Sweet Blasphemy

"That’s amazing.”
My head jerks up and I see Lavinia smiling down at me. My fallen angel project is out in front of me, and I am sitting in art class, waiting for Mrs. Bellucci to enter the room. Lavinia sits down across from me and nods at the art project.
“That’s absolutely gorgeous,” she repeats. “May I?” she gestures at it, asking if she can grab it and take a closer look. I hesitate. I don’t want her to crinkle it, or to smudge it. It’s mine. It’s Andy’s. I’m terrified that she’ll rip it to pieces right before my eyes.
Then I really look at Lavinia for the first time. She can’t be more than 15. She has a scene haircut, and a friendly yet beautiful face. Her black hair frames her ever-present smile, outlining her pale white face with obsidian. She’s not just pretty; she’s cute. And completely sincere.
“Of course,” I say. Lavinia gingerly slides the picture to her side of the table and turns it so that she’s looking at it the right way. She studies it intently for several minutes, making tension build in my stomach. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Her approval? Why do I need her approval? Obviously, it’s gorgeous.
“Did you do this all by yourself?” Lavinia asks, looking back up at me, her golden eyes locking on mine.
“Uhm… yeah,” I decide. It wasn’t like I could say that I’d gotten assistance from my imaginary friend. And besides, we were supposed to have done the project on our own, I’m pretty sure.
“It’s really impressive. Mine looks like shit,” Lavinia snorts, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of her backpack’s side pocket. She smoothes it out to the best of her ability, and I am able to see a remarkable drawing of an owl. It’s so realistic that half expect the owl to blink and fly off the paper and into the rafters of the art room.
Aside from it being crinkled, it’s gorgeous. If I didn’t know Andy, I would say that it’s the most beautiful work of art I’ve ever seen. I gave Lavinia a skeptical look. How could anyone ever view such a phenomenal drawing as shit?
“I’m sorry, but are you stoned or something? This is outstanding,” I say. Lavinia blushes a lovely shade of pink and giggles. She playfully slaps my arm and shakes her head, like I’m trying to be funny.
“You’re sweet,” she flushes. “I suck at drawing, which is a shame, considering that it’s my lifelong dream to become a graphic novelist.”
I study her picture again. No matter how I look at it, it’s still great. “I’m just telling it like it is,” I shrug, and Lavinia’s pale skin grows even redder.
“You really like it?” A small, hopeful smile finds its way onto her lips.
I nod vigorously. Lavinia beams at me, her joy like undiluted vinegar, absolutely over-whelming, consuming everything. Her joy seems to dye everything in sight two shades brighter.
Lavinia goes to say something but is silenced as the same prick substitute from yesterday walks into the room, something resembling a neon yellow set of male genitalia clutched in his arms. Jasmine initiates the immature snicker-fest at the neon-dick-thing (God knows what it’s supposed to be), and soon enough, everyone else has joined in and it sounds like a pack of hyenas have been transported into the classroom. The substitute sets the gigantic dick thing down in the front of the classroom and hunches over, catching his breath. I guess it takes a lot of physical exertion to carry a gigantic dildo up a flight of stairs and down a hallway full of sniggering teenagers.
Lavinia and I look at each other and roll our eyes. Yes, it looks like a penis. It truly isn’t worth the amount of attention Jasmine and her cronies were giving it. When the laughter still doesn’t stop after a minute and the substitute is too busy asphyxiating to put a stop to it, I mutter: “What, have you never seen a dick before? Grow the fuck up already, or go back to sixth grade.”
This silences the hyenas. I see Jasmine flip her bleach-highlighted hair over her shoulder and purse her lips.
“I’m surprised you even know what a dick is, you stupid prude,” she drawls.
This makes my stomach drop, and I lower my eyes. I immediately regret taking Jasmine on, drawing attention to myself.
“All she has to do is look at you, and she’s got a pretty good visual of one,” Lavinia says loudly.
My head jerks up and I gape at her. I hear everyone in the room (except for the oblivious sub) inhale, and some kids even go “ooooooh” like we’re in grade school and someone just got called down to the principals office. Jasmine’s face gets a blotchy. Patches turn red, while others stay the same fake-tan, moldy Goldfish orange colour. Instead of glaring at Lavinia, Jasmine focuses her scorned rage on me. She gives me the scariest glare I’ve ever witnessed. I shrink, trying to make myself so small that I’ll vanish from her sight. Jasmine only ceases her glare when the substitute straightens up and pulls out his earbuds.
