With that loving glow fresh on her skin and Dave’s comforting words secure in her mind, Anna got on with her work. But not even the walls Dave had helped build inside her mind and around her heart could withstand Damien Ashcroft.
The sensation of his hot breath against her ear paralysed her. Eyes on the whiteboard, her mind shot into her memories. Anna could neither speak nor look his way as Damien whispered. “Why don’t you want to talk about, Dave, Anna?” His arm draped over the back of her chair. She flinched as his other hand clutched her wrist on the desk. Her body convulsed with revulsion and fear.
To this day…I am still afraid.
“Does he not give you what you want? Does he not give you what you need?” he sniggered beneath his breath. She couldn’t move; only sit and listen like the weak fourteen-year-old girl he always reduced her to. “Does he not touch you the way I did? Does he not fuck you the way I did?” Anna stifled another retch. Shutting her eyes, she conjured her strength and pushed back the shadows that always threatened to drown her whenever Damien was near. “It was perhaps the only thing you were half-decent at,” he taunted. “Bouncing on my dick.”
Breaking out of the dark hole he always managed to push her into, Anna shook out of her paralysis and back to reality. As he went to stroke her thigh, she threw up her hand, smacking him unintentionally across his chin and snapping back his head. Anna kept her hand up, waving for their teacher’s attention as Damien moaned in agony beside her. Her tears had subsided and the fight had returned.
Had he forgotten? Had he dared not remember?
I’m Anna fucking Clearwater.
“Signorina D’Amore!” she called loudly when her teacher ignored her. This caught everyone’s attention. That and Damien’s exaggerated groans.
“Che c’è?” their teacher sighed. She stiffened upon noticing Damien grasping his face. “Miss Clearwater –.”
“Mr Ashcroft was whispering sexually explicit things into my ear. I wish to be moved,” Anna demanded, packing up her bag.
“Mr Ashcroft?” Signorina D’Amore looked at him with a mixture of doubt and confusion.
Damien lifted his head from his hand. He looked from where Anna was scowling across at him, to his peers restraining chuckles, and finally to his teacher, who’d grown impatient. “If that’s what she says.” He shot Anna a sideways grin.
“Outside now. Explain yourself!” Signorina D’Amore ordered. Damien didn’t refuse and disappeared into the hallway. “Anna, you will switch with Laura,” their teacher instructed and followed Damien into the corridor, closing the door behind her.
Anna breathed a sigh of relief. Taking her handbag and exercise book, she passed Laura McPearson in the aisle. The girl looked more than happy to be seated next to Damien. Anna didn’t care. She would rather be in a separate room entirely but a different table would have to do. Sitting down in the seat Laura had vacated, Anna dumped her exercise book and pen on the desk. Only then did she realise who had been Laura’s previous partner.
“Oh fuck off,” she groaned at the sight of Summer grinning back at her.
“Anna,” she smirked.
“You can do one as well.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t be whispering sexually explicit things into your ear,” Summer sniggered. Slouched against the wall beside the desk, she wiggled her eyebrows across at Anna who was already incredibly tired. It was only First Period.
“As if. I’m too hot for you.”
“Oh babeh,” Summer winked.
With another heavy sigh, Anna slumped in her seat and allowed the new wave of memories to swallow her.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
It was going to be a long two years.
Hillside Academy: September (Volume 1) Copyright © 2023 Jodie May Mullen