BELLAPresent Day. I struggled to open my eyes to the darkness, slowly gaining back my consciousness. I couldn't see or move my arms or even scream. I tried to move around but my feet and arms were all bound up and I had little or no space to wiggle about. I tried screaming but the rag tied over my mouth only muffled it. The air from inside the trunk was mouldy and stale, and barely enough. For someone who really hates the dark it was suffocating me. He injected me with something after we drove out of school, and I was mostly asleep tucked in front through out the ride. But then I came to consciousness when we entered a dirt patch road. It was then he hit me in the head and stored me in the truck of his car. Silent tears rolled out of my eyes as I struggled again only to end up hitting my head hard again. The pain magnified the full throb from his earlier blow. This was it. Like Audrey, this was my turn to die. How could they let him out after what he did to her? Now he has th
LUKADo you believe in superstition? God? Or the man made belief that we could predict the future or know when something is wrong in the present? Some call it gut instinct. You know that feeling you get when something bad wants to happen, a premonition for either good or bad, mostly bad. That anxious nagging feeling that never goes away even when you ignore it, and will probably cost you when you successfully do. Something was wrong. I can feel it deep in my bones. The cold metal feeling of the necklace that I returned recently and has somehow found its way back to my possession didn't feel so comforting as it used to. Why did she drop it in the car park and who was the man she left with? She didn't even turn to look at me, so I didn't get a glimpse of either him or her, but the way he gripped her shoulder, there was something off about it. At first I went back to class and ignored the fact that she just left school premises with him but she didn't come back till the day ended, s
LUKA"You can't go in there, he is in a meeting," the flustered secretary ran after me trying hard to stop me but didn't catch up to me. I opened the door with a loud bang not bothering to knock. True to her words,my father was seated behind his huge glass top table at an online meeting. He raised his head to stare at me and pursed his lips in disappointment, but didn't say anything to me until he excused himself from the meeting. It's been a day. A whole day now that Bella has been missing.She was all alone and hurting somewhere and it was driving me crazy. This was partly my fault. I asked her to meet on the field and then I left her there. I should have made sure she didn't just leave with a stranger in the middle of school. But like a fool, I convinced myself that I didn't care anymore about what she did or was going to and look at where it led me to now. It took losing her like this for me to finally admit to myself that I can't live with her. We filed a complaint at the p
LUKALub. Dup. Lub. Dup was the rythmic sound that came off the machine that was monitoring her vitals. She looked frail and pale lying there with these huge machines hooked up to her. She had a bandage wrapped around her head. There were bruises all over skin and a huge purple one on the side of her face. My fingers traced the bruise on her wrist where her hands were tied and my lips kissed them gently, trying to soothe the skin with my lips even though she wouldn't notice. She was unconscious when we brought her in yesterday.We had found her in a deserted warehouse up in the mountains a 3 hour drive away from the city. One minute they were asking me to wait in the car with the rest of the security operatives, the next minute I was charging in when I heard the gunshots. It had taken all my willpower to enter that warehouse, knowing that what I might see might be her corpse but I entered. The image of her lying down there unconscious with her hoodie off in just her bra, blood pour
BELLA My head felt woozy and heavy as I fluttered my eyes open. The room instantly felt too bright and I closed them immediately. I opened my mouth to call for help but a strangled sound came out. My throat felt so dry and parched that I really needed water. I moved my hands around the bed to search for any clue of where I was before I gave away the clue that I was awake when my hands felt it. My fingers brushed against soft locs that glided against my fingers easily. I opened my eyes slowly to see the owner of the air, taking my time to adjust to the light in the room. I know that set of brown locs anyway I ever see them. The owner was asleep with his head on the bed beside me. I looked around the room, to see a drip stand on my left and a machine hooked to my right arm. Luka raised his head and I watched his eyes widen in shock, then wonder, then fill with tears before he started to hug the life out of me. For a second he must have forgotten that I was sick because his han
BELLA The door was pushed back forcefully and it cut me off from my private moment of tears and self loathing. There he was standing in front of my bed like my knight in shining armour. I heard he was the reason I was home. And even though refusing to accept his love profession wasn't really a good way of showing gratitude, he still made my heart beat. "What is rule number one?" His voice was clipped and he looked furious. Do not cry alone. "I don't remember." He didn't believe my lie but he reminded me, "Do not cry alone. If you're going to cry about this, I'm going to stay, if you don't I'll leave." "What's it to you?" I screamed and threw a tantrum. "When you were gone, I had time to think. About why you never wanted to be the source of attention or have photos or videos of you posted anywhere. It was why you made that deal with me, and I did do my part and you committed to being my pet. Did you forget about that?" You've got to be kidding me. "You're not invoking the
