The shrill scream that left Tahlia's lips resounded all around the hallway, drawing strange glances and hushed whispers from all the people passing by.

She pulled away from the doorknob quickly, swiveling to face the other direction in a heartbeat.

Her eyes were widened to their utmost extent, her mouth parted agape.

No. No. No.

A shaky breath of disbelief left her lips, her eyes squeezed shut, as her face twisted like she'd ingested bitter lemon zest.

It hardly took a minute before the sound of the door grating as it opened came from behind where she stood, making her flinch a little.

She didn't dare turn around.

"Oh come on Tal, you're not going to look at me?"

She bit down on her lip inadvertently, her eyes still glued close.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she turned around, releasing a hefty exhale of breath as she opened her lids. Her face was as red as a farm fresh tomato.

Her eyes were met with the sight of her best friend fiddling with his belt, trying to fix it along with his jeans haphazardly. His lean torso was fully bare.

"I..What..Do..I-" Tahlia stopped herself from mumbling any further incoherent phrases, licking her lips, her face still heated up.

"I can explain that." Jace reasoned breathlessly as he attempted to his comb his disheveled sandy blonde hair with his fingers.

Tahlia was at a loss for words.

Perhaps for the images of her best friend butt naked were now permanently etched into her brain.

His lips pursed, "Okay, say something Tal, it's not the end of the world."

Her eyes snapped up towards his,

"You were having sex with my roommate on my bed, Jesus Jace, what do you want me to say!?"

"I'll get you new sheets, hell, I'll get you a new bed."

She shook her head, her glassy eyes holding a fleck of resentment, "I was worried Jace. I was worried sick! No one's heard from you in three days and.." She cut herself off, inhaling a deep breath to compose herself.

"And what? I'm not 12, I don't need anyone to check up on me."

Tahlia looked up, part surprised part exasperated by the hint of unbefitting annoyance in his voice, "Where were you anyway?"

He scratched the back of his head, "About that.." His gaze travelled around the hall, uncomfortable.

"I went to the DKB party, and I.." He coughed, his tone hesitant,

"..May or may not have done some intense molly."

He huffed, raising his brows, "Next thing I know I've been there for two days. Oh and get this, apparently I even spray painted the frat douches' gate when I was blacked out." He laughed, going on a different tangent, only returning to his point after being shot a hard glare from Tahlia's way.

"Uh..yeah, so I came back an hour ago. I came here to your room and you weren't there."

"Molly?" She spat, "You were out doing drugs?"

Jace ran a hair through his tousled hair, a dry laugh leaving his throat as he shook his head cynically, "Jeez Tahlia, as if the anti-sex PSA wasn't enough, now we have the 'say-no-to-drugs' campaign? Besides it was just molly, it's not like I was shooting up heroin or something."

Tahlia's jaw clenched as the phrase 'shooting up heroin' entered her ears, sending tendrils of murk crawling down her spine.

Her mind went numb as multiple images flashed in front of her eyes.

First, an achromatic recollection of the woman she'd fearfully call mother, lying motionless on the kitchen floor invaded her mind. Albeit, the focus of the image wasn't the woman herself, but the little hypodermic needle sticking out of her arm.

Then came the grim memory of her sister; thick, crimson blood trickling out of her ears, staining her dirty white pillow with the godforsaken hue as her lifeless baby blue eyes remained fixated onto the ceiling.

And last, there were the sordid images of a certain nine year old girl, half-dead as she was being rushed into the E.R, everything around her a multichrome haze.

All the life left in her, was slowly but surely oozing out of her body, the copious amounts of heroin in her bloodstream slowly shutting down her senses.

But her lips remained quirked up into a smile.

"Whatever, I gotta go."

Jace's voice broke the little daze Tahlia had fallen into. She blinked, suddenly back to the present predicament. She wordlessly watched him leave, her head still reeling.

Catching her breath, she entered her room.

Wynn O'Neil was laying on her stomach on her own bed, reading a magazine, dangling her long, tan legs in the air. She whipped around having heard the door.

Even though she was now completely dressed, Tahlia was having a hard time picturing anything but the scene she'd stumbled up on a few minutes ago.

