Carry You Home - JulNo 2014 - first draft

Carry You Home - by Sadie B. (sadies-way-home)
Begun July 1, 2014 - Finished [enter]

This is a first draft and its contents are liable to change at any time. If I gave you the link to this paste, then I trust you not to steal/plagiarize this. Please don't make me regret that.

!!! This story is intended for mature audiences. Triggering content that it contains includes abusive relationships (verbal/emotional abuse moreso than physical abuse), unhealthy relationships, sexual content (both consensual and dubiously so), implied rape, strong language, and some violent content.

- - << Carry You Home >> - -

<<Then.>>

Maybe it was ironic that I met him at a wedding.

I didn’t know whose wedding it was. A distant relative that I’d never met; some friend of my parents’ that we had long since lost touch with, maybe. They must have both been invited and taken me along with them just because they could. It was the summer before I left for college. I was eighteen then, and the ultimate definition of “plain”: short and bony and pasty, with dark brown hair that was eternally pulled back into a thick, boring braid, and eyes to match. My nose was too big for my face, my eyes too small, and there was a series of stubborn zits on my jawline.

The stereotypical image of a summer wedding probably includes perfect azure skies stretching out overhead, cotton-candy clouds drifting across it, and the feeling that the entire world had been washed so clean that everything is so much more vivid and bright than you remembered. The rain came down in sheets that day, and just outside the chapel window it looked like the building had been wrapped up in a billowing, misty white sheet. When the rain hit the ground, it looked like steam was coming out of the grass and asphalt.

I do remember that the actual service was held in the tiny one-room church right around the corner from my childhood home. I also remember that the church was packed. My mother, father, and I were squished against the end of one pew, next to an elderly woman with bottle-red hair and penciled-on eyebrows and a man I assumed was her husband, who looked as if he had left the city of 300 Pounds and was more than halfway to 400.

<<He>> was sitting in the pew directly in front of me. Not much about him registered - although that could have been because I could only see the back of his head and shoulders. He was tall, much taller than me, with dark hair like mine, wearing a navy-blue sport coat.

The pastor officiating the marriage was known well throughout town as being the kind of guy who gave incredibly long and boring sermons. He had just begun an incredibly non-sexy and awkward one about getting married only so you could have sex, leaving the bride and groom both looking duly horrified, when he turned around to look at me.

He wasn’t bad-looking - greenish-brown eyes deep-set back in his face, a broad nose, and a puff of thick brown hair that swooped up and hung down in his eyes. He was much older than I was-- maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, but he had one of those ageless-looking faces that made it hard to tell exactly. One end of his mouth curled up into a half-smile. He made a “come hither” motion with one finger and began to lean toward me. I leaned in too, and he whispered, “I like your dress.”

I was wearing a purple and black dress that I’d had since freshman year. It was too tight in the chest and the skirt awkwardly swished whenever I took a step, but it was the only dress I owned that was fancy enough for a wedding. “Um, thanks,” I replied, unconsciously starting to fiddle with the hem of the skirt.

He smiled again, though this time it seemed more like a smirk, then turned back around.

I didn’t think anything of it until we were at the reception. I had been picking at a chicken cutlet that wasn’t rubbery enough to make it inedible, but enough to make it unpleasant, and watching people mingling and dancing on the patch of wooden floor that all the tables surrounded. The music bounced around inside the almost-cavernous space of the reception hall. The table was empty except for me - I could see my parents were dancing (read: embarrassing themselves) and the other people at our table had made themselves scarce.

This left plenty of space for him to plop down into the seat next to me. I didn’t notice him until he spoke. “I never liked weddings.” After I had almost jumped out of my seat in surprise and looked over at him, he made that little smirk again.

I cocked my head to the side. “Can I help you?” The music changed and dance floor began to clear - a slower song came on.

