I held my breath as I opened the door, trying to be as silent as I could. The house was dark. I couldn’t hear anything. Just humming from the fridge. *click* “What the?” I spun around and saw Clay was sitting on the couch, arms crossed and he was clearly fuming. He had clearly been drinking. There were at least 5 empty beer bottles on the side table. I am sure those were not the only ones he had consumed. 

“And where the f*ck have you been,” he growled at me through clenched teeth. I flinched as he stood up and rushed towards me. “I can’t believe you just left me there at the club alone!” He punched the wall beside me with one hand and grabbed my face with the other, squeezing my face and forcing me to look at him. He always hated it when I refused to look at him.

“Cl-Clay. I- I didn’t leave you there alone.” I slinked away from him and tried to sit down but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “F*UCK! Let go of me Clay. That hurts.” Tears started to well in my eyes. He kept squeezing harder. “Clay, please. You know I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“You! I SAW YOU follow that man out of the club.” He shoved me into the wall and grabbed my throat, squeezing tightly and spitting in my face. “You are disgusting to me. I cannot believe you would have s*x with him. AND IN MY club.” He threw me to the floor and kicked me in the ribs. He spit on the floor next to me, “and don’t you DARE lie to me you b*stard.”

I could barely breathe. My neck and ribs hurt so much worse than before. I could feel something warm on my chest and side. God he must have opened up the gash on my chest when he kicked me. I coughed and gasped for air, trying to sit up. “Plea-” was all I could choke out when he threw more stuff at me. I heard things shattering throughout the house.

“Get the f*ck out of MY house! You disgust me!” He threw my laptop and some clothes at me. “I expect you to be out of here when I come back.” He growled and  stormed out of the house slamming the door behind him. I could hear the tires of my car squealing out of the neighborhood. 

I curled up on my side holding all my clothes to my face and chest. My head was spinning. He has never reacted this badly to anything before. This was the worst. Now that he was gone, I could not stop the tears anymore. I let myself go and I started sobbing. I just wanted the world to swallow me up. I just wanted to d*e.

(…)

“Corey? Corey! Are you okay?” I opened my eyes and looked up at Alec. His hand was on my shoulder and was looking at me with concern. I cleared my throat and wiped off my face. “Yeah I am okay. Sorry about that.” Man, I have not thought about that night in a long time. Must be a lack of food and sleep, and not to mention moving all the way from San Branchforks to here, that has me all over the place with my emotions. “So sorry everyone, I must have been lost in thought, what were we talking about again?”

Mrs. Abergathy gave me a soft smile and continued, “We were talking about what you thought might have happened to Abbi.” Noelle cleared her throat and offered me a napkin. “Thank you Noelle.” I took the napkin and looked over at the older woman, “What do I think? Hmmm.. I think I do not know much about her so honestly anything could have happened. And if the cops do not even know what happened, or refuse to tell us anything, maybe y’all could tell me a bit about her."