“That explains it,” Lavinia mutters- unperturbed despite the fact that she just took on Satan incarnate- referring to the substitute’s ignorance to what had just went down in his classroom.
“Alright,” the sub wheezes. “Today… we are going to be making…” he gestures to the yellow penis on the floor, “abstract sculptures.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing abstract about that thing,” I say to Lavinia out of the corner of my mouth. “It’s quite clearly a gigantic representation of Homer Simpson’s dick.”
At this, she snorts, much louder that I would’ve preferred. The sub looks over at us, frowns, and continues.
“Mrs. Bellucci is going to be gone all this week, so I’m making this your project for the remainder of our time together. Everyone grab some clay and paint. Your sculptures aren’t going to be as big as this one-”
“- oh yes, God forbid someone has a bigger dick than him-” Lavinia mutters.
“- but I expect them to be a hefty size,” the sub says sternly.
“That’s what she said,” Lavinia sniggers. I kick her under the table, as hard as I can. If she doesn’t quit it with the comments, I’m going to piss myself right here and now. And considering how many people dislike me in this class and how that could easily ruin my hard-earned “invisible” status and replace it with a “victim” one, I’m pretty desperate to prevent that from happening. And also, I don’t have another pair of pants.
“So,” the sub claps his hands, completely oblivious to how idiot he is, how idiotic he looks. I mean, he’s standing next to a neon yellow dildo while trying to be assertive and commanding to a bunch of teenagers. It’s absolutely ridiculous. “You can all start working on it now. I expect you to have at least the rough shape of something by the end of the class period.”
With that, the sub makes his way to the back of the classroom to sit down at the teacher’s desk.
Lavinia turns to me. “Do you think he’ll mind if I make a pair of tits?” she asks with mirth in her smile.
I kick her again, but I can’t keep from laughing, no matter how hard I try not to. It’s something about the contrast between Lavinia’s innocent, youthful face and what she’s saying that makes me lose myself to laughter. I surrender, and allow myself to fully crack up at her. Grinning, we go to get our clay, walking and waiting in line, side by side.
So this is what I’ve been missing all this time!

When the last bell rings, I have already packed my blob sculpture away. I watch for a second as Lavinia curses, searching frantically for a bag to put her sculpture in. Hurrying, she doesn’t stop to think before brushing her hair out of her face, smearing wet clay all over herself in the process. I giggle at her predicament and go over to help her. Lavinia had decided to make mammoth-sized tits, but much like her sweater project, they look way more like uvulas than anything else.
When I point this out, she inspects her project and then face palms. “I’m cursed!” she declares. “The uvula gods have decided to curse me for all eternity! I’ll never be able to make another 3D art project again!”
I roll my eyes at her melodrama (and her now clay-covered face) and help her move her covered project over to the storage table. I grasp the edge of the cardboard plank it rests on, praying that it doesn’t fall. We reach the storage table, and while it is the perfect height for Lavinia, I have to bend over and lower my side of the cardboard so that the project doesn’t tilt and fall while we’re lowering it. Once we’ve managed to place her uvula-tits on the table, I notice that my right Converse is untied and bend over to tie it. During the time it takes me to tie my shoe, Lavinia says nothing. When I’m done, I straighten up, and tug the hem of my shirt down. It had made its way up my back while I was tying.
“Who drew that?” Lavinia asks, gesturing to my back.
“Who drew what?” I ask, confused for a second before I remember the angels and demons that Andy had inked on my skin the night before.
“The thing on your back,” Lavinia says. Her eyes are narrow, and her brow is all crinkly. She looks more serious than I’ve ever seen her, like the answer to who had inked my back was life or death.
Taken aback, I stumble for words. “Auhhmm,” I stall, so surprised that I can’t even stammer correctly. Something about the serious expression on Lavinia’s face makes me apprehensive. If she’d just seemed curious, maybe I wouldn’t hesitate to tell her that my friend Andy had drawn it. But she seems way too invested in the answer, and a little voice- Andy’s voice- in the back of my head is telling me to lie. “I did.”
