Chapter 12

Sutter's POV

The morning after Fuller's party is rough. I'm not projectile vomiting like my sister, but my head is pounding. I guess I didn't realize how much I drank, especially after my talk with Lilly. Isn't it crazy how someone can sober you up but then make you feel drunk too?

She did that to me.

    I hear Jo gagging again in our shared bathroom and I can't help the little laugh that slips out. I'm definitely going to remind her about her embarrassing attempt at flirting with Jesse last night too.

     But all joking and teasing vanishes when I think of Lilly, and that she admitted to me that she did cocaine and ecstasy. Ecstasy is bad enough, but I've heard of a couple people trying that or whatever, it's not as hardcore as cocaine. I wonder if her and Denny had sex while she was high on E. Does that count as raping her? Can I get him arrested for that?

     I'll have to research.

     But her doing cocaine, absolutely blows my mind and breaks my heart. The girl I knew before I left, wouldn't have touched drugs with a ten foot pole. She couldn't even watch that TV show intervention without getting all worked up.

     I can't imagine her snorting anything into her beautiful body, especially something that is harming her. She's too good for that, and I just wish I knew how to show her that.

I hear Jo flush the toilet and then brush her teeth. She lays on my bed when she's finished and puts her hands on her forehead.

"Feeling better?" I ask. I'm a little upset she was drinking last night, but I'm underage and was too, so it's not like I can tell her she shouldn't.

"I'm never drinking again." She declares.

"How much did you drink exactly?"

"Way too much apparently. I drank the same amount as Lil and she was perfectly fine. I must just be a light weight."

     My sister and Lilly are close to the same size, Jo just maybe being a couple inches taller. Lilly was about 5'4 and had the athletic body build even after not playing sports for a while and having a baby. Her body should only be able to handle as much as Jo's, if not less.

     "Can I tell you something and you keep it only between us?" I ask, wanting to confide in her but only if I knew she wouldn't blab about it. She's not normally like that, but this isn't the usual shit we share between each other.

     "You know you can." Looking at me with questioning eyes.

     "Lilly can probably drink more than me and not be drunk. She did a lot of that while we were gone apparently, and some other things too." I still just can't picture it.

     "What kind of other things?" Jo asks quietly.

     "Well Jesse told me the reason she and Nadine weren't close anymore was because Lil had started using some drugs. I asked her about it last night and she admitted to me that she used cocaine and did ecstasy a couple times." I say a couple but I know it's probably more. I just like to think it wasn't a lot, and I don't want to upset Jo too much.

     "No.." She whispers, and I see tears fill her eyes. "Last night when we were talking, it was amazing, you know? We still had that same bond we had before, but I could tell she was still hurting over us leaving. But she was doing so well and we were laughing together and everything. I thought she was doing okay now?"

     "She is doing better now," I say trying to reassure her, because I see she's starting to panic. "This was before we came back. She started getting better even before then. But she was really torn up for a long time, I guess she didn't know how else to cope. And it's not like Denny was really trying to help her." I could literally kill him and not lose a wink of sleep for not trying to help her out of this mess. If anything he only made it worse.

     "We did this to her." Jo says, and she starts to cry.

    I take her in my arms and try to comfort her. "You didn't do anything, it was all me. Mom and Dad only did what they thought was best for me, or mom did anyway. But it was my decision to leave. I know mom would have stayed if I said I didn't want to leave her. This is all on me, not on you."

     "I could have tried harder though," she cries into my shirt. "I tried to call her the first couple of months we were gone, but after her ignoring me for a while, I just gave up. I never should have gave up."

     "Jo you were thirteen years old, you didn't know any better. We went through something you weren't prepared to see. Don't blame yourself."

     She finally calms down after my words and starts sniffling. She pulls away and looks up at my ceiling that is still covered in glow in the dark stars that my dad put up when I was seven. I went through an intense obsessions with space and being an astronaut.

     "So what do we do now?" She asks quietly.

     "What should have been done in the first place. We're going to be here for her and we're going to let her know that none of this was her fault. I think she just feels so alone, and we need to let her know that's not true."

     Jo nods her head in agreement. "And what about Denny? He came up to her at the party last night and cussed her out and basically told her she needed to leave because you and I were there."

     "He said that to her?" I ask, getting angry again. "She didn't tell me that part. She just told me he was ignoring her and flirting with some other chicks."

     "She probably didn't tell you because she didn't want you getting so worked up like you are right now. He did go off and do that too, but only after she cussed him out and told him he wasn't the boss of her."

     "Did he say anything out of the way to you?" Im secretly hoping she'll say yes so I have another excuse to beat his ass.

      "Not to my face, but just indirectly to her. But it's not like she stood there and took his shit or anything. She gave it right back to him."

     "Good. He obviously needs more of that."

     "Now that you say that about the drugs thing," Jo muses, "he did seem really frantic or fidgety. And he had this bat shit crazy look in his eyes. I don't know, he was acting super weird though. Maybe I'm just being dramatic though, I was already plastered at that point."

     "Speaking of the shit you did while you were drunk.." I trail off suggestively.

     "Ugh god, do I even want to know?" She covers her face, preparing for whatever I'm about to tell her.

     "Jesse made some little comment about you looking good and I told him not to think about it, to which you wiped the throw up off your mouth and told him you definitely hoped he thought about it after you weren't such a mess." I was pissed about it last night because someone hit on my little sister in front of me, but thinking about it now makes me laugh.

     Jo doesn't say anything, but just gets up off the bed and starts to walk out of my room.

     "Where are you going?" I ask, hoping she's not mad at me for telling her that.

     "To drown myself in the bathtub, I cannot live with this kind of mortification." She replies dramatically, and walks into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

     I laugh again at her theatrics and realize this is the happiest I've been in a really long time. I know it's because I'm finally back where I'm supposed to me.

