Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

and literally pierce me. “I don’t want you at all.” His words knock me over. I fall back onto my bottom. The ground is damp.

I look at Ridley, he is shaking, his hands and lips are quivering. I think he’s going to cry. He hasn’t cried since he was eleven, not even when his grandad died, and he loved his grandad. He looks really scared. Really sad. I feel bad that I’ve made him feel this way. That not wanting me is weighing so heavily on him. I know this is weird and I should just hate him, but I don’t. I love him. All I ever wanted was to make him happy. To be happy with him. I’ve known him since before I can remember knowing anything. He is so familiar to me. He is the boy for me. I watch him withdraw. It hurts as though I am being split in half. “How can I mean nothing to you now?” I ask. When we were that. All that.

“I dunno, but you don’t.” He stands up and looks longingly back at the party. I know he wants to be there. Probably with Evie Clarke. He does not want to be with me, or to be a dad.

“Have you told anyone?” he asks. I shake my head. “You need to tell your mum. She’ll sort it out. You have enough money to fix everything now,” he says over his shoulder as he strides away.

I can’t watch him walk. I turn away, and clamber onto all fours, like an animal. I start to puke. My vomit is cocktail-colored. Red. It looks like blood is pouring from my mouth. I’m sick and sick and sick until I’m just retching and spluttering and there’s nothing more to bring up. I don’t know if I’m being sick with the pregnancy, or with the alcohol. I know, lousy combo. Maybe I’m just sick because of life. My eyes are closed as I can’t face the world. But then I hear footsteps behind me, scrambling through the brambles, twigs and grass. I freeze.

Ridley has come back! My heart lifts again. He’s come back! Maybe to apologize, maybe to hold me close. He’s come back and it will be okay. I quickly wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. He won’t want to kiss me if I’m covered in vomit. I don’t want him to see me crawling on all fours, surrounded by puke and self-pity. I need to get up, look a bit dignified, look a bit sorted. As I move, something hits me from behind. Really hard. Sudden and unexpected, I think a log has fallen from a tree above and bashed me. It’s like accidentally belly flopping into a swimming pool when you are trying to dive. Hurt and shock invade, but the pain is not on my belly but in my bottom as though I’ve literally been kicked up the arse. Instinctually, I scrabble away from the pain. As I do so I put my palm flat into my vomit, which causes my arm to slip and give way beneath me. Whack, another hit. Terrified, I think the sky is falling in. I cannot control my limbs. I crumple and fall flat to the ground.

Instantly, frenzied hands are all over me and I understand it’s not logs falling, not the sky. It’s more ordinary than that. I’m being assaulted. It’s a man, or men. I’m a young girl in a leotard. This sort of thing happens all the time. I start to scream, but a hand is clamped over my mouth. I wriggle, I struggle, I try to bite the hand, but tape, thick blue tape, is wrapped around my mouth and eyes. In just seconds, I’m made blind and dumb. I still kick out and try to push them off me but there’s two, three, maybe more of them. Men. Not boys. I can smell them and feel their rough hands gag and bind me. My heart is thumping against my chest cavity, and I think I’m going to split wide-open in fear. They tie my feet together, they tie my hands behind my back. It’s fast and unspeakably terrifying. I’m powerless. They straddle me and I think they are going to rape me, but realize that they are just subduing me. At least at the moment. They are probably going to take me somewhere else to rape me. I’m sobbing but neither the tears nor the sound can escape. I think I might suffocate. I am so utterly petrified, more petrified than I have ever been in my life. This is a million times worse than the beating in the loo, this is a million times worse than the blue tick on the window of the pregnancy test. This is the worst thing I can ever imagine. I beg them to let me go, but they can’t hear me because of the tape. And they don’t care. I’m hauled up and two people carry me between them. I think I’m going to die.

“Shut the fuck up and stay fucking still or you’ll regret it,” says a man’s voice. I believe him. I want to be quiet now because he could hurt me more, but I sob and kick, my body flaying and bucking uselessly. Then someone punches me in the stomach. I’m too winded to shout out. Then I smell something odd, like at a dentist.

CHAPTER 34

Lexi

In the Uber, the effects of the wine and the punch start to wane, and I immediately feel the responsibilities of my family, of my life, settle back on my shoulders. I shouldn’t have just taken off without telling anyone where I was going. What was I thinking? Just because I felt a bit lonely and neglected at my party isn’t a good excuse to bail. I check my phone, feeling guilty that I hadn’t looked at it whilst I was with Toma. However, there are no messages for me. Irrationally, the