Ch. 2

Rachel tried as hard as she could not to cry. Everything was fine, it was probably just Nadia trying to stir up trouble because she liked doing that type of thing. Jason still loved her. . . right? Rachel tried to not let this bother her. She would walk back into class with her head held high. She would get through this day, just like she got through all the other ones before Jason had been there, keeping her head down, trying to be inconspicuous. Which now was kinda hard, seeing as every girl in the school knew her as Jason's girlfriend. There would be questions, and that was exactly what Rachel was trying to avoid. Questions were hard to answer. Especially one's about her face.

Rachel had always been quiet. She hated causing people trouble, and if she started going around and saying her step-father was abusive, most people in the school would think this was attention-seeking, and Rachel hated people (girls) who did that. She considered them the fakest of the fake. Rachel banged her hand against the steering wheel. No matter which she chose, there would be questions, and she'd rather face the ones about why she and Jason were out of school, then the ones about her face. Rachel shifted the Kia Soul into gear, and drove out of the school parking lot. Heading home right now was probably not the best idea, so Rachel drove to the only place she could think of, the Centreville Beach.

Rachel lived in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. She didn't think the name suited the life she was living. Honestly, Mount Doom would be better, and she could get in that Tolkien terminology. Rachel loved to read, and that is exactly what her step-father hated. He hated having a "weak, girly bitch" as a daughter and a "scummy pill popping wife". He hated them. What Rachel's mom saw in him, Rachel would never know, but what she did know was that her real father left her when she was small because of her mom's pill popping habits. Rachel had one memory of him, he had just gotten off of work, and Rachel had been waiting outside the house for him because her mom had locked her out. He swung her up in his arms, and kissed her head, making her feel so much better. He had then proceeded to get Rachel safely up to her room, and started yelling at Maria, Rachel's mom. The sentences that stuck in Rachel's memory forever were the words, "Rachel is too good for you. How she still loves you, I don't know, but this is it. I'm done." That was the beginning of the end for Rachel's perfect life. From then on, she was on her own.

As Rachel stared at the water, a thought struck her, what if she and Jason just left to go to New York now? Why was she staying here? Sure her mom needed her to take care of her, because she was pretty much incapable of doing anything herself, but what else was tying her to Mount Doom? Rachel stared at the waves moodily. Sure, she could leave, but invariably, something would pull her back home. She just couldn't go. Armed with that thought, Rachel decided to blow off the rest of the money she had earned that summer, and treat herself to a fun day. Maybe get a mani-pedi. Suddenly she realized something, at the beginning of the summer, her step-father had asked for her account password, Rachel had refused, so he had continued to beat her senseless until he told her. Rachel had forgotten about that. Trauma has a way of doing that to people, you lock away everything until all you remember are the pleasant things or nothing at all. He probably had gambled it all away. Rachel remembered how proud she had been, finally supporting herself, saving it all up for college, and now, it was probably all gone.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.' Rachel thought. 'I am going to kill him if he did that. I literally worked my fuckin' ass of doing all that summer work.'

But as she thought this, she knew, that she could never win against her step-father, she could only submit, and she hated that. Driving back, she headed home, inwardly preparing herself for his rant about how much of a bitch she was, and she hated herself for it.