Tahlia had assumed Wynn would be pretty riled up having been interrupted, but her face remained passive, and she turned her attention back to her magazine again.

But then, Tahlia was practically seeing red.

"What the hell was that!?"

It was then that Wynn sat up straight, putting the magazine to the side as she faced Tahlia with sarcasm written all over her face. "Two consenting adults engaging in the act of sex. Oh I'm sorry, does that offend your ears? Should I say S—E—X?"

Tahlia rolled her eyes at the snide jab, "He's my best friend Wynn. Can you really not control yourself around one guy? Do you have to sleep with everything that walks?"

The look of ridicule and amusement that had been plastered on Wynn's face dissipated almost immediately.

"What is that supposed to mean?" She asked unsmiling, her tone suddenly pressed.

"I'm not in the mood for this, I'm going to take a bath." She dismissed it, taking a step towards the bathroom. But Wynn was on her toes in a millisecond, blocking Tahlia's way.

"No, let's finish this right now." She hissed, her dark eyes glaring down at her as she crossed her arms.

Tahlia shook her head in vexation, flailing her hands in the air, "Like you don't know what I'm talking about. You are constantly out dressed like a stripper Wynn. You only stumble back here in the middle of the night, hammered out of your mind. But I never say anything."

"Never say anything?" Wynn scowled, "You don't think I know how you look at my clothes? You don't think I don't see you shooting those holier-than-thou looks at me when I'm going out?"

She took a step towards her in pure rage, jabbing a finger in the air, as Tahlia took one back.

"You know what, it's my life and it's my body. If I want to dress like a stripper, I have every right to do so. But who the fuck are you to say I sleep around because of what I wear? And even if I did, it's none of your goddamn business."

Tahlia blinked quietly, daunted by Wynn's words. She wanted to say something back, but she realized she didn't have anything.

"Who do the fuck do you think you are? Just because you don't have the confidence to wear a crop top, does not mean you get to slut shame me."

Wynn was seething, her voice was quivering, but filled with disdain.

Tahlia gulped slowly, "Wynn, I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Save it. I know your type. I've dealt with them all my life. You think you're so special and not-like-other-girls because you're stuck up and you wear clothes that are two sizes too big for you."

It was then that Wynn's voice finally gained a ring of stability, indicating that she wanted Tahlia to feel the cold intent behind every word of what she said.

"But guess what Tahlia? You're nothing but a slut-shaming, judgemental bitch."

With that, she stepped out of her way, walking straight out of the door, slamming it behind her.

The heavy exhale that left Tahlia's chest was ridden with pure guilt. She couldn't help but pinch the bridge of her nose.

Tahlia wanted to scream at Wynn, tell her she was wrong about her.

But she wasn't.

With that thought running circles in her mind, she walked into the bathroom quietly.

Quickly stripping off her clothes, she stepped under the showerhead, turning the knob. Droplets after droplets of mellow warm water rained down on her body, relaxing her stiff muscles. She took her time washing her hair and her body.

When she was done, she quickly stepped out of the shower, reaching to grab one of the towels kept on a rack.

As she did so, she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

The mirror was hazy with all the warm water vapors, making Tahlia wipe away at the center of the reflective surface with her palm.

She couldn't look away from her body.

Wynn had hit the nail right on the head with what she'd said.

Tahlia was, in fact, insecure about wearing anything revealing.

And the reason, was right in front of her in the mirror. She watched her reflection mimic her actions as she trailed a finger down her stomach, brushing over dozens of little topaz scars, stopping right over a spot under her left ribs.

The deep gash that ran halfway across her stomach was a cruel reminder of darker days.

Once upon a time, Tahlia's second grade teacher had happened to spot a fresh bruise on her collarbone, alerting the school authorities. Of course, her mother put on a good show, making them think Tahlia had gotten it on the playground.

That afternoon when they returned home, Deborah Lilith Meyers snorted one too many lines of cocaine and decided the best way to punish her eight year old daughter involved whipping her with a heated up belt.

She flinched as the crack of the belt sounded in her memory, breathing to tell herself it was all over. It was the past.