Lavinia’s expression does not change. “Are you sure?” she asks. “I don’t think it’s possible for someone to twist enough to draw on their own back.”
I bite down on my tongue hard. Lavinia’s brown eyes burn and bore into mine until I have to squirm under their weight. “Yeah, I’m sure,” I mumble. I force myself to turn my back on her, fighting the newfound, irrational fear that she will grab me and demand for an honest answer. Even if she was desperate to know the truth, I don’t think Lavinia would ever do something like that. I hurriedly scurry over to our table and grab my backpack, not even bothering to zip it all the way. I throw it over my shoulder and head to the door.
“Seraphina, wait!” Lavinia calls. “I’ll walk with you!”
“No thanks,” I blurt, and I practically run out of the room. Once I am in the hallway, I change to a full-out sprint. I run past teachers, ignoring the way they yell at me to slow down. I don’t slow down until I am outside of the building and almost a mile away from the school. Panting, I lean against the brick wall of the alley I have ended up in. I’d taken many unnecessary twists and turns to try and shake the creepy feeling on the back of my neck, the feeling that insisted I was being followed.
I shake my head, trying to calm myself down. I’m absolutely fine. No one is following me. Sure, Lavinia seemed a little too interested in my back, but maybe she thought it was a tattoo and wanted to know where I got it because it looks so good. That surely wasn’t cause for her to follow me out of school and stalk me through the streets and alleys of downtown Westville.
Many years ago, I’m sure that Westville had been a pleasant place to live. The fishing industry used to thrive here before the best seafood migrated further south to combat the cold waters. When the industry died, so did the city. The city took a major turn for the worse. Uptown Westville wasn’t too bad a place. My school and the mall were located in Uptown Westville; I could walk on the streets there without any worries of being shot or mugged because I was too white or too blonde. But Downtown Westville, where I am now, is an entirely different story. I remember when my parents would watch the news at night, there’d always be a report about a robbery or shooting or stand-up in Downtown Westville. Downtown Westville got struck the hardest when the fishing industry failed, and that lead it to become the kind of place where good parents would never allow their children to walk through.
But, (seeing as my parents suck absolute ass) here I stand, panting and trying to massage the stitch in my side, leaning against the wall of an alley located right in the heart of Downtown Westville. Once I’ve finally managed to catch my breath, I push off of the wall and see that I am not alone.
A sick feeling churns in my stomach when I see the group of boys that have joined me in the alley. Grinning, they circle around me, some of them brushing closer than I am comfortable with. I recognize some of them from school, from art class, to be exact. One of the boys I know from art class; he’s sat next to me all year. He has blonde and brown hair- the right side of his head was shaved, but it grew back in brown. His long bangs are blonde, and they fall into his brown eyes as he lounges against the alley wall.
Knowing that no good can come from this, I try to escape. I try to slip between two of the guys, but they just laugh, grab my arms, and push me against the alley wall, their hands lingering on my arms, some brushing against my chest provocatively.
I glare up at the guy who touched my boobs, my fear momentarily forgotten.
“I’m sorry, did your mother not teach you better than to manhandle a girl?” I snarl. The guy I’m talking to looks surprised, but the rest of the guys laugh.
“Believe me, darling, I know how to handle a girl,” the guy smirks. His blue eyes rake over my body slowly. My blood boils and a shiver runs down my spine; I am so distracted by the emotions this injustice stirs inside of my body that I do not notice when the blonde/brunette guy from art class has taken the other guy’s place until my fear and anger diminishes.
“Forgive Alex, he has no manners,” the blonde guy murmurs. He tucks a strand of my white-blonde hair behind my ear. I feel as though I’ve been shocked out of my body by the unwanted touch- which somehow seems more intimate than the boy who’d touched my boobs before- and the out-of-body me observes the boy who’d just touched me. He’s wearing an A Day to Remember tank and black jeans. I remember that I’d been sorta fond of him because of his affinity for the same bands I like. It wasn’t the first time that I’d seen him wearing a band shirt, but it’s the first time he’s worn a shirt for a band that I dislike.
For some reason, this seems extremely important.
Snapped back into my body when I realize that his hand is on my hip, pushing me into the alley wall, I snarl. “Get your hands off of me,” I say lowly. I glare up at him through my black web of eyelashes.
While the boy does not react, his friends seem to find this amusing.
