How you get the girl

Chapter 40

Rep's perspective; 

I woke up in the middle of the night, needing water, and noticed a dim light from a few beds over. With a pang of sadness, I realised that it was Debut, and that she probably hadn't been able to sleep. She was sat curled into a ball, chin resting on her knees, and looking as though she was actively fighting sleep. I stood up, moving over to be on the bed next to her. 

"Hi Debut," I whispered. "You doing okay?" 

"I-I'm sorry if I bothered you with the light, I just got scared and-" She stammered. 

"Hey, no, it's okay, you didn't bother me at all," I soothed. Since she had returned, I had found myself seeming less sarcastic, almost as if I had a soft spot for her. I felt incredibly bad for her, and I had to admit that I saw a bit of my younger self in her- it kind of made me reflect on how much the events of my life impacted me to become the bitch I am now. 

"Rep," She said, and though the light was dim I could hear the shakiness in her voice. "I'm scared," 

"Don't be scared hun, I'm here," I hesitated, wanting to comfort her but also wondering if she would have the same reaction as yesterday. "Can I come over there?" 

"Um, can you just stay there and talk to me?" 

I nodded, shifting my position and crossing my legs. We sat in silence for a while, and I got lost in my thoughts. With all the drama of yesterday, I hadn't had a chance to think about myself very much- not that I was complaining, seeing as my main coping method is pretending that nothing happened in the first place. However, when I sat down and thought about it, I realised that I was... scