch under the weight of your feet, or sometimes it would make a sloshing noise when you scuffed your feet along it, or – when you got really good – how, if you walked a certain way, it made no noise at all...

And that was precisely what someone behind me had been practicing.

The footsteps were only a few steps behind me when I finally heard them; a loud and fast thudding. My heart dropped to my stomach and I spun around to face the footsteps hoping against hope that it was some horrible prank – but of course, I had no such luck. I was grabbed around my back to keep me close to them and their other hand covered my mouth. I screamed through my throat as loud as I could with a strain on my vocal chords in a desperate attempt to be heard. I struggled against their grip around me, pushing against their chest. I bit at their hands but they stayed strong so I raised my phone as high as I could what with having my arms restricted, and aimed to smack them in the head, but managed to get their jaw instead. They reacted a little and as soon as their hands were off me I pushed against them and managed to get away. I turned and ran as fast as I could through the snow towards the exit, but as soon as I built up some speed, I felt the hair being pulled from the back of my head then my foot being lifted from beneath me. I fell forward, dropping my phone and card. I screamed and tried to crawl away, but they grabbed my hair and pulled me up by it, wrapping their hand around my mouth again, but I managed to bite down hard on their finger, so I could taste blood. They growled out in pain as they wrenched their hand away before almost instantly grabbing my head with both hands and connected it with the pole. I yelled out in pain then felt hot liquid pouring down my temples and watched with blurry eyes as red blood dripped onto the bright white snow below me. Tears sprung to my eyes and I choked a little as I coughed and tried to stay conscious. As if they knew I was fighting it, they grabbed my head and threw it into the pole one more time, and this time I was surrounded in blackness before I hit the floor.