HAVING 13

MISSY
April 3rd 2005

Tomorrow, I was being released. I had a great deal of pain doing pretty much anything.

Shannon and I spent some time together in my room. Darren pestered me some more and Mam apologised but I felt the underlying threat beneath her words.

When I was left alone in my room a bit longer, I decided to try and walk around with my crutches a bit. I grabbed them and stood from the bed, but a knock came to the door. Perfect timing. I sighed and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

"Come in," I yelled weakly.

The door opened to reveal the last person I would've expected.

Taylor Reilly.

"Hey," She greeted.

"Tate," I acknowledged her.

She was my best friend who gave me the cold shoulder when I left Taggart.

"Oh my god." A hand covered her mouth as she let the door shut behind her. "I swear I didn't know, otherwise I would've helped you, Melissa."

"I know." I shrugged. I couldn't really sympathise with her guilt. She'd left me, after all.

"Your hair's so long," Tate observed. I nodded. She was the one who cut it short two years ago. "And it's brown."

"Yeah, well, I'm not that same girl anymore," I said with an awkward smile.

She smiled back.

It hit me.

"What are you doing here, Tate?" My smile fell.

"Huh?" She laughed awkwardly. "I'm visiting you. I heard about what happened yesterday."

I sighed. "From who did you hear it?"

She stayed silent.

"From who did you fucking hear it?!"

"Tag! I'm sorry, okay?" She took a step closer. "He has a bunch of shit on me that could get me arrested."

"I have a bunch of shit on him as well, and you knew that, yet you chose his side after the breakup," I argued.

"He literally knows the deepest darkest thing I've ever done, Missy. It's worse than what you have on him."

"You don't even know the fucking half of it!" I exclaimed. Why was she speaking on my experience and invalidating it?

"What? He hit you every now and then? I literally tried to kill someone," She weakly told me.

"He didn't only hit me sometimes, for the record. The only reason I got with him in the first place is because he raped me," I admitted it. For the first time, I called Taggart's cruel attack on my youth what it was. Rape. "It's amazing to me how much you can say when you don't know what you're talking about."

She furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"

"At the Christmas party in 2002. We met and I was blinded by him. He was nice to me." I got up from my bed again. "I wasn't used to that treatment. I was also really high and too drunk to function. He took advantage of my naivety."

"Jesus Christ, Melissa. Are you hearing yourself right now?" She almost laughed in my face.

What?

The first time I told someone by myself and they didn't believe me?

"I know someone who witnessed it," I defended myself.

She laughed then. "You're mental."

"Get out," I demanded.

"Taggart knows where you are, bitch." She walked out in a hurry.

I was on the brink of a panic attack. She used to be my best friend. How could shit turn this sour? She didn't believe me.

Just as I thought I had a few more minutes of calming down to myself, more knocking sounded on the door.

"Yeah?" I weakly let it pass by. It was Claire and Lizzie.

I wasn't that close with them at all, but I guess they decided to pass by after visiting Shannon.

"Hey," I said to them as they came in. Claire immediately teared up and Lizzie gave me a nod.

"Oh, Missy, we're so sorry we didn't intervene before it got like this," Claire rushed over to me and gave me a tight hug. I winced in pain. She let go quickly. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

"No, no, I'm grand. Just bruised ribs. Pain all around," I laughed it off. "Thanks for stopping by."

"Of course. Gerard told me to tell you to stay strong and keep fighting." She hugged me again, but softer this time. I knew Lizzie wasn't the hugging type. We just shared a few words.

"Hey, can one of you get me some more soda? I have to have a lot of sugar," I apologetically asked. I was still getting used to asking for help.

"Yeah, sure, I'll get it." Claire left the room in a hurry, going off to find a vending machine.

I sighed, laying back down.

"Hey, which bone is broken? Shannon said she doesn't even know," Lizzie suddenly said.

I swallowed. "My pubic bone. He hit it while kicking my stomach, I guess," I easily lied. "They did surgery. I need crutches."

She squinted and furrowed her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

"Look, Lizzie, if he did do that to me, you wouldn't be the first person I told, okay? But he didn't." I snapped. She was pushing it.

Being defensive would only confirm her suspicions, right? But she bullied Gibsie. I noticed it when I sat with Johnny in lunch and in general when the entire friend group would hang out.

She had something against him, and he was possibly one of my best friends at the moment, so, yeah, I didn't trust Lizzie Young. I was sure she had her own complex reasons to hate him and to be angry at the world around her, but that didn't at all mean it was okay to be so mean.

She scoffed and got up from the chair she'd previously settled on. "I was trying to help."

"I don't need any help," I told her.

She left. Claire came with the soda but left immediately after. I sighed.

Not my monkeys, not my circus. But my little sister and my boyfriend were also one of the acts, therefore I couldn't completely ignore it.

Bullshit. I had more important shit going on.