One of the guys whoops. “Link, I think you’ve got a good one,” he remarks. “Attitude like that has got to transfer.”
I clench my jaw. So that’s what this was all about. Sex. I’d known already that that was the most likely possibility- why else would a group of guys corner a girl in Downtown Westville?- but the random guy’s words prove my hypothesis to be correct.
“If you don’t let me go right now, I swear to God I’ll kick your balls all the way up into your esophagus,” I threaten. This makes the boy laugh.
He bends down and kisses my neck. His hands slide inside of the waistband of my jeans.
“Don’t be like that, angel,” he murmurs. “You know I’ve been wanting you for a while now, you little tease. You had this coming, and everyone knows it. You were asking for it. Don’t pretend that you don’t want this too, Blakeley.”
“What- what the hell? I don’t even know you!” I exclaim, and try to push him off of me. He catches my hands and curls them up in his fists. I try to pull them away and can’t; he uses this to his advantage and pulls me against him. Bile rises in my throat and I almost vomit when I feel it against me. “Let go of me!” I shout.
“Relax,” the guy says. “You don’t know who I am? My name’s Lincoln Cartwright, but you can call me Link, sweetheart. We’ve sat next to each other all year in tenth period art, and we’re gonna have sex in this alley. Happy?”
“No!” I explode. I try to knee him in his balls, but in just a moment, Link pops a pill in his mouth and kisses me. He forces my mouth open, and I feel the pill go down my throat. I try to cough it up, but he is still on me, preventing me from getting rid of the pill. I feel panic rise in my throat once I’ve swallowed it. I scream into his mouth, but Link only bites my lip and forces his tongue against mine. It takes only a second for the pill to kick in. I almost faint from the effect of the sedative, but Link lowers me to the asphalt slowly. I am too weak to fight against him. For a second, I am positive that he has drugged me so that I’ll fall asleep so he can have his way with me while I’m unconscious. But when I do not pass out, I realize that the pill was just meant to weaken me, both my body and my resolve, not knock me out.
Even with the pill numbing my fight and making me all fuzzy and weighting my limbs, I struggle against Link’s strong hold. All I can manage is a weak squirm, which makes Link moan.
“I don’t know why all the other guys stay away from you,” he says as he unzips my jeans and tugs them down off my hips. He knocks my shoes and socks off of my feet with his own. “‘Cause BriBri is jealous of your rack?” He shakes his head and pulls my pants off of me while I can do nothing but squirm against him. “It makes no sense, babe. I don’t know why they obey that tit-less bitch, but I guess it doesn’t matter. That just means I get you all,” his lips press against my neck, he bites a bit and sucks my skin in, “to,” Link’s hands slid up my shirt, “myself.”
“Stop,” I try to growl, but my voice is weak and it comes out like a plea, which is the last thing I want him to think I’m doing.
“That’s what all the virgins say,” Link laughs. “You’ll be crying something different afterwards, angel, I promise you that.” Link rests his right hand on the asphalt and pulls my shirt off with the other, despite the fact that I’d been trying to make it as hard as possible for him. He throws my shirt away and grins. Link’s eyes travel down my body very slowly before he comes back down to me. He tongue forces entrance into my mouth and his fingers slide down the front of my underpants. I try to fight him, but I can hardly even move anymore.
I feel the first tear slide down my cheek.
“Please,” I say into his mouth. Link responds by moving his hands up my torso torturously slowly and then moving them around to my back and unclasping my bra. I scream, but the noise is silenced by him as he discards my bra, and suddenly I am just one slip of fabric away from being naked in front of a man for the first time in my life. Actually, from being naked in front of several men.
I am bracing myself for the pull of his hands on my underwear when I hear the sound of bodies falling to the pavement. My eyes fly open as I hear grunts and the crack of bones. I only have a second to wince after a particularly loud snap and wonder what’s going on before Link is ripped off of me and I am able to breathe again.
A full breath of air clears my mind and sharpens my vision. I am able to see a dark figure attacking Link and the bodies of all the other boys on the ground. Fear trembles inside of my gut, and I wonder just what kind of monster has replaced Lincoln and his friends. Link tries to fight against the other man, but he is easily overpowered. In fact, the other man seems to be pulling his punches- I can see it in his jerky movements, the way he doesn’t pull his arm all the way back before hitting Link. Within seconds, Link falls to the ground, unconscious.
