June 15, 2021

I woke up the next morning alone. It was 12:18 in the afternoon. The first thing I did was look at both my wrists. They were both bruised pretty badly and my cheek was throbbing where he punched me.

I didn't feel like getting out of bed. I just wanted to stay there forever. I reached over to grab my phone on my nightstand to text Benny.

Won't make it to the Sandlot today, not feeling well. Lol.

I unplugged my phone and set it next to me. I was too weak to do anything, so I fell back asleep.

Around two, Dad came into my room and woke me up by lightly scratching my back.

When I rolled over to face him, he saw my swollen cheek.

"Oh my gosh!" He said getting a better look at it. "Who did this?"

I sat up but didn't say anything. I just started bawling again.

He gently put his arm around my back and pulled me over to him with ease and held me tight.

"I'm gonna kill him." He said letting go of me and looking into my eyes.

He wiped the tears from under my eyes and I calmed down.

"Dad, don't. It's not worth it." I said looking down at my lap.

"Fine." He said in an angry tone. "But if he comes anywhere near you again..."

"He won't." I interrupted.

I looked over to the phone that was laying next to me and picked it up to see if Benny responded.

Oh okay. Are you okay? -2h ago

Yeah, I'm fine.

"Is that Jake?" Dad said leaning over to see who I was texting.

"No, it's Benny."

"Have you told him?"

"No, and I'm not going to." I said setting my phone down.

"I understand if you don't want to tell me, but what exactly happened?"

I took a deep breath then explained everything to him. I wanted to cry, but it was almost like I was out of tears, like I had cried them all out or something.

I was just numb, besides my cheek. That still hurt.

"I never liked that boy." He said while holding my hand. "I always had a bad feeling about him."

"I know, I was just too blind to notice I guess." I said letting go of his hand and laying back down.

"Can I get you anything? You need to eat." He said rubbing my back again.

"Not hungry." I said closing my eyes.

"Alright, well I'm not going anywhere today, I'll be downstairs if you need me."

"Okay."

"Love you." He said then kissed my head.

"Love you too." I said with a fake smile on my face as he stood up and quietly closed my door.

My phone buzzed.

Are you sure?

Yes Benny, I'm fine.

I exited out of the message app and went into my camera roll.

Deleting all the pictures of Jake was the first step to moving on... right?

I probably had thousands of pictures of him.

I scrolled all the way to the first picture in my camera roll then scrolled down to the first picture of us. It was one of us at the zoo in fifth grade.

I pressed the select button and clicked on the picture and deleted it.

I did this to the rest of the pictures of him until it said I deleted 2,471 pictures. That was pretty much all the pictures in my phone.

I had let this boy take up so much of my life. I gave him my all, and he treated me like an object. I can't believe I let it go on for so long. I felt like an idiot.

I laid in bed for the rest of the day, just staring at my ceiling. I couldn't fall back asleep again. I just put my air pods in and listened to my depressed playlist.

Benny kept texting me every once and a while to make sure I was positive that I was okay. I'm not sure why though, it's not like he knew Jake hit me.

It was about 5ish when I realized I was still in my clothes from yesterday. When I finally got the strength to get up and change I put on a black sports bra, and sweatpants. I threw my hair into a messy bun, and took my makeup off that I fell asleep wearing.

Since I was up, I decided to go downstairs and get some Advil because my head hurt from crying last night, and I was a little hungry.

I walked past my dad who was asleep on the couch, and into the kitchen. I reached into the medicine cabinet and grabbed the Advil. I only took one because I knew if I took two with an empty stomach, I wouldn't feel good.

After I put the bottle back into the cabinet I went over to the pantry and grabbed a granola bar. As I was about to walk back upstairs, there was a knock on the front door. I didn't bother checking who it was before opening it.

And of course, it was Benny.

His eyes filled with worry as soon as he set his eyes on my cheek.

"What happened?" He said inviting himself into the house and carefully putting his hand on my cheek to examine it.

"I'm fine Benny, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at the sandlot?" I said quietly reaching up and putting my hand on his arm so he'd remove it from my face.

He saw the bruise on my wrist and his eyes went even wider. He took my other arm in his hands and looked at it then back up at me.