“Do you wanna dance with me?” He held out his hand. I hesitated. “C’mon, I’m not gonna kill you or anything. I’m just bored as shit and by the looks of it, so are you.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Fair point. I don’t know yours either.”

He had a childish smile on his face as he spoke. It annoyed me. I was not a social person, and I didn’t think that I projected the image of being a social person, so why had he come over to bother me?

“One dance? I swear I’ll leave you alone.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed my hand and tugged me past the tables, my dress twisting around my legs all the while, out onto the floor.

The song was a slow piano ballad, with some woman singer wailing about the beauty of love. He seemed to sense that I was slightly uncomfortable with him, so he held me at arm’s length, one of his hands on my side and the other on my shoulder. He took the lead. What we did could barely qualify as actual “dancing” - we were simply taking tiny steps in sync, moving in a circle. Despite that, I could smell him from this distance - some cheap cologne, a stubborn smell of nicotine,

“I still don’t know your name,” he said, the same stupid smirk on his face. My mother whirled by, dragging my poor confused father with her, and winked at me when she saw I was dancing with someone. At least I wasn’t sitting at the table alone, although I wasn’t sure how much better this was.

“It’s Chelsea.” His hand slipped down on my back a bit and I shot him a death glare. “Chelsea Latimer.”

“Nate,” he said, imitating my implicitly-exasperated tone as he moved his hand back up. “Nate Fuller. It’s a pleasure, Chelsea.” He glanced down. “Still loving that dress.”

“Thanks.” The song ended and an uptempo pop song, with a singer who sounded just robotic enough to make me uncomfortable, began. He let go of my side and my shoulder. “Um, thanks for the dance.”

“Sure.” He smiled at me, a real smile this time instead of one of his half-grins, and I felt something in my stomach swell. I couldn’t explain it. Something about the look on his face said there was more to know about him, and I wanted to.

“Hey, um... after this thing is over, some of my friends are having this party... Sorry. Forget I said anything.”

“Why?”

“Are you legal?”

“I’m eighteen, thank you very much.” Did I really look younger? I didn’t think I did. I would have to figure that out.

“You wanna come with me?”

I could have very easily said “no,” made up some excuse about family commitments, or that I was too tired, or needing to get up early tomorrow. If it had been any other day, I would have said no. Knowing me, though, I probably would have spent the rest of the night curled up on the sofa, watching Doctor Who with my dog. But, even though I couldn’t figure out what, something about him was so alluring that I smiled at him and said, “Sure.”

More people started streaming onto the floor, wanting to dance to a more fun song, so he grabbed my elbow and hustled me off.

“I have to grab something real quick,” I said, but he was already halfway across the hall, so I went over to the table where I had been with my parents.

Neither of my parents can hold their alcohol very well, and if the awkward conversation during the actual dinner with people we didn’t know didn’t make them want to get drunk, whatever they had just done on the dance floor did. As such, they were both sitting down, faces flushed, and drinking champagne while giggling at everything the other said.

“Mom, I’m going out with a friend.” Upon hearing this, my father burst into a fit of laughter.

As soon as she opened her mouth, I could tell that my mother was already horrendously wasted. “Okay honey have fun don’t stay out too late just say no...”

- - -

I won't mince words here: Nate Fuller was a terrible driver. When his foot hadn't magically become made of lead, as it had for the first few minutes of our journey, he spent his time weaving in and out of traffic, looking for a shortcut or a tiny slot he could fit into. Or just anything, really. He didn’t seem to care if we couldn’t fit. Dusk was beginning to fall now, painting the sky with a broad stripe of dark blue, and a few cautious drivers had already turned on their headlights. My parents would have been in this group. Nate was not.

"Can I ask how often you drive people places?" I murmured, more to myself than anything. One of my hands was firmly on my seatbelt, holding it taut, and the other was gripping the handle on the passenger-side door. He snorted and gave me his trademark half smile.

"I drive my sisters around sometimes." He made a sharp right turn and swung into a neighborhood. "Soccer practice or the mall or the movies and stuff like that."