The other man kicks Link’s head. “Disgusting piece of shit bastard,” the man says, and my jaw drops in shock.
It’s Andy.
That’s his voice, there’s no denying it. And even if there was, it is clear that it’s my Andy when he turns around and kneels at my side; his blue eyes are absolutely unmistakable, even through a drug-induced fog.
“Andy,” I choke out. I try to reach for him, completely forgetting that I am almost nude.
“Shhh,” he says softly. Gently, he helps me into a sitting position and goes to hand me my clothes.
“I can’t,” I say. I can’t move enough to clothe myself. Tears fill my eyes and then spill out. I don’t want anyone else touching me, even if it is Andy, and he’s helping me. I don’t want anyone to ever touch me again. I want to curl up in a ball and disappear from the world. I want to chop off my boobs and become invisible to boys, at the very least.
“Seraphina, I’m going to put your clothes on for you, then,” Andy says softly. “I know that you probably don’t want anyone touching you right now, but I can’t be carrying you through the streets naked. That’ll just attract more unwanted attention.”
“Go ahead,” I croak, and close my eyes. As Andy delicately handles me and dresses me, I try to focus on being somewhere else. I think about paradise. I think about blue oceans and palm trees and pink sand. I think about the people that sunbathe on that sand, and then I think about girls in bikinis, and then I think about Link pulling the bikini off of a girl with white blonde hair, and-
“You’re good up top,” I hear Andy say, his low voice cutting through my fantasy-turned-nightmare and bringing me back to reality. Link is passed out. Andy is here. I am safe.
I repeat these things to myself over and over again as Andy helps me shift so that he can put my pants back on. When my pants are on and I am decent, Andy’s hands slide down my legs. Delicately, he takes my foot in his hand and puts my sock on, and then my shoe. Although the situation is so very different, and not at all pleasant, I can’t help but smile and think of Cinderella getting her slipper slid on her foot by that one smarmy guy with the monocle.
“I didn’t mean to,” I say quietly, afraid that Andy is mad that Link was kissing me, or something. “I- I- I didn’t want him touching me!”
Andy slides my other shoe onto my foot before leaning forward and coming in close to me. Instead of scaring me or triggering me, this calms me down. He cups my face in his hand and says, “I know.”
“He had a pill and he kissed me and I swallowed it and I couldn’t fight and I can’t- I can hardly move. I’m so sorry!” I burst into tears. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t want- I never wanted this to happen! I wasn’t, I swear I wasn’t trying to make anyone want me; I swear I-”
“Seraphina,” Andy whispers. I stop talking and meet his blue eyes. He presses his forehead against mine, and I imagine that his eyes are two blue oases, waiting for me to escape into. His eyes are like an escape from the world. As long as I am looking into them, everything is okay. “Sera, don’t apologize. Even if you secretly liked him, you don’t have to apologize. Liking him doesn’t mean you want him to rape you. And him liking you doesn’t mean he gets to have you.”
“But I didn’t- I swear I didn’t like him,” I protest. “I… I’d never even talked to him before!” I squeeze my eyes shut in hopes that it will prevent the oncoming flood of tears from falling.
“Shhh,” Andy murmurs. He positions his arms around me- one under my knees and one behind my back- and lifts me up. “You’re safe. I’m here now.”
I release the little bit of breath I’d been holding ever since I’d seen the boys in the alley. I relax into Andy’s arms, before I even know what’s going on, I’m asleep.

I wake up sometime later that night. I am curled up in bed, my hands are clutching onto Andy’s shirt and our legs are all tangled together. I make a small noise of surprise. I haven’t slept in the same bed as Andy since we were kids.
“You refused to let go of me,” I hear Andy say. I can feel his low voice rumble through his abdomen, and then through my fingertips.
My mind immediately snaps back to the alley. Suddenly, I am not in my bed snuggling with Andy anymore- I am underneath Link, trying to push him off but instead having to deal with the betrayal of my body. I do not realize that I have whimpered until Andy’s hand smoothes over my hair and he kisses my temple.
“You’re safe,” he whispers.
“I need to shower,” is all I can say in response. I go to sit up, and am pleasantly surprised when my body obeys me without hesitation. The drugs must have worn off. My body is sore from being forced to ingest chemicals, but other than that, it is the same body I had at the start of the day. A body that responds when I tell it to move. A body that is strong enough to fight.
