11Tell anyone and I'll kill you.
She can feel his eyes on her, boring into her backside. She knows he's smiling. No, he's smirking. He's always smirked when he's face to face with her, why should now be any different? She doesn't want to look, she's too scared, but she looks despite herself. He looks so smug with that smirk on his face and he's staring at her with those piercing, blue eyes. She hates those eyes. They're so cold, so threatening. To her, anyway. To others, he looks innocent, like a boy flirting with a girl he thinks is cute, but Celia knows better. He's not innocent, he's a monster, and those eyes, they're not flirtatious, they're threatening. That gaze is his way of telling her to keep quiet or she dies.
She tears her gaze away from his, unable to look at him any longer. She wants to scream, to cry, to hit something... anything. She wants to feel, but she's just numb, hollow. She wants to be, anyway, because feeling numb would be better than the way she really feels. She's terrified. She's terrified because she can't escape him. He's everywhere.
"Earth to CeCe," a very familiar male voice says. She looks up, only to see her boyfriend waving his hands in front of her face. Her boyfriend, who doesn't have a clue. "You okay, babe?"
She wants to say no. She wants to scream at him, to tell him she's not okay. She wants to tell him everything, but she can't. She promised she wouldn't because if she does, she loses her life, but hasn't she already? It feels like it because she doesn't have control anymore. He does.
"Of course," she lies, plastering a smile onto her face. It's not true what they say. Faking it isn't easy... it gets harder every day. She doesn't want to smile. She wants to cry, but she can't. She's tried. "Really, I'm fine, Vin," she says when her boyfriend still doesn't look convinced. Vincent Leonardo, that's his name. They've been together for almost a year, but she's known him practically her whole life. She hates lying to him, but she has to. Not just for her safety, but for his, too, because if he knew, he'd do something stupid, something he'd regret. She can't let him.
"Okay, good," he eventually says, but Celia can tell he's still not convinced.
He leans in to kiss her. She winces when his lips touch hers, but he doesn't notice. He never does, and she's thankful for that.
She forces another smile after he pulls away and seats himself beside her. She tries to focus on what their English teacher, Mr. Preston, is saying, but she can't. She tunes him out, too caught up in her own thoughts to focus on anything else. She isn't sure how long she can keep up this charade. She flinches whenever Vincent touches her arm. She tries not to, but she can't help it, and she hates it because she has no reason to be scared of him. She trusts him, but trust is a very fragile thing and can be broken easily, by just one person. He affected her trust in other people, made her lose her faith in humankind.
It isn't fair to Vince. He deserves a girlfriend that doesn't flinch when he touches her and want to scream when he kisses her. How he hasn't noticed, she'll never understand. It's been two months. He's smarter than that, she knows it, but maybe he's just being the good guy that he is, maybe he's just trying to understand. She wouldn't put it past him.
She tries hard not to think of that and focuses her attention on Mr. Preston. The focus lasts only seconds because she can still feel his eyes on her. Blake's eyes.
Blake Pierceson, that's the name of the boy that has been staring at her, the boy that has been her boyfriend's best friend for five years.
He's also the boy who raped her.
Yes, that's all for this chapter. Things will pick up next chapter, honest.
Before you read what's below, I'd just like to say that I'm not trying to preach. I'm really not. I'm just saying what a lot of people I know are thinking.
I would like to say right now that I do not plan on actually writing the rape in as a flashback. I will mention a few of the things that he said, but I am not comfortable with writing out what happened in excruciating detail. If I tried, I'd flinch every time I typed.
Also, I was going to wait until my final author's note to say this, but something that I heard about the other day has me wanting to say this now. Rape is a very serious thing. It's not something that should be taken lightly... ever. When someone jokes about rape or molestation, I feel sick to my stomach. I want to ask that person how they can possibly find rape funny, even it is just a 'harmless' joke. It's not a joke. Any one person standing around someone making a 'joke' about rape could be a victim. Take that into consideration.
Also, if you know someone who has been molested or raped, please talk to them. Report it. Help them. Don't just sit by and do nothing. You might be saving another life by helping the police put away a rapist. We may not be able to save everyone... doesn't mean we shouldn't try.