"God help your sisters."

He snorted and turned to look at me, his expression full of mock-seriousness. "So great to hear that you have confidence in me."

The house where he said the party was turned out to be in the Gardens, one of the more upscale gated-community-type neighborhoods in town, full of fake Tudor-style mini-mansions with its own pool, golf course, and clubhouse. It was about a fifteen-minute drive from my house and a half-hour from the reception hall.  I knew immediately which house it was: I could hear the bass thudding from all the way from down the street. A few cars were lined up on the street right in front of the house, and the house was the only one on the street that appeared to have every single one of its lights turned up to full blast. Nate did what I assumed he thought was parallel-parking against the curb right across the street.

“So, who are these friends?” I wondered aloud. He pulled off his sport coat and lazily tossed it into the backseat, then rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, revealing a bright splattering of color on both of his bony arms - two full tattoo sleeves.

“Just some guys I went to school with,” he replied.

“Ooh, mysterious,” I mocked, and he snickered.

He had already opened the drivers-side door and climbed out, but leaned back down and stuck his head in. “You comin’?”

I had only been in one house in the Gardens - Liz Glass, a girl that I’d been kind-of-friends with in elementary school, lived there. We weren’t particularly good friends, but she was my partner for the science fair in the fifth grade, so I’d gone over to her house a few times after school so we could work on it. I remember her house had been large and empty and very clean - it barely even felt lived-in.

This house, though, was completely different. The walls were cornflower-blue and vivid orange, a combination that in theory was horrible but in practice actually worked well, and there were empty plastic cups and trash scattered across the floor of the entrance hall. Half of the lights on the chandelier were dead, making the room look almost washed-out in the low glow of the others. There was a couple - I couldn’t tell if it was a guy and a girl, or two girls, or two guys - laying on the spiral staircase, dry-humping each other. The music was even louder in here, if that was possible, and the voice sounded almost like a normal human’s, but there was too much autotune or editing to make it sound completely normal.

The parties that I had gone to were usually with my couple of close friends, who all had similar interests: books, movies, TV shows, and quiet conversation. Our parties were completely different from this one-- whatever this was.

Nate’s fingers on the small of my back snapped me back to attention. They left an unshakeable feeling on my skin - a cross between featherlight tingling and searing heat, and I absently wondered if his hands anywhere else on my body would have the same effect. I shivered slightly at the thought of some other part of him touching me, like his lips or tongue.

This thought startled me. I’d had some relationships before, experimented with kissing different boys that ran in the same crowds that I did, but never had I done anything more than awkwardly feeling someone through their pants. Call me a prude all you want, but I couldn’t even remember the last time a thought so sexually-charged had entered my head.

“Hey, you okay?” One of the people from the staircase had stood up and appeared to be walking back into the party before she (the voice was high and feminine enough to make me fairly sure it was a girl) turned around and saw me, standing vacantly and lost in my own thoughts. She was tall and looked about Nate’s age or maybe a year or two younger, with thick blonde hair and pink tips pulled into a ponytail over her shoulder, and wearing denim cutoffs and a rainbow-striped tank top.

Before her voice snapped me out of my head again, I noticed that he had left me alone in the front hall, with the music still on full blast, loud enough to make my bones vibrate and my teeth rattle around in my mouth. “Oh, um. Yeah, I’m fine.”

She kicked at an empty beer can next to her foot. “You coming in?” Her smile was tight and I got the sudden impression that this was her house. I tried to act like I could hear her better than I actually could.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

The girl chuckled. “First party?”

I nodded and she laughed again. “Come on in. I’m Nina, by the way.”

“I’m Chelsea.” Nina gestured for me to follow her, so I fell into step behind her. The main living area was also the complete opposite of the Glass house - the furniture was battered and old and well-worn, but not in an unpleasant way. It looked lived-in. There was a large sofa, pushed up against the wall, with at least eight people sitting on it, although it was hard to tell in the hazy darkness of smoke and pounding music.