And it sure was, but the fact remained that her dark childhood had left Tahlia scarred, both physically and mentally.

She had grown afraid of touch, of proximity.

She wasn't a prude, she was afraid.

And that needed to change.

Glancing away, she wrapped the towel around her body, exiting the bathroom.

She walked straight to her little closet, putting on the best matching set of underwear she owned. She then grabbed her usual pair of denim jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, pulling a coat over the outfit to keep her warm in the Westfield winter.

Whether she had finally lost her mind, or whether it was the adrenaline coursing through her veins, Tahlia had her mind made up about what she was going to do.

Her brain was trying to reason with her, telling her to stop and think about what was happening, but Tahlia paid it no heed as she walked out of the Dormitory.

It was just starting to snow in Jersey, and Tahlia could definitely feel the chill in the air, the sun having just set.

The entire walk to where she was headed was brisk and hazy. All until she was standing right in front of a certain door, knocking on it, a hint of urgency in her actions.

"Tahlia?"

Dean Jackson looked down at her frame perplexedly.

"Is your roommate here?"

"Uh- no, he's not, I think he went—"

He was cut off just as Tahlia's lips met his own.

At first he was caught off guard by the action, but then as realization of the predicament hit him, he found himself returning the kiss.

Tahlia had lost all sense of reality, putting all of her feelings into into it, the movement of their lips together stopping time as if.

But then, he slowly pulled away, gazing at her with sheer concern in his eyes, "Why are you doing this?"

Tahlia opened her eyes, peering up at him meekly, "What do you mean, you don't want this?"

He tilted his head, "I know we've been seeing each other for a bit, but you've never wanted to kiss me before, and it's all good. I don't want you to hurry into something you're not okay with."

"Oh my God, If- if you don't want to, then I'll go, I'm sorry I don't know what I was thinking." Her face was on fire.

A quirk in Dean's lips lifted into a sultry smirk, "But damn Tahlia Meyers, I'd be lying if I said I haven't wanted this for the longest time."

He gripped her hands gently, pulling her into his room.

His lips connected with hers again, this time a sense of voraciousness in his touch. One of his hands was cupping her face, the other one pushed the door close behind her.

It was when his hands started sliding around her back, digging over the surface of her coat, when her breath hitched in her throat.

It was then that she could completely apprehend what was happening;

She was going to have sex.

Tahlia, who had only kissed two men before Dean, had never let anyone touch her intimately, was going to have sex.

It wasn't coitus from her biology textbooks, it wasn't love-making from a cheesy rom-com.

It was all her bottled up desires and years of sheltered living erupting into a realm of pleasure and endless possibilities.

Before all of this could make perfect sense to her, she realized they had moved from near the door to her now standing against his bed frame.

With one swift movement, she fell onto the soft material of his duvet, him entangled with her body like vines on a blooming flower.

Her coat was off, flung onto the side like nothing.

As his fingers gripped the material of her sweater, hiking it up over her stomach, an involuntary squeal left her mouth.

Her worst fears were going to be realized.

He's going to see the scars and be disgusted, She thought to herself.

"Are you okay? Did I do something?" He looked at her, his bronze face glistening under the dim lights of his room.

Her heart was beating rapidly, but she chose to shake her head no.

Even though his hands wavered after her reaction, he nevertheless proceeded to peel off the garment.

His eyes raked over her body, Tahlia squeezing hers in shame.

"You're beautiful." He mumbled, continuing to plant kisses along her decolletage.

A smile came onto her lips, her eyes glassing up.

He then took off his own sweatshirt, revealing his bare chest to her.

A little part of Tahlia was living in the moment. It was happy to have the beautiful man's whole attention, a man who despite her scars, thought she was beautiful.

But then there was a part of her that was entirely overwhelmed by the fact that she was going to loose her virginity on a whim. A part, that secretly hoped he'd ask her if she was okay with it again.

As his hands neared her jeans and fiddled with the button, Tahlia closed her eyes again.

Whether it was her virginity that she was afraid of losing, or herself, was the question.

Whatever it was, Tahlia knew that with the last piece of garment gone from her body;

So was her old self.

✴✴✴

Alexa Demie as Wynn O'Neil

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