Enforced (Book 1)

Chapter 9

I took the shuttle home again, and again the door was locked and there was no one to open it. "Damn it." I muttered under my breath. It was 6 o' clock and I was exhausted. I pounded on the door for what felt like ages.

Eventually I gave up and sat down on the steps. My hands were freezing so I put them in my coat pockets. I felt a sizable lump in my right side pocket. I pulled it out revealing Benjamin's tee shirt with my blood on it. I felt my cheeks redden as I remembered that day. Only a few days ago. It felt like ages. I brought his shirt up to my nose and breathed in his smell. Other than the smell of my blood it smelled like soap.

I closed my eyes remembering that day, only about five days ago. The last day I spent time with my mom. The day my life changed.

Behind me the door opened. I turned around and saw a woman standing in my door. It wasn't my mom. In fact I had never seen this woman before in my life. "You must be Bethany." She said smiling.

"And you are?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." She replied, "I'm Marissa, your dad's new maid, your new, well, motherly figure." Of course, I thought, the authorities would have sent my dad a maid to take care of him, men were not meant to do housework.

I closed my eyes, "That's great." I said, a bit sarcastically, "Nice to meet you." Then I began crutching my way up the stairs to the front door. When I entered the first thing I saw was my dad passed out drunk on the couch. I rolled my eyes and crutched upstairs to my room. When I reached my room I put the top of my crutches against my door knob and pushed up as against it as hard I could against it so no one could get into my room then I locked it just to be sure. Then I threw myself onto my bed and fell asleep within minutes.

That night I had a dreamless sleep. When I woke up the next day it was 11:30 in the morning. I was normally awake by 9:00 at the latest. "Shit!" Benjamin hadn't told me what time he wanted to meet up for me to check on him.

I jumped out of my bed and took off my clothes from yesterday and put on one of my favorite new dresses. It was a lime green dress just below knee length; it had hardly any ruffles or frills in it. And I didn't poof out at all. It showed my curves and made my stomach look flatter than it was.

I then put all of my hair into a ponytail, put tennis shoes and my coat on. I walked downstairs and saw that my dad was still on the couch, this time awake. I tried to be as quiet as possible but my crutches squeaked as I descended down the last step. He looked over at me. "I'm going for a walk." I said, and he grunted in reply.

He never visited me at the hospital and he hadn't seen me since the day I was admitted to the hospital, because he'd hurt me, and he didn't even say hi to me.

I took my medical bag with me and walked out the door. I thought about ditching the crutches but decided against it. I took the shuttle to the closest stop by the pond. I walked towards the pond as fast as my crutches would take me.

When I got to the boardwalk there was no sign that anyone had been there since yesterday. I walked down to the end of the boardwalk and saw that my crutches were gone. A hospital worker must have come and grabbed them. The crutches weren't the only things missing from the boardwalk, Benjamin wasn't there either. I hoped I hadn't missed him.

The only thing that even remotely proved that yesterday had happened was the blood spots splattered all across the boardwalk beneath my feet. I sat down at the way end and opened my medical bag to make sure I had everything I needed. I went through the checklist in my head and once I knew I had everything I zipped it back up, leaned back, closed my eyes,  listened to the sounds of the pond, and waited for Benjamin.