I'm thrown up against a tree.

Oh God, is he going to kill me? Is he going to beat me? What's happening right now?!

"You know exactly what you did wrong, Chris," he says to me. I'm sitting at the foot of the tree on a root and he is standing over me. "And I'm going to do you until you realise it."

My chest clenches and my hand flies down to my aching privates. I wore a maxi skirt again today, a choice I'm now regretting.

"No, Cole, it still hurts from yesterday." I protest as I'm pulled up to my feet. "I can't! I don't want to! Let's just go to school, please!"

"You brought this on yourself, Christina." I can hear the clink of his belt as he unbuckles with the hand that isn't holding me up by a tight grip on my arm.

"No, no, stop," he pulls up my skirt and pulls off my underwear. The panty liner I placed in them to keep any extra blood off of my clothes rest with my underwear in a heap on the ground. He brings my right leg up and around his waist. "Cole.....!"

He pushes deep inside me in one agonizing thrust. A scream gets caught in my throat and doesn't come out. My nails dig into his back as he pushes and pulls, again and again. Each thrust more painful than the last. I sob and cry, but he covers my mouth.

Grunts and groans come from him as he forces his member to move inside me. Every part of me is screaming for him to stop.

He moves his hand only so he can kiss me roughly. I don't kiss him back, but that doesn't stop him from separating my lips with his tongue and inviting himself in.

What would happen if I bit his tongue?

Not acting on that rash thought, I try one more time to get him to stop. "Cole, I'm so, so sorry." the pain down there grows exponentially and it feels like I'm being split in half. "Please, it hurts!"

"Admit what you did," he orders into my ear.

Stop being so childish!

"I...." he pumps more and the sharp pain cuts me off. "I lied to you, and I'm sorry. Please stop this. It really.....rea....really hurts this time." My eyes burn. I take his face in my hands and kiss him softly. When i open my eyes, they meet his dead on. "I'm sorry, Cole."

He pulls out of me. The excruciating pain down there dies down only a little bit. Full of certainty that I'm bleeding down there again, I gather up my skirt into my fist. With my free hand, I wipe all the tears from my cheeks and chin. My legs weaken, and I slide down the trunk of the tree. Bark catches my hair and it hurts when it's pulled on and basically ripped out, but not more than the pain between my legs.

"Hurry up." he pulls up his pants and starts heading back towards where we came. "We're gonna be late."

No, shit, Cole.

"Okay." I crawl over to my underwear and pull them on.

I hope and pray that when I look down, the blood will be minimal. My eyes roam downward and my breathing catches in my throat. Red covers my upper inner thigh and my down there looks destroyed. It may just be my imagination, but it looks terrible. It's not like a gory movie like Saw, but I'm feeling very I Spit On Your Grave-like.

"Chris!" he yells.

"I'm coming!" my response comes out choked.

I basically limp until I get back to the truck and before just hopping in, I grab my backpack. In the front pocket, I have sanitary wipes. Taking three out, I pull up my skirt all the way and scrub my thighs, very hard. My skin turns red, but I keep rubbing until my skin is spotless. After a while, even though I still don't feel clean, I stop, put the filthy used wipes in my backpack side pocket, and hop in.

"What were you doing?" Cole questions me the moment I close the door.

"Cleaning up," I reply looking out the window.

"Cleaning up, what?" his hand reaches up and I flinch fearing he's going to hit me again, but he just takes hold of my chin.

Leave me alone.

"Blood." I try my damndest to look him in the eye. "There was....blood on me, all I did was wipe it off."

His eyes survey me incredulously. I know he said that he supposedly can no longer trust me, but this is insane.

Putting the car in reverse, he drives back onto the main road and picks up a bit of speed. My only wish is that he goes slow enough for me to have time to collect the greenery in my hair. In the corner of my eye, I notice something green in Cole's black hair. It's a leaf. Cautiously, I reach over and grab it. He looks at me, but I just smile and show it to him.

Smiling back, he takes my hand and brings my fingers to his lips. Holding them there, he kisses each finger one by one, repeatedly. Despite what just happened, these moments where he shows me tenderness and love are what I live for.

"I don't wanna hurt you, Chris," he whispers into my hands. "I just want us to have a relationship full of trust, okay, darlin'?"

I force a smile. "I know, I'm sorry." I apologise again, not really knowing why I apologised so much. I just felt compelled to do it multiple times all the time.