What are you thinking about?" I jumped back in shock and dropped the grape I was eating and it plopped on the floor. "What did he want?" Luka asked again and I rolled my eyes and bent to retrieve the grape fruit and dispose of it properly. This was all his fault. "Why do you care?" "Because it made you sad." "All of a sudden you care? You did not care when it was you making me sad." He flinched back like my words cut him and it just made everything even much worse. "That's why I want to prove to you that I'm in love with you." My heart skipped a funny beat but I ignored it. I can't get used to the funny feeling I get everytime he says that. The shirt he had on was unbuttoned at the neck. The white shirt contrasted well on his fair skin and I could see a peak of my necklace on his neck. On anybody else it would look tacky but not Luka."Did you arrange this welcome party?" I ran cold water from the tap to rinse my hand and it gave me something to stare at for a while instead of
BELLAHow do you know your bad boy is in love with you? He'll say random sweet things that have you blushing like a fool and falling even deeper in love with him.I put my hand into his outstretched own almost tentatively and lowered my eyes to stare at my feet. His gaze, the way he was staring at me was making me hot all over. My hands felt swallowed up in his bigger ones and I love the rough feel of mine in his. My hands were rougher, because of Basketball and all the numerous injuries. It surely wasn't the most lady-like pair; all soft and demure but I liked the feeling of mine in his. He opened the side door and I raised my eyebrows in question, "really?" He chuckled, "Yes I'm planning to be the perfect gentleman tonight." "Chivalry doesn't suit you LuLu." The name slipped out with a soft chuckle before I could remind myself of the numerous reasons why we weren't friends. He entered the red Porsche and gave me a wink, "I'll take you calling me Daddy over Lulu, you know that r
My hands trailed on the rough skin on Bella's thigh with so much concentration that I didn't miss it when she flinched away. The loving and tenderness that I have spent the last one hour coaxing into her skin was gone. In its place was the rigid straightening of her spine and shoulders, an indication of how tense she suddenly became, almost as if she knew what was coming.The last six months we have been living in a bubble. I had accepted that it was okay for her not to say those three magical words that used to make my heart soar back to me, but lately it's been getting to me. Or maybe it's the way she never wants to talk about the 2 year gap in our relationship, or the baby we didn't know we had but lost. I want to know if she still secretly blames me for what happened. If every single time she sees the scars she hates me the way I do myself. I didn't mean to but I sighed loudly, my shoulder drooping before I rolled her body away from mine and got up padding softly to the bathroom
"I'm really sorry for the part I played in this. Especially knowing that you saw everything that happened that night. We staged a ruse and didn't take you into consideration and for that I'm sorry. Luka is my friend, and all I want is for him to be happy. He means so much to me that's why I came here and I told you my side of the story, it's up to you now whether you believe it or not." Erica ended and got up to leave. I couldn't bring myself to nod or acknowledge her. She had shown me proof that she was after all in a relationship with someone then, who was a professor at their school and telling me this could put her in trouble but she had chosen to do it anyway. I don't know what I was expecting to feel when the 'proof' came, but I'm not sure it's this. If I don't have the usual anger or person to blame for all my predicament then where do I stand? What is this deflated feeling I have in my stomach? Like a balloon punctured at the far end. "Bella," Luka began after a whi
The ride down to Luka's place was one of the most uncomfortable rides I've ever had to endure. My reference to his trysts with other girls was like an elephant in the room. It made me irritated and angry but he looked sad and kept giving me glances which I acted like I wasn't aware of. It was a different apartment from the last one which came to me as a suprise. But what I didn't expect was to see a fur covered, energetic dog launch at me. It did occur to me to go back to the shelter and ask about her wellbeinh after I got out of the hospital but I always assumed she would have been adopted or have moved on without remembering who I was. The moment she saw me she barked loudly and ran to me, wagging her tail. She remembered me, and that made me so warm and happy inside. I spent the next few minutes sitting there on the floor of Luka's studio apartment recieving her licks and hugs and reciprocating her love with my belly rubs and hugs. It took a while before she went on to greet Luk
