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*TRIGGERING TOPIC*

A/N: This is not in the published version.

Just so you know.

Here's the new chapter. Please vote and comment.

* Read with caution, triggering topics.*

__________

The sun had started to set once the show was officially over. I hadn't spoken much throughout the rest of the show, keeping to myself. Ronnie was aware of this sudden mood change, but she only failed at trying to bring my mood up. She offered going to Beverly Hills, thinking that looking at botched nose-jobs would cheer me up. I shook my head and told her that I didn't want to go at a time like this.

In the back of Heath's car, while driving over to Dion's apartment, Dakota sparked a conversation with me and placed his hand on my shoulder. I merely shrugged him off and continued to stare out the window, watching the trees blur past us and the pedestrians walk by.

"Silvia?" Dakota sat back. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." I left it at that, not wanting to start something I couldn't finish.

"Are you mad about something that happened at the gig?" He asked, titling his head to get a glimpse of my next expression. But I was blank, emotionless. A gut-wrenching pain was growing in the pit of my stomach, processing the sad reality that I loved him, but couldn't even get him to say we were together. "Are you mad about what I said before those cover songs?"

"I'm not mad about that."

"Then what is it?"

"Drop it," I ordered in a low tone. "I'm okay."

Dakota had just started to say something in response when Ronnie stepped in. She turned around in the passenger seat. "Stop pestering her about it, Dakota. If she doesn't want to talk about, then respect that choice. You being a jerk will not get her to speak."

"I wasn't being a jerk," Dakota seethed. "Why don't you butt out of our conversation? I wasn't talking to you, Ronnie. I was talking to Silvia."

"You're talking at her. She hasn't responded to half the stuff you've been saying to her, so give the girl a break." Heath joined in.

The rest of the ride over to Dion's apartment was awkward, to say the least. Dakota scooted away from me and I didn't mind it. I was glad that I could have more breathing room. A thick fog always formed when he was alarmingly close to me. I never thought straight. There was no way I could concentrate with his body that near.

I was grateful when we got to the apartment complex in one piece. The argument hadn't picked up after that intervention. After opening the car door, I took my bag of clothing and other essentials. Once I was out of the car, I regretted my decision to spend some alone time with Dakota.

The short trek to the correct building number and then up the steps felt as if I was walking for an eternity. Countless times, my mind played out how I imagined the next few hours would be. For some reason, I was praying that morning would come soon. Maybe I could pretend that I was tired and wanted to go to sleep.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Dakota opened the front door with his free hand. The other held his coat, hanging off two of his fingers over his shoulder. "What do you want to do?"

"Sleep." I lied.

He glanced at me with an arched brow. "Sleep?"

"Yes. Sleep. I'm really tired."

"It's barely six."

"I'm aware of that." I threw down the bag and sat down on the lumpy, red couch, beginning to remove my shoes and peeling off my socks. "It doesn't matter what time it is; it doesn't change the fact that I'm tired."

The strap of his guitar bag fell off his shoulders. He rested against it the wall connected to the kitchen, turning himself toward me. "What's the deal, Silvia? You can't pretend there's nothing wrong because I know there's something you're not telling me."

"I already told you-"

"You aren't sleepy," he boomed, stepping closer. "Say you're mad, you're pissed, annoyed, even yell or scream at me-do anything. Be honest. Somethings running through your mind and I'm tired of trying to decode what you mean, Silvia."

"You're the one who is confusing my words as cryptic. There's nothing for you to decode, Kota."

I packed a punch behind my last word, just like how he said my name. From the looks of it though, he didn't seem to be backing down. He crossed his arms over his chest and harden his glare.

"What do you want me to say?" I barked. "That I'm angry at you?"

"I'd rather take that any day than have you lie to my face."

"You're psychotic," I scoff a laugh. "I risked getting caught by my father and getting grounded-and for what? This idiotic cycle of arguing? Why the hell do I put up this?"

"That's a good question. Why do you?" He sidestepped away from the front door. "No one's stopping you from leaving. It's your choice if you want to run home to daddy."