"Who did this to you?" He said whispering, trying to not wake my dad up.

I took his hand in mine and pulled him with me up the stairs and into my room so we wouldn't have to worry about waking my dad up.

"Did Jake do this to you?" He with the same look in his eyes as the day at the pool with Phillips.

I didn't say anything, I just let go of his hand and sat down on the floor at the foot of my bed. I wrapped my arms around my knees and let my head drop.

He walked over and sat down next to me, I could feel him staring at me.

I picked my head up and looked at him. You could probably see the worry in his eyes from a mile away.

He opened his arms with a soft smile on my face. I leaned over and set my head on his chest as he wrapped both his arms around me. His chin was resting on top of my head.

I could hear his heartbeat, it was kind of soothing.

We sat like that for what felt like forever. I felt safe. I never wanted him to let go, but sadly after a couple more minutes, he let his arms drop.

"You wanna talk about it?" He asked while wiping a tear off my cheek.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down.

"He was going to spend the night because it was too late for him to go home... and then he said he had to go to the bathroom." I paused, holding back my tears, "He was in there for a while so I went to see what he was doing, and I heard him sniff something. When I opened the door he was doing cocaine on my sink and I got mad and snapped at him, then before I could leave he grabbed my wrist and wouldn't let go so I tried to slap him... but he grabbed my other wrist before I could."

He took both my hands in his, looking at my wrists.

I had to take another deep breath before I could continue, or I would start bawling again.

"When he finally let go, I shoved him onto the bed but when he got back up... he punched me."

"I'm gonna kill him." He said looking deep into my eyes.

As he looked away from me and started to stand up, I grabbed his hand which made him turn back and look at me.

All I had to do was look at him and It was like he read my mind. He sat back down and hugged me again. This time, he didn't let go. Not even when my dad walked in to check on me. He just looked up at my dad with the same worried eyes, which made my dad smile a little, nod once, then leave.

After we sat on the floor in each other's arms for three minutes, he tried to cheer me up.

"Hey, you wanna know something funny that happened earlier while we were playing baseball?" Benny said letting go of me.

"Sure." I said leaning my back against the bed and wiping tears out from under my eyes.

"Ham tried to pitch."

He didn't even have to explain anything else for me to know how badly that went.

I smiled, not very much, but I still smiled.

"There's that smile..." Jenny said with a smirk, then his eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, you know what I just realized?"

"What?"

"You've never had a sleepover with us in the treehouse before!"

"You guys have a treehouse too?" I said smiling a little bit more.

"Yeah! Timmy and Tommy's parents built it to be our hang out, other than the sandlot."

He seemed so excited to talk about it. It was kinda cute.

"It's only 6, I can text the boys and see if they wanna have a sleepover."Benny said picking up his phone.

"But what am I gonna tell them about my bruises?" I said quietly.

"Umm... You fell in your kitchen... and hit your cheek on the counter." Benny said, proud of himself for coming up with something so quickly.

"You think they'll fall for it?" I asked while raising an eyebrow at him.

"Have you met them?" he said laughing, "they're the most gullible idiots in the world."

"Alright, let me go ask my dad first." I said laughing.

I pushed myself up off the ground and walked out my door to find him leaning against the wall listening to our conversation.

"Dad! What are you doing?" I whisper yelled so Benny wouldn't hear.

He jumped when he heard my voice then tried to act cool.

"I was just... Listening for rats..." he said clearing his throat.

"In the wall?" I said crossing my arms.

"They could be in the wall." he said matter of factly.

"There's no rats in the wall." I said lightly slapping his arm.

"You were listening to our conversation weren't you?"

"What? No! I-"

"Dad?" I said raising an eyebrow.

"I wasn't!" he said throwing his hands in the air.

"Dad, I'm okay. I promise." I said putting on a convincing smile.

"You always say that and then I find you crying in your room an hour later." he said crossing his arms like me.

"Dad, I swear I'm fine." I said un-crossing my arms still fake smiling.

"Well in that case... Yes, you can go have a sleepover with your friends at their treehouse," he said smiling back at me.

My mouth dropped "You were listening!" I said pointing at him.