Life was slowly and steadily returning to normal. Did I cry alot after that phone call with Luka? Yes. Did I fight the urge to go to him and be sure he is okay concerning the pregnancy bombshell I dropped on him? Yes. Did I think he'll show up after that night and actually accept responsibility to apologize for the way every thing turned out? Again Yes. But he didn't. Somehow, whatever I said to him must have resounded with him because he stayed away just as I asked. And it took a while but I took a day at a time. I showed up to classes, I smiled when it was necessary and went to as much of the freshers parties I could go to while my therapist tried to make sure I didn't loose my mind. Day in day out, I told myself that now that I have confronted Luka with all the hurt and the pain, I didn't need to see him again and I was happy that he didn't show off so why was he here now and why did I feel the familiar warmth and twinge in my chest that was usually there whenever I was near h
LUKAKnowledge isn't always power, it's sometimes pain. The kind that has you buckled over like you were kicked in the nuts. Nothing about this all consuming pain makes knowing about everything feel powerful. l feel powerless. With no single idea on how to fix this. My eyes burn and my wrist hurts from drawing and painting all day today. I also felt weak all over. When I drove down to Bella's dorm room last night all that was going on in my head was that I needed it not to be true. That there was a way out, a slim ray of hope that still gives me a redeemable chance but it had turned out to be the opposite of that. Not only had the details of what happened over the one year that I had stormed into my dad's office to get, found out to be true there were also more. Like a baby, a child between Bella and I that had miscarried. So much has happened, and I have no idea how I'm going to fix it. I haven't slept in almost 72hours. From the flight down home, to the flight back to going to
BELLA"Who is there?" I snapped. The loud noise coming from the person banging at the door repeatedly and forcefully echoed around my little room. "Who is there?" I called out even louder than earlier and was met with no response, just continuous, loud, pounding on the door. I thought about ignoring the person since they didn't answer me, and also because it was too late at night to be calling on someone since it was raining heavily. I grabbed my phone, "if you're not going to answer, I'm calling Campus security." The knocks and pounding stopped for a while after my threat and I heard the person curse out loudly in a strange language that wasn't totally foreign to me, since I knew the accent. Before I could come up with a solution, the loud knocks continued. I opened the door intent on giving the person a piece of my mind if it was who I thought it was and I was right. It was Luka. He was standing there soaking wet from the rain with his teeth chattering from cold and his eyes re
LUKAI woke up with an insane need to vomit and shot out of the tiny bed, searching with my eyes for the nearest toilet before I did it all over the floor. I barely made it to the toilet bowl before I found myself puking all over the cramped toilet floor. I puked and puked till I started to retch and my entire body felt weak and tired. Where the fuck am I and how did I get there? I lay back down on the cold floor, a little farther from the mess I just made but close to the toilet seat, and rubbed my head trying to remember bits and pieces from last night. It was the same thing from the last few days. I went out to drink, then Dylan joined me and the night ended with me drinking to stupour basically.I looked around the room, the toilet floor did look clean and I had zero energy to lift my body up right now anyway. The patterns on the floor of the toilet were faded like it had been scrubbed off due to use. From my position on the floor I couldn't see past a flowery pattern shower c
BELLA"I ran into Luka at school." I tried to make my declaration as unimportant as possible so that my mom wouldn't be alarmed or throw a fit and I must have succeeded because she didn't say anything. She was putting away the groceries and if not for the slight pause in her movements I would have thought she didn't hear me. "Ma, did you hear me?" I asked just to be sure. "It's been more than two weeks now why are just telling me?" My mouth opened on its own when she said that. "How...how did you know?" I managed to stammer out. "Are you having me followed?" I chuckled at the question, "nah, we don't have enough money for that." "Seriously mum, how did you know?" "Why else did you put your head on my laps and was crying some weeks ago? And what else could be the reason behind you moping? The only reason you're telling me now, is because you're moving to the dorms tomorrow." Wow. Nothing ever passed by this woman. Nothing. As in Zilch, Zero, Nada. "Just because I didn't say a
LUKAI threw my bag to the floor and fell on the couch like a sack of potatoes before sighing loudly. Sam, who when she heard the door open ran up to me wagging her tail in excitement followed me now to the couch and I stretched to pat her on the head. It did make me feel good everytime I walked in and there was always someone excited to see me. I barely had any time to think about my sad life and everything that happened today; from seeing Bella earlier to her running away, to me going back to school to finish up some school work to coming back home.But I know that I'm tired, very much so. I really think it's more mental exhaustion than physical. I guess I deserved this cold treatment but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt cause it hurts like a bitch. I got up and trudged to the fridge to get a bottle of water and the moment the cold liquid entered my stomach in protest it grumbled. I haven't eaten anything almost all day. I opened the fridge to search for something I could eat