I huffed loudly, rising from my seat. "You know what would be an even better question would be? Why you want me here to begin with?"

His hand flew to the bridge of his nose, pinching it in distress. "You can't honestly be bringing this shit up again at a time like this. We've already had this argument and I don't want to waste the first real time alone we've had in a long time on fighting."

"We never came to a conclusion on that argument."

"Yes, yes we did. I stated that I didn't need to tell you what my intentions were since I didn't know what I wanted either. All I know is that I want you, for as long as I can have you. Is the fact that I want you around not a good enough reason?" He didn't wait for my response back to his words. Taking another step, he erased the remaining space between us. The frown on his face had partially melted, but there was a stern, serious gleam in his eyes when he put his hands around my back. "Why is it so hard for you to accept the fact that I'm not going anywhere and that you have to deal with it?" He smirked.

"Maybe because the last person I let in did a lot of damage once they got the change to. I thought he was a friend. It ended up really messy. I almost had to move schools because of it. I don't want to trust the wrong person and get myself back in the same situation."

"Give me the address of who did that and I'll pay them a visit."

I laughed. "You shouldn't resort to violence."

"This time I would be using violence for a noble cause." He mused, swiping his over my cheek, holding my face into his left hand. "No one hurts my doll."

"I'm not yours. You don't own me."

"God, Silvia. You know what I mean. I don't mean that as if you're my property. You take shit too serious. Stop being difficult woman." He rolled his eyes, playfully with a smile. "What was it that cause you to almost change schools? Does this have anything to do with why you're in California now?"

I shook my head and sat back down on the couch. He followed after me and took the empty seat beside me, resting his arm around my shoulder. "No, the reason I left Maine is a completely different thing. I was talking more about this friend I had back in middle school. We were close. I told him everything because there was no one else I could talk to. But right after I had opened up to him, he turned around and told the whole school what I was going through at home."

"That's awful." His brows lowered, dropping his hand down to my hair and pushing it off of my bare shoulders. "Is that what you're afraid of with me? That I'll tell people if you start opening up with me?"

"I don't know what you'll do..."

"Hey." He turned my body around so I was directly in front of him, cupping my face into his hands. "I'm not like that person. I will never, ever hurt you. No matter what it is. I'd rather I got hurt than to see you in any kind of pain. You can trust me."

"I do trust you...sometimes," I added, moving away from his touch. I relaxed back into the couch and folded my hands on to my lap. I needed to compose myself. Sobbing in front of Dakota wasn't an option. "I don't know where to start though. There's a lot."

"Whatever you feel comfortable talking about. If that's what you want. And if you don't want to tell me at all, I'm perfectly fine with that as well. We can watch TV and laugh until we forget about this conversation."

I smiled at his answer.

I eased back into his arms, resting my back against his chest. I couldn't look at him while I told him. It would make everything a lot harder to talk about. Things were better this way, not seeing his first reaction to things.

"Right around the finalization of my parents' divorce, my mom got involved in some pretty awful things, dealing with awful people to match. I knew she took prescription pills religiously before the affair my dad had with Evelyn. She didn't think I knew about it, but I was an observant kid. After the divorce, she changed from popping pills to doing cocaine--and then once coke got too expensive, she got into meth. I don't think my mother was ever happy with my father, but she was content enough. She was hanging off of this thin wire, and when he left, that wire broke inside of her. She changed drastically, attracting the wrong kind of people. One of those people happened to be Jared Reynolds."

"Was Jared a boyfriend of hers?"

"You could say that. He was the one she got her drugs from most the time. That's how he first got connected to her. She had introduced him as her friend. But then he started sleeping in her room, and then started helping pay bills. We saw more and more of him. My brother, naturally, didn't like him because the guy was an ass. He pushed my mom around, giving her bruises and black eyes, but she kept him around anyway. She was under his thumb, constantly borrowing his money. She was in his debt. I didn't necessarily have a problem with him until I caught him watching me change clothes through the creak in my door." I sighed. "I was almost thirteen at the time. He apologized when I caught him the first time, saying he got lost. I knew he was lying. I let it slid though. After that point,  he got bolder."