"I Don't know what you're talking about..." he said walking to the end of the hall and down the stairs with a quick pace.

I rolled my eyes and walked back into my room to find Benny sitting on my bed looking at the picture of my mom and me at the ice skating rink.

"Is this her?" He said not taking his eyes off the picture. He had a weird smile on his face that I've never seen him make before.

"You look a lot like her." he looked up at me.

"Everyone says that but I don't really see it." I said grabbing a bag from my closet and setting it on my bed.

It was true, I did look like my mom, but I never wanted to admit that to myself. I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn't be able to look in a mirror without missing her. She had red hair and beautiful green eyes. Her freckles complemented her nose and cheekbones perfectly, and her smile was bright and very contagious. She truly was beautiful.

"You should see it, she was pretty." Benny said setting the picture down.

"Yeah, she was." I smiled

I walked over to the closet and when I opened it, the first thing my eyes laid on was one of Jake's many sweatshirts that I had and my smile disappeared. I took a deep breath then slipped on the first t-shirt my hand fell on and grabbed extra clothes just in case.

I knew I would have to give Jake his things back sooner or later, but judging by the amount of hatred I was feeling for him, I knew I wouldn't be seeing him for a while. In fact, I never wanted to see him again.

I brushed my teeth, finished packing the rest of my necessities, and slipped my shoes on.

We stopped by Bennys house so he could get his things, then he led the way to the treehouse.

"They're here!" A voice yelled excitedly from up in the treehouse as Benny and I walked into the backyard.

Benny threw his sleeping bag up to Smalls, who handed it to Ham, who set it with the rest of the sleeping bags, then tossed mine up there as well. He made sure to climb up there first, so he could help me up when I got to the top of the ladder.

My wrists were both wrapped so none of the guys would see my bruises, but the mark on my face was very much still visible.

Benny helped me up by grabbing my hand lightly to make sure he wouldn't hurt me, but still hard enough to have a good grip in order to pull me up.

"Jesus, what happened to your face?" Ham said, making the rest of the guys turn and look at me.

My hand was still in Bennys and I'm guessing my grip tightened around his hand after Ham asked me the question because he spoke up for me.

"She slipped and hit her cheek on the counter... but the bruise will be gone soon."

I looked over at him to make sure he didn't scratch his neck this time because ever since I pointed that out, all the boys know how to tell when he's lying. Thankfully, he didn't.

"Then why are your wrists wrapped?" Bertram said nodding his head once while staring at the bandages on my arms.

Shit. We didn't think of an excuse for that.

I looked over at Benny who looked at me at the same time. I took a deep breath and let go of his hand as I looked back at the rest of the guys.

I couldn't think of anything, I had to tell them the truth.

I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything DeNunez spoke up.

"Isn't it that thing that all the baseball players do now? You know... so their wrist doesn't hurt when they're batting."

Benny's eyes went wide as he played along. "Yeah! Ella was just trying it out to see if it actually worked... right?" He nudged my arm with his elbow.

"Oh, yeah... it works." I said nervously laughing.

I'm guessing they bought it because they all shrugged their shoulders and went back to what they were doing.

I sighed and mouthed "thank you" to DeNunez, who nodded, then walked over to where me and Benny were standing.

"Jake, he hurt you didn't he?" DeNunez whispered as quietly as possible so no one would hear.

My eyes started to tear up a little when I looked into his. I didn't have to answer for him to put a hand on my shoulder with a sympathetic look on his face.

"Hey! Ella, DeNunez, I made s'mores!" Ham yelled at us holding a s'more in each hand.

I wiped the tear off my face so no one would know I was crying and turned and smiled at Ham who brought the s'mores over to us.

"Muh lady." Ham said bowing as he handed me the s'more.

"Thanks Ham." I laughed.

He handed DeNunez his, then walked back to sit next to Benny, Smalls, and Yeah Yeah by the candle he used to make the s'mores.

I was about to take a bite when DeNunez stopped me.

"Wait! We should toast to something." he said making a concentrated face, then smiling. "To moving on." he held out the s'more towards me.

"To moving on." I said barely taping his graham cracker with mine then taking a bite.