Nina plopped down on someone’s lap and then waved at me, beckoning me over. I awkwardly sat on the floor and crossed my legs, my skirt balancing over my knees.

A shadow moved behind her, and the person upon whose lap Nina was sitting leaned forward. Another girl, this time a short-haired brunette with ample cleavage, which she was showing off in an incredibly low-cut blue T-shirt. “Lemme guess...” she practically shouted, making sure she could be heard over the music and conversation of other people next to her. She glanced at Nina, who nodded. “Nate.”

“Huh?”

“Nate Fuller brought you,” the brunette said.

“It’s exactly the kind of stunt he would pull,” Nina added. “Oh. Chelsea, Corinne. Corinne, Chelsea.”

Corinne adjusted her shirt and then looked at me again. “So, did he bring you? Nate?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I’m gonna get drinks,” Nina said suddenly. “Be right back.” She stood up, off of Corinne’s lap, and waltzed off to what I presumed was the kitchen, where a much larger group appeared to be congregating around a large keg.

“So. You’re Nate’s new girl.” She fluffed her hair and then propped her chin on her hand, gazing at me intently. “I can see it.”

“I just met him today.” From the way that both she and Nina were talking, I got the impression that being brought here by Nate Fuller was not a good thing.

“That’s how it always starts.” Corinne snorted. “He’s my ex.”

“Oh.” I could feel a blush creeping across my cheeks, something that I could never control. I always thought it made me look so much younger than I actually was. “I didn’t--”

She laughed out loud. “Oh, it’s fine. We dated in college for a few months. Never serious.  You just totally look like his type.”

Now that she pointed it out and I had gotten a better look at her, outside of Nina’s shadow, Corinne and I did look similar. We both had dark brown hair - though hers was chopped short and severe, the tips of it barely reaching her ears, whereas mine was loose and falling to my shoulder blades. Our skin appeared to be about the same shade, and our faces were proportioned in a similar way, with a high nose and cheekbones and a small mouth.

“How old is he?”

Corinne paused and cocked her head to the side as she thought. “Um, his birthday was at the end of April, so now he’d be... twenty-five? Yeah. That sounds right.” She leaned forward until her face was just inches from mine. “Shit, how old are you?” Her voice was almost drowned out by the music, even though she was so close to me.

“Um, eighteen.” I saw no reason to lie. In fact, I was sure that most of my classmates, once I got to college, would have done much worse than gone to a party with people several years older than them. I would probably still be seen as a prude.

Her eyebrows, which had been scrunched up, noticeably relaxed. “Least you’re legal. Man, he always goes for the young ones, doesn’t he, Nina?”

Nina was returning, clutching three plastic cups to her chest. She handed one to Corinne and then held one out to me. For a second I thought about refusing, but something inside me told me to take it, so I did, and downed a sip. The only alcohol I had ever drank before had been a sip of champagne at a New Year’s party when I was fifteen, under the watchful eye of my parents. Once the immediate sensations of bitterness and coldness passed, I was left with a feeling I couldn’t place, but

Corinne had scooted over on the sofa, leaving just enough room for the blonde to sit back down. “What do you think of Nate Fuller?”

One side of Nina’s mouth quirked up. “Uh, that he’s a complete and total asshole?”

“He seems alright,” I said in response.

Corinne laughed and fluffed her hair again. “Chel, ignore her, he’s really not that bad. I promise.”

Nina snorted and muttered something I didn’t catch.

It was jarring to let Corinne use a nickname for me. No one had ever called me anything but Chelsea, not even my closest friends. I would almost be bothered by it. Somehow, though, the fact that she said it didn’t actually bother me at all.