"What the fuck? Did your mom do anything about his?"

"I tried to tell her once, but she told me that what I was saying couldn't be true. In the end, I didn't have any proof. He never tried to touch me. Other than that, he kept his distance...until he started bringing people into my bedroom, offering me to them." I gulped loudly, blinking at my foggy vision. "Apparently my mother had owed him a lot of money because of all this gambling she started to do and that there were a few guys he knew who wanted to 'meet' the daughter she talked about. He made sure my mom was high out of her mind when it first happened. I tried to struggle. It was three against one. I was only about thirteen. It didn't matter how loud I was, she couldn't hear me. She was down stairs, getting lost in her own addiction while I was screaming for my life. I cried, I screamed, I fought, but he only held me down until they were done with me. They took turns and then rotated me around like was a piece of meat."

"This happened more than once?"

I bit down on the inside of my cheek, nodding my head. "After the third time, I taught myself to stop crying. I pretended like it wasn't happening. I told myself that this was the last time and that I would find a way to leave this house, either by running away or ending my life. It got worse, Kota. You can't believe how worse it got. I had lost all the fight in me at that point. The last time it happened my brother walked in on them. Jared thought he was out with friends that night, but he came home instead. He saw them in my room and he didn't rush at them. Instead, he sprinted to my mother's room and retrieved the riffle my mom kept behind her bed. When he got back into my room and started pointing it at the guys, they didn't get off of me quite yet. They questioned if he could even pull the trigger. They were laughing. They even dared him to do it, knowing he wouldn't. Before I knew it, there was a loud ringing noise and a body fell limp on top of me. The back splash of blood was all over me and my room-I was frozen in terror at what I saw. I threw the guy off of me. Jared and his other friend managed to get passed my brother. By the time the cops came, we explained as much as we could to the cop. It was marked as self-defense. Jared was later on found and charged for his crimes. They never could find the third guy."

"What happened with your mom?"

"She was taken away from us and after she finished her time, she went through rehab. My father's paid for it. I changed schools and stayed with my father and grandmother in New York for a while. Once my mother was able to see us again, she begged for us back. I didn't know why at the time, but my father let her have us. She was a lot better once Jared was gone."

"And your brother?" Dakota asked, interlocking his fingers with mine. "I can only imagine what kind of trauma he'd face after killing someone."

"He was wrecked after that night. He replayed it over and over again for years. My brother is the kindest person you'd ever meet. Witnessing that death coupled with seeing me in that room with those men really fucked with him. He let his inner demons take over. He got obsessed with numbing his pain like my mother. His mental health got so bad that he checked himself into a mental hospital in Connecticut this year."

"The good thing is he's getting help." Combing his hand through my hair, Dakota inhaled deeply. "I know my father's done some awful things, but I don't think I could forgive someone like your mother. Have you?"

"I'm indifferent with her. I don't hate her or anything. She's who she is for a reason. She was going through a bad time."

"You can't honestly not be mad at her for letting that happen to you."

I shook my head. "She's still my mother."

"Yeah, a shitty mother, Silvia. She shouldn't even be allowed to see you after that." He snapped. "I can't believe that fake friend of yours you trusted told the entire school this and didn't try and get you help."

"I never told that friend what was really going on. I told him about my mother, but I never told him about what Jared was honestly doing. I might've hinted at it, but I never went in to great detail. I never even told my mother everything that happened. If anything, the cops only know about that one occasion."

"So I'm the first person you've told, completely?"

"Yeah." I nodded and stretched my arms in front of me. "And before my thoughts start getting darker and darker, I'd really appreciate it if we start watching something funny to drastic me."

He snatched up the TV remote and flipped it on, quickly pausing to kiss my cheek. "At your request. If you want to talk about it any more, I'm here for you."

I brought our interlocked fingers up to my lips and kissed the back of his hand. "I know."

___________________ _ _

Song: Sullen Girl by Fiona Apple

Lyrics:

❝I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea. But he washed me shore.

And he took my pearl and left an empty shell of me.❞

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