But, I reflect, it is truly not. Even before I’d been drugged, I hadn’t been able to get the boys off of me. My stomach sinks. I am weak. I am weak. I am weak.
“You are not weak,” Andy says sharply. I jump, then wonder how he knew what I was thinking. I open my mouth to ask him, but he cuts me off. “You were talking out loud,” he explains. Then, he takes my hand and brings it to his lips. He kisses my hand, and a feeling quite similar to fire sparks underneath my skin and travels all throughout my body. It is hot, burning hot, but not entirely unpleasant. “Seraphina,” Andy murmurs against my hand, his lips brushing my skin and making the fire leap into my heart, possess it, and jerk it around. “Seraphina, you are the strongest girl I have ever known. You are not weak.”
“Yes I am,” I find myself saying. “I’m weak. I’m weak, and disgusting. I’m a whore, and I don’t deserve to even know someone like you!”
I try to pull my hand away from him so that I can run to the bathroom, lock myself in, turn the shower on and cry, but Andy does not let go of me.
“You’re not a whore,” he says forcefully. He grips my hand tightly. “Sera, you’re not a whore, and you’re not weak. These are all things that everyone thinks after they’ve been a victim of rape. But they’re not true. You’re strong; that pervert is the weak one. You didn’t ask him to touch you like that. He would’ve touched you no matter what you said or did or threatened. But that doesn’t make you a whore, Sera. It makes him a total dickhead, but it doesn’t make you a whore.”
“Andy,” I start to argue.
“Seraphina, I’ve known you for eleven years. I know your favorite colour. I know your favourite songs. I know that you hate the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and you think that Twilight is the dumbest thing ever. I know that you’re a kind person, and you would help anyone however you could despite the fact that almost every other person you’ve ever met has treated you like shit. I know all of these things, Seraphina, and most of all, I know that you’re not a whore. I know that you’re strong.” Andy’s voice powers through me with so much conviction that it startles me. “Strength has nothing to do with the size of someone’s muscles or how much weight they can lift. Strength cannot be measure by how long someone can run. Strength is something found inside of us. Strength is what inspires the beaten to fight back against their demons. Strength is what encourages the sick not to give in to their pain. Strength is what drives people to spare the lives of their enemies. Strength is what gives a person the ability to love those who have done wrong by them. Strength is found within. Strength has nothing to do with fitness. It took me so long to realize all of this, Seraphina. I didn’t realize any of this until I met you. When I met you, when I looked into your little eyes and realized that you’d been institutionalized and locked up and treated like a lunatic by your parents, and you still loved them, I knew for the first time what real strength is. Fitness is an admirable trait; but strength is an awe-inspiring, innate quality. It doesn’t matter if a person’s frail, or elderly, or skinny. If you have inner strength, you are strong. Fitness has absolutely nothing to do with it.”
Andy’s blue eyes hold mine in the darkness. Although the lights are off, the glow of his electric blue eyes makes me feel like I am standing in front of the sun. I am at a loss for words. He’s right. He’s completely right, and the realization brings relief into my bones. I am strong. I am strong.
I sigh and sit back down, burying my face in his neck. Idly, I notice that he smells like leather and cigarette smoke. I have no words to say for him. No hasty words of mine could ever compare with the beautiful words he just gave me, the words that had washed over my grey skin and purified it, making it brighter and making my heart beat stronger and my blood flow faster, with more purpose. I have nothing that could ever hope to compare with the deliverance his words just gave me, so I say nothing. I just breathe against him, and hope that the feel of my inhaling and exhaling against him is enough. I hope that he understands. I am alive, and I am against him; I am right here. I am close to him. I am here because he is right, in every meaning of the word. He is right, and he is perfect, and he is everything I could ever ask for.
He is perfect, and I refuse to believe that it’s because he’s part of my imagination.
My heart jolts to a stop and I freeze, clenching my fists. If Andy’s part of my imagination, how did he beat up Link and his friends? How come Link and the others could see him? Whenever my parents had come into my room while we were together, they never saw Andy. How come Link and his friends suddenly could?
What is going on?!?!?
“Andy, who are you?” I ask. I can hear the panic in my voice, and I know that he can too, because he immediately puts an arm around me and rubs my back.