I thought about this. I used to pride myself on my ability to stay completely straight-edge, no matter what came at me.  In my hometown, either you found a way out because you were talented, or you spent the rest of your life wallowing in the dust from which you came. I’d gotten mine: a full scholarship to a well-regarded university up north. It would be renewed every year as long as my grades stayed good. A free ride, a ticket out of here. Although I knew next-to-nothing about them, Corinne and Nina and Nate had evidently not been so lucky. But I could feel this unexplainable pull towards them and this group, and I didn’t know why.

Corinne took a long drink from her cup, then tossed her head back, exhaling hard through her nose. “The one thing I will say, though, make sure you don’t just, like, jump right into bed with him. You’ll regret it. I did and I regretted it.”

<<What she said turned out to be so prophetic, but I didn’t know it yet.>>

- - -

Nate had come and found me. I could tell from the way he staggered towards me, down the one of the several dark twisting hallways in this house, that he was drunk. And far drunker than I was. While I’d only had the beer in the one Solo cup that Nina had brought me, I still felt buzzed but at least I could see straight.

“Hey hey... havin’ fun?” he asked, hobbling slightly on one foot. I had been looking for the bathroom, but

- - -

I barely had time to glance around the room that Nate pulled me into. All that registered was a double bed with blue blankets and a couple of indistinct photos hanging on the wall before he pushed me against the door and attached his

I could feel his hands against my back, his fingertips feverishly hot against my chilly skin. I tried my hardest not to think, to try and sync my heart to the pounding drums and the walls vibrating around us as he pressed lazy kisses down my throat, stopping to run his tongue over my collar bone.

Yet I was painfully aware of my dress bunching up around my ribs and the rough feeling of his pants fabric against my inner thighs as he forced my legs apart with his hips, pinning me against the wall. He was already half-hard.

"You alright, Chel?" He whispered into my shoulder, nipping at it lightly, but I barely heard him. My brain was screaming at me, a combination of <<Stop, stop, I'm not ready, I barely know you! >> and Goddamn it, <<just take me already!>>

The feeling of his lips against me, tracing patterns across my shoulders and down towards my chest, brought me back to my senses quickly. I grabbed a fistful of his hair, dark and thick, and let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a moan and a strangled gasp. He smirked in response, coming up to kiss me on the lips. His were warm and firm, so steady and experienced against mine.

He was so experienced, especially compared to me. Seven years older, twenty-five to my eighteen, good-looking and charming -- he'd definitely had his fair share of women come after him. Why, then, had he come after me?

He stepped back suddenly and I dropped down onto legs like jelly. He smirked again, a dark gleam in his eyes. "Off," he said, gesturing at my dress. He yanked off his tie and started with the buttons on his shirt. Once it was hanging half-open, revealing a smattering of hair and skin, he glanced back up and saw that I hadn't moved at all.

"Chelsea, take the dress off," he repeated, his voice quiet but firm. His eyes were glazed over even more now, cloudy with lust, and he was very noticeably hard. I wanted to say stop. I wanted to pull my dress back down, grab my shoes and my purse, and storm home to curl up in the safety and solitude of my own bed. "Nate, I--"

He sighed and cut me off with another frenzied kiss, our lips only parting when he pulled my dress over my head himself. I said a quick prayer that he wouldn't notice that my bra was gray and my underwear was blue, although it could've just been self-consciousness because I wasn't sure if guys really cared about whether my underwear matched or not.

"You on the Pill?" he asked.

"N-no." Oh God, this is actually happening. I reached behind and unclasped my bra so that he wouldn’t notice my hands were shaking. It fell to the floor and I resisted the urge to cross my arms over my chest.

He groaned almost inaudibly. “Just a second.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it and extracting a small foil packet. “What, did you not realize we were gonna fuck?” His tone was light, not condescending, and there was a small smile on his lips, but I still felt a blush painting my cheeks, and I looked down at my feet.