     All that's missing is Lilly beside me.

                                        ••••

    It's been three days since I've seen Lilly and I'm going crazy. I've seen her almost everyday since I got back in town, and now it's like she's just vanished.

      I even went and ate dinner at her work place the other night in hopes of seeing her, but she wasn't there.

     I want to seek her out but at the same time I want to give her space and not overwhelm her or anything.

                                       ••••

    It's been five days now and still no sign of her.

     I've gone to her job two more times now, trying to see her again but she still wasn't there. I thought about asking someone else who worked there when her next shift was, but I didn't want them to tell her and her feel like I was suffocating her.

     I've also attended to two parties and she wasn't at those either. Everyone is throwing them like crazy around here because the kids know this is our second to last week of freedom before school starts back up again.

     I said something to Jesse about me being worried about the fact that she wasn't showing up anywhere, but he said it was normal for her to go AWOL for a couple of days and then show back up randomly.

     He tried to convince me that maybe she was taking some time to herself to make things better for herself, work on some self improvement. He also told me that at least we knew she wasn't at these parties and getting drunk and high every night like she used to. He had a point there, but I just didn't agree with him.

    Something about it just didn't feel right.

                                            ••••

    Finally after day seven, I had had enough. I was going crazy with worry, and confided in Jo about my concerns.

     She agreed that something seemed weird and we should at least check on her if nothing else. If we saw her and she was fine but just wanted to be left alone for a while, I would give her that.

    I just had to know.

    Jo and I hid in the woods beside her house, and waited till both her parents had left for work before sneaking into her house. I knew their garage code from back in the day and hoped they hadn't changed it. I knew they usually kept the garage door unlocked if the garage was closed.

     And thank my lucky stars, the code was the same, and the door entering their house from the garage was left unlocked.

     We walked into their house and I was hit heavily by some nostalgia. I had spent a lot of my child hood in this house running around with Lilly, when our families ate together for dinner, or her dad was gone on business and her mom didn't care if I came over.

     "C'mon, lets go before anyone else comes back. This is already illegal enough without us getting caught." Jo says, snapping me out of my reminiscing.

     We go in the direction of the stairs, and turn for her bedroom when we get to the top. I can see there's some fresh drywall on the wall where they seem to fixing a hole, and there's a carpet shampooer on the floor by the stair railing..

     Jo cracks her door open, and I peer over her head to look inside her room. I see a breathing lump under the covers on her bed, and I instantly relax at knowing she's okay.

     "Okay, we saw her and she's fine, now let's go." Jo whispers quietly.

     But I want to see her face. "Just let me look at her and then we can go."

     "You're a creep you know that?" Jo says, and rolls her eyes at me.

    Oh well, I still want to see her.

    I tip toe quietly in her room, not wanting to wake her up. When I reach the side of her bed where she's laying, I see her face relaxed and breathing.

     Then I start to notice some bruises. Lots of bruises. And cuts everywhere. And there's a white bandage on her head.

    I don't think, I just rip the covers off of her, wanting to know what the hell happened to her.

     She sits up abruptly, startled by me. She screams and covers her face and body as best she can.

     "Lil it's me!" I yell trying to calm her down.

    She puts her hands down and looks at me in panic. "Sutter, what the hell are you doing here? You need to go, please." She starts trying to yank the covers back over her body, but I grab them out of her hands and throw them in the floor.

     All she's wearing is a T-shirt, and her legs are covered in bruises and scrapes too. Someone hurt her, and when I woke her up she thought they were back.

     "Tell me what the fuck happened, now." I seethe, and notice Jo walking into the room to come and see whatever has me so mad.

     When she sees Lilly's face she gasps, and covers her mouth.

     "Nothing you need to worry about," Lilly snaps back at me. "Now please, leave."

     "If you think I'm leaving after seeing you like this then you don't fucking know me." I'm so mad my body is shaking and I'm grinding my teeth so hard I'm afraid my jaw bone is going to snap.

    "Why not? You left me before, and I can promise you my inside looked a lot worse than this!" She yells back, knowing her quip about me leaving will upset me.

     "Lilly please," Jo cries. "What is happening to you?"

     Her eyes soften at Jo, but she doesn't answer her.

     "Either tell me what's going on, or I call the police and take your ass by force to the emergency room. We aren't leaving this fucking room until you tell me the truth." And I mean every word, and she must realize it too.

     She breaks down and starts crying, sobbing. Jo leans down and wraps her arms around her, crying too. She doesn't know what's happening, but she knows whatever it is, it's not good.

     "Please tell us, please. We can help you. We can do something about this, you shouldn't be going through this. Please Lilly, please." Jo is begging her, and I'm standing there like a statue hoping my sister can break through to her.

     "If you tell me who is doing this to you," I tell her, "I'll make sure they never do this again, and they get what they deserve. I promise."

     "How can you promise that?" Lilly asks, looking up at me with nothing but detrimental fear and sadness in her eyes. And I want nothing more than to make it go away and never come back to haunt her again.

      "Trust me, please." I croak out, and feel my eyes start to fill with tears.

     I don't know what finally gets through to her, but she takes a deep breath and opens her mouth with the words.

     "My Dad did this. He's been hitting and beating me ever since I was younger. It's got worse though, recently."

     Her words hold so much emotion and years of resentment and fear.

    And with that admission, my whole world fucking crashes. Because I left her here, and sent her right back into this house with these people.

A/N she finally told!! If you ever think or know someone in this situation, please help them in any way you can!! You can never understand that fear until you are in that position yourself. People who admit who their abusers are, are so brave and strong, and deserve nothing support from the people around them!