“Seraphina,” he says in a pained voice. “Sera, please don’t ask me that. You never asked me anything like that before, why does it matter now?”
“Because- because you beat up Link and his friends!” I splutter. “And, they saw you! My parents never saw you, no one’s ever been able to see you before, so I thought that you were either a ghost, or a figment of my imagination, but you’re not, are you? You can’t be, you can’t be, you have to be real. You’re real!”
I shoot straight up and fling myself away from him. I almost fall off the edge of the bed in my haste. I catch myself at the last second, and once I’m balanced, I leap off the bed and onto the floor. I back into the wall, keeping my eyes trained on Andy. He’s still on my bed, but he has sat up. I can see the glimmer of his eyes in the darkness and I resist the temptation of it. I resist the feeling in me that insists that Andy is good. He’s my best friend; he has been since the day I met him. Real or not, there’s no way he’ll ever hurt me. That’s what the voice in my head insists. But I ignore it. I ignore it because I’m freaked out by the possibility that there’s a very real, very existent boy in my bedroom.
“Seraphina,” Andy groans. “Sera, why is all of this important now?”
“You’re real! You’re- you’re real, and I’ve been, I’ve been so stupid!”
Andy just stares at me. “It’s up to you to decide if I’m real or not, Sera,” he finally says.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demand.
“It means that I’m part of you. I’m not fucking human, Sera. I’m not like the motherfuckers you go to school with; I’m not mundane. I can be defined as ‘real’ or ‘not real.’ My existence depends entirely on you,” Andy’s voice softens. “I’m yours, Sera. I’m here for you, and you only. I don’t give a fuck about anyone else on this goddamn planet. All that matters to me is you. You don’t want your parents to know about me, so they don’t see me. But you wanted someone to help you, to save you when those boys were… touching you. And I could. I could, and I kicked their miserable asses because they were making you upset.”
It is suddenly very hard to breathe.
“Are you implying… that you exist only for me?” I squeak out.
“I’m not implying it,” Andy says. “My entire existence… revolves around you.”
I feel like he’s just brushed his hand across my cheek, like he’s just kissed my forehead the way he used to when we were little. He’s taken my breath away, with only a few words.
Suddenly, it feels very wrong for us to be so far apart. I feel like even if I was pressed all up against him, we still wouldn’t be close enough. I cross over to the bed and before I can even get onto the mattress, Andy has me in his arms. He pulls me onto the bed with him. I squeak in surprise, but he ignores this and instead threads his fingers through my hair, resting his forehead against mine again.
“Why are you here for me, what did I-” I start to ask, but Andy puts one slim finger against my lips.
“Shhh,” he says, and then smiles at the way I blush. “It doesn’t matter how I ended up here. All that matters is that I’m here now. I’m here, and I’m yours. Okay?” he looks at me, waiting for my response.
I hesitate. I can either accept that he’s mine, accept that he’s good and have faith in him, or I can ignore everything we’ve ever had and try to interrogate him. I release a breath of air. “Okay,” I say. Andy closes his eyes and his lips curve up into a smile. Just when I think that he’ll say something profound, he says: “Sweet dreams, Sera” and kisses the crown of my head.
I smile up at him and settle back under my fuzzy blankets, resting my head on my favourite pillow. I pull him close to me, and he curls around me, his long legs and tall form far bigger than mine. With him near me, I feel completely unafraid. I am confident in my strength, and I am unashamed of what happened earlier in the night. I did not ask Link to rape me, Andy was right. It wasn’t my fault.
My mind filled with thoughts of oases swirling in blue eyes, I am almost in the land of dreams when I hear Andy say, “I promise that I’ll never let anyone touch you like that again, Sera. Not unless you want them to.”
I fall asleep before I can respond, but it’s just as well. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Andy will keep me safe.

Notes

I just want to say that I do not support rape, sexual harassment, or sexual assault. I think that people like Link and his friends are monsters, and I did not like writing about Sera's encounter with him. But it's important to the plot and to Sera realizing who Andy is, so I had to include it. I sincerely apologize if you found it offensive, that wasn't what I was trying for at all.

*title cred: "Angel with a Shotgun" by the Cab. (I prefer the Nightcore version, though. Look it up if you're interested !!! XD)*