He slipped off the rest of his clothes, leaving a puddle of denim and cloth on the ground, and sat fully naked on the edge of the bed. “Come here,” he said. I didn’t move. “Chelsea, I don’t bite,” he slurred. “U-unless you’re into that, in which case I can try.” He snickered quietly at his own joke and held out his hand. I took it gingerly and he pulled me onto the bed next to him, leaning down and kissing me with a passion that almost reached the point of romantic. Once he pulled away, he slowly ran his hands down my body, over my breasts and ribs and stomach, and slid my panties off of my legs.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he murmured as he climbed on top of me. He picked up the condom packet from where it lay next to my head and tore it open with his teeth. He slid the rubber onto himself, then leaned down to kiss me again, muffling the gasp I let out when he pushed inside.

There were not fireworks or sparks as he entered me. There was no screaming or gasping or pornographic moaning as he thrust. In fact, the only sounds we made were the occasional groan or sigh (from him) and winces of pain (from me.) His face was pressed firmly into the crook of my neck, and I stared past him and counted the cracks in the ceiling paint.

He came with a breathy moan a few minutes later. I did not.

<<I did want to have sex with him. I really did. I never told him to stop, because I didn’t want him to. Even if I knew how much I would come to regret it, it wouldn’t have made a difference.>>

The idea of waking up somewhere you don’t recognize, completely naked and covered with an itchy white sheet, alone but with the other side of the bed clearly having been slept in, might be a normal occurrence to some. Some might have even found it comforting, as if it’s their natural state.

I was not one of those people. When I jolted awake to the sound of someone laughing downstairs, I could feel my heart speeding up before I even knew what was happening. The walls in this room were not the same color as the ones in my room - my walls were lavender and cream, but these were deep blue and orange. The sheet was rougher than mine. The door was in the wrong place, on the other side of the room.

I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that this was very clearly not my room. It should have been obvious from the first moment I opened my eyes. My dress was a purple puddle on the floor in front of the door, with my underwear and bra lying on top of it.

The sheet fell to the floor as I pushed myself up, and walking made the floor creak slightly every time I took a step. I didn’t even notice the dried blood on my inner thigh until I bent down to retrieve my panties and pull them up.

Images of last night flashed through my head. Nate stumbling to me, tipsy and almost manic with lust. Nate kissing me, his hands snaking up my sides and pulling off my dress. Nate on top of me and inside me, as I counted imperfections in the ceiling and wondered why I hadn’t told him no.

<<Fuck. FUCK.>>

I pulled on the rest of my clothes and grabbed my shoes in a hurry, then somehow found the stairs and stumbled down them. I could tell just how trashed the place had become last night, now that it was broad daylight: there were empty beer cans and half-crushed red cups littering the ground, and I spotted a couple of opened condom packets. Thankfully no used condoms. I shuddered at the thought that one of the packets could be the one he had used. I almost tripped at least twice as I descended the stairs

The smell of coffee wafting down the hallway got stronger and stronger as I walked, until I came upon an open-plan kitchen. It appeared small and cozy and lived-in, like the rest of the house. Dark fake-wood accents on the countertops and cabinets, stickers and magnets advertising the local college’s sports on the refrigerator, small piles of junk and papers scattered across any available surfaces.

Nina was standing in front of the coffeepot, blonde hair piled into a lazy bun on top of her head. She was wearing her rainbow tank top from yesterday, but had replaced her short shorts with a pair of long plaid sleeping pants.

“And the sleeping beauty has awoken.” She yawned loudly, stretching her arms over her head, and stepped over to one of the cabinets. “Thought Corinne warned you about him last night.” Withdrawing two mugs --one blue and one purple-- , she gestured for me to come closer, and when I did, she handed me the blue one.

Nina had turned away from me and took the pot out of the machine, pouring some of its contents into her mug.“We didn’t...”

“Oh, shit.” When she turned back to me, she had a Nate-style smirk on her lips. “You're in denial, honey. From the impression I got, your ‘behavior’” --she put the word <<behavior>> in air quotes-- “last night doesn’t seem like you at all.”