Help Me

"Caitlin? You home?", I yell as I step through the front door into our small shared apartment. Actually, small is a little bit of an understatement. It's pretty tiny, but it's only the two of us, so it works. "Brooke!!" I only just hear the yell before something blonde and fluffy is pushed into my face. It takes me a few seconds to realize it's Caitlin's hair. I break the hug, coughing and spluttering with exaggeration.
"Caitlin, I think I just swallowed at least 5 pieces of your hair!"
"Well I knew you loved me, but that is a new extreme!"

We both giggle as we collapse onto the couch. "Soooooo, how was your day?", Caitlin asks, looking at me closely. Feeling a bit uncomfortable, I reply "It was fine, I guess. I've handed my resume to that coffee shop manager at least six times, and he chooses to 'misplace' it every single time!"

Caitlin's still looking at me with that weird expression on her face. "Cat, what are you doing?" I ask, waving my hand in front of her eyes. "Oh, sorry!" She jumps and looks away, embarrassed . "Nothing...". I don't believe her at all. "Cat, is something wrong? Are you ok?" I'm starting to get a little bit concerned. "Oh, I'm fine...", she says, looking at me. "But what about you, Brooke? How are you?"

Ugh, not this again!
"God Cat, I said I'm fine! It's been six months since I last saw him, I've moved on, ok?!"
She sat back, a little bit shocked by my outburst. I buried my face in my hands, and then looked up at her.
"I'm sorry for snapping Cat, I just want to move on with my life and forget about everything he did to me", I said with a small sob.

"Oh honey, I'm sorry!", she said, moving closer to me on the couch, and wrapping me in one of her famous hugs that could cheer me up no matter what mood I was in. I spoke into her armpit as she hugged me. "I'm just so over all that shit, you know? My arm's finally out of the cast, and all that's left of him is scars and broken bones."

Let me explain it for you, ok? Six months ago, I finally had the courage to break up with Jake. I don't even know how I saw a loving caring boyfriend in him. The first two months of dating were perfect. Pure Disney movie material. But after that, when he started to come home from the club later and later, more and more drunk, a different side of him emerged. I don't really want to go into detail, but i'll tell you this: After a year and a half of abuse, sixteen visits to the hospital and six broken bones, I finally had the courage to break it off. Along with three police officers and my best friend standing right behind me. He was never arrested, they never had enough evidence of the abuse to get him behind bars. And so I live every day with a slight inkling of fear hidden at the back of my mind. I don't know where he is anymore, and nor do I want to find out. I just keep living my crazy hectic life, trying to forget all about him.

I think sometimes Cat feels guilty about what was going on between me and him, because she never knew. She never understood why I had to replace my bottles of concealer so often, or wear long sleeves after coming back from a night at his house. She never knew, until she walked in on me in the shower, and saw the purple bruises blossoming across my stomach and up my ribs.

We've been through a lot, Cat and me. But now, we're just two 19 year old fans of One Direction, trying to make it through uni and life together.

Notes

Hey everyone :D So I know no one's going to ready this, but this is my first fan-fiction! I've been a ghost reader on this site for ages (sorry to all the amazing stories I read and didn't vote), but now I'm on study leave and finally got the guts to start my own creation. So here you go, hope you enjoy it!

Half_a_heart x