"Since I'm comin' to your house for dinner tonight, you should come to mine tomorrow night," he suggests, hopeful. "You've only met my sister, but my mama is dying to meet ya."

"....okay, I'll ask my mom. I can't if she has work tomorrow." I answer carefully.

"Do you not want to come?" he asks nibbling on my middle finger. "That's what I'm hearing right now."

"No," I say urgently. I can't take any more of him getting angry at me this morning. The hits to the back and side of my head are already giving me a headache. "It's just that if my mom works tomorrow, then I have to stay home to clean and cook in her place."

I can feel his lips curve into a smile on the back of my fingers. "I get it." a sigh tries to escape, but I hold it. "Just let me know tonight when I call you."

Trying not to nod too vigorously, I smile. "Okay, I'll ask before you come over tonight."

We pull up to the school and multiple people turn to wave at Cole. He lets go of my hand so he can wave back. Being smart and an ace at many sports -- mostly baseball -- makes him a really popular guy. This fact helped me become acquainted to a large number of people in our grade level. At first I was worried about moving here at the beginning of my senior year, but because of Cole, it's been a breeze getting to know people. Not that I'm friends with any of them. Who needs to be friends with a bunch of southern belles and country boys when I've got....

"Chris!" my very colourful friend Christiane Pichler knocks on the passenger side window.

A wide smile grows on my face. "Chris!" I lean over and give Cole a kiss on the cheek. "Bye, Cole."

"See ya later, Ms Selvey," he says absentmindedly, eyeing Christiane. They don't like each other for multiple reasons. "Remember to meet me here after school."

I nod. "I got it."

I open the door and jump down from the seat. I hate that his truck is so high off the ground. A deep ache starts up again in my pelvic area, but I ignore it and close the door behind me.

"Wanna ditch?" she asks the very second that Cole drives off towards the student parking lot. "I didn't finish that essay over the weekend, so I'm just not gonna go."

Christiane is a really good friend to me. We look out for one another and since we both came here at weird times from completely different environments we have something in common. She comes from a semi-traditional German family and originally lived in New York. Two facts that greatly impact her fashion choices. Her clothes are colourful and stand out, but they aren't loud enough to be called a total eyesore. Not by me anyway.

We make a joke out of calling each other 'Chris', our names are so similar. That is one of the reasons we even started talking to each other.

"Yeah, I'm not feeling up to going to class right now." Or ever. "Where do you want to go?"

"It's gotta be a place where we won't run into any of those nosy townspeople and gossipers." she rolls her eyes while taking a few swigs of her coffee. "Or our parents."

"Oh, God, yeah." I agree with her. "Remember when we skipped two weeks ago and ran into my mom's husband Tom?"

"Dude," she opens the door to her car. "I love Tom! He didn't snitch on us to your mom or my parents. He just drove us to school and dropped it."

I hate to admit it. "Yeah, Tom is just a big kid himself so sometimes he can be pretty cool." My thirty-six-year-old stepdad is exactly like how I described him. He's like a giant five-year-old, but he is mature when it counts.

"Totally." she starts up her upgraded and refurbished, 1970 Mini Cooper and it starts up beautifully.

The ache starts up again. "Hey, Chris, do you have any painkillers?"

"What kind?" she digs around in her shoulder bag.

"I need something strong," I tell her while rubbing the back of my head and holding my legs together.

"Here." she hands me a bottle of exactly what I wanted -- the strong stuff. "What happened this time?"

I snatch up her coffee and take two pills. "Nothing, I just have a headache." I laugh on the inside. That's a lie and the truth all in one sentence.

"Liar," she calls me out while backing out of her parking spot. "What's up with that, Chris? When you keep secrets from me, I don't feel like much of a friend."

Come on, Christiane cut me some slack.

"It doesn't matter what happened, Chris." I let down my window. "All that matters is that I'm okay." she gives me 'the look'. "Do you have any pads on you?"

She puts her backpack in my lap. "Why do you need one?" she questions.

"Why else would I need one?" I dig around until I find the sanitary napkin wrapped in purple plastic.

"Don't fuck with me, Chris." she scolds. "You start your period three days before me on the rare times that you have your period and it's always close to the end of the month." I look at her. "It's the third of October."

I chew on my lip. "Cole and I had sex last night..." I leave out this morning. "I'm not a virgin anymore."