Chasing Happy Endings [Rumple]

I can feel my pulse around my eye. It looks awful as I look at my reflection in the side of one of the smooth silver pots. The black and dark purple discoloring looks horrendous, but I'm used to bruises. I bruise fairly easily and back when I was trapped in the room with my mother, she gained hundreds of bruises over the course of a very long time, so I guess that's where I get my tender skin from. I've never had a black eye, though, so this experience is new for me. I raise a finger and lightly brush it against the discolored spot, only to recoil back from a sharp pain that springs up around my eye. I groan quietly and grit my teeth. Uncle would have a fit. My eyes quickly cast a glance all around me to make sure I'm alone, but I hear shuffling in the kitchen; the clanging and scraping of pans, pots, and ladles.

I step away from the pot and sidestep around the bar, heading toward the stairs to go up to my room. Lise is probably still sleeping, but I can creep around quietly so she won't know I'm there. But later, what if she asks about my eye? It's an unavoidable question. People are going to ask me what happened and I have to tell them something - but what?

Jeremy Jason made it perfectly clear that he could beat me to a fleshy pulp in a matter of seconds, and I believe him. It didn't take long for him to get beat me into submission - all he had to do was slug me in the face and shove me up against a wall and he had me cowering down from him. I'm so pathetic. I bite my lower lip as I climb the stairs, my shoulders slumped forward and weighed down with defeat. I couldn't even stand up against him. He beat me down too quickly and just.... dammit.

I'm so furious at myself - glaring at the floorboards icily, consumed with self-hatred - that I forget that Lise is in my room when I open the door. Seeing her there so suddenly makes me jump back, completely startled; my back hits the wall and I instantly recoil forward from the sudden pressure, thinking that I've run into someone (or that Jason's pinned me up against the wall again), so I quickly jerk away from the wall, crouching down and bringing my hands up to cover my head.

And here I am, cowering in complete fear again.

It takes a moment for me to realize that I'm okay, that no one is here to hurt me. When I open my eyes a sudden rush of pain comes to my blackened eye, but I ignore it, quickly taking inventory of who - and what - is all around me. It's just my room. Lise is the only one in here. I see her standing there in her night gown, which quickly brings a shade of red to both my cheeks. "Lise- I... uh... I-... sorry..." I quickly avert my eyes from her, looking down and away at the floor again, taking a hand to act as a shield to my eyes.

It’s like being a bug under a magnifying glass, trying to hide but there’s nowhere to run. I know exactly why I’m cowering down from Lise, but she has no idea… she doesn’t know what monster is waiting for her downstairs. A monster who is playing her like a puppet on strings. She can’t go with him! But what am I going to do about it? … nothing. All it took was a punch to the face and being shoved up against the wall – that was enough to have me submissive, whimpering, belly-up. I mean, I know that I’m not a fighter because of certain reasons, but if he took me down so quick and easy, what will he do to her? I can’t let her go with him, I just can’t.

She starts drilling me with questions and apologies. I just shake my head and keep my eye hidden as best I can, but she catches it. And mentions it. ”N-no, it wasn’t you. Don’t be sorry.” Oh, well now I just made it suspicious. ”I, uh…. I fell down the stairs this morning… You weren’t awake when it happened.” I’m hoping that this excuse will suffice her enough to ease up on the interrogation, but she goes full swing into apologies. Still hidden behind my face, I answer her as best I can. ”You didn’t do anything, Lise. I-I don’t even care if you accidentally did, and of course I’ll forgive you. You’re-… you’re all I have too.” Which is why I don’t want you to go off with that Jeremy kid. But she won’t know – she can’t find out. I want her to be happy and apparently – somehow that I don’t understand – makes her happy. So I’ll let her be until he decides to step out of line, and then I’ll come down on him. Hard. And with a vengeance.

But for now, I’m stuck cowering before my best and only friend, shielding the black eye and then nearly jumping up when she asks if I want her to leave. ”No!” I realize that I pretty much yelled my answer and that my face is completely uncovered now. It would’ve happened sooner or later, exposing my black eye, so I get over that and try to fix my sudden outburst. ”Er… I mean, if you want to go, I won’t stop you, but I don’t want you to leave. You’re not a nuisance, you’re my friend.” I set a hand on the wall and slowly get to my feet, hunching my shoulders forward, embarrassed at how I had reacted. Overreacted, really.

My hand stays on the wall and I still can’t bring myself to turn my gaze to look at her. Even though she reassures me that she won’t leave, I can’t help but feel a small twinge of worry. What if she does leave? Like my issues are just too much for her to cope with and she walks away? What will I do then? But what she says is right: if we’re all the other has, there’s no way we’re going to lose hold of each other. I know I certainly won’t be leaving her anytime soon, especially since-… um… I kinda…. yeah.

”Oh Turtle, I want to hug you so badly.” I want to hug her too, but right now I’m so shaken up by what Jason did to me that I’m too scared to get any closer to Lise. She’s never hurt me (aside from last night, but still, that wasn’t anything) and I doubt she ever will, and I even trust her a good deal, but right now I’m just too worried that anyone will hit me. I give a small nod and am then left in the hall as she closes the door, I guess to get dressed or something. It gives me a few moments to catch my breath and regain my composure, but I’m sure that as soon as I go back downstairs I’ll just lose it again.

A dull pain emerges in my abdomen and my hand quickly clamps down on it. No, no, not now. Sometimes the pain gets so bad that I can only curl up in a dark corner and cry until it passes, but I don’t want to do that now. I’m already in a rough spot and I don’t need this phantom pain to plague me. I’ve enough on my plate already.

She emerges again and I quickly straighten back up, determined to not let the pain show. I don’t know if she knows of my phantom pains and frankly I don’t want her to – not because I don’t like her because I do (maybe more than I should), but because I don’t want her worrying about me. Uncle already does that enough.

I nod once again, taking my hand off the wall. How is she so cheery? I don’t get it. After all the things she’s been through and what she’s currently dealing with, she always manages to keep that bright smile on her face. Something that I can never do.

Lise starts to head down the stairs and I hesitantly follow, staying close behind her. I know what’s waiting for me downstairs: a severely pissed off Jason, ready to make sure that I stick to my word of leaving him and Lise alone, to not try to interfere. As my feet hit the ground floor I keep my gaze down, listening in as he greets her and she returns it – but then she points out his hand. I feel a cold shiver of fear run through me and I quickly look away, my face paling and thoughts running wild. Please don’t notice me, please don’t notice me…

And then there’s an unmistakable “crack.” My gaze snaps up and I see Lise’s arm extended out and Jason recoiling back. The rage on his face is extremely obvious. For a moment I’m frozen in place, staring wide-eyed and horrified at what’s happening before me. Lise is defending me. She screams at him to not mess with me, but how did she figure it out? That Jason was the one that gave me the black eye? I swallow hard, still utterly astounded that she actually struck him for my sake all the while I had thought she liked him. But then he retaliates, striking a hand across her face and then grabbing her hair, jerking her head back. Calling her a “dumb bitch.”

Lise is not a dumb bitch. Lise is my friend – my only friend. She cares for me, and she even attacked him because he had hurt me. And… and she had called me her Turtle. I’m hers. She’s mine.

Lise’s mine.

My hands curl into tight fists at my sides and my jaw sets tightly. Lise’s cry is what rouses up my anger, all that hatred that’s lain dormant for so long. It all rises to the surface and I’m overwhelmed with the urge to do something – to help her. But how? I’m not a fighter; whenever I’m in a tight spot, I run. I don’t care about the consequences, I run for my life. But List is trapped and I’m not going to leave her behind, so there’s only one option left: fight. Protect. It’s just like when I stood up against her father.

I suddenly charge at Jason, ducking down and wrapping my arms around his midsection. He stumbles and falls back onto a table, which then shoots sideways out from under the weight of us falling. Jason lands on his back and I end up on top of him, but as soon as I can, I sit up on his stomach and my balled fist quickly strikes against the side of his face repeatedly. He claws as my arms and tries to hit me back, but then I put both my hands around his neck, squeezing as hard as I can and using my body weight to push his neck into the rotting floorboards.

”Don’t you ever touch her again!” I snarl, suddenly overwhelmed with vengeance and hatred. I grip onto his neck and pull him up, slamming him back down onto the ground and trying to close off his windpipe with the heels of my hands. "I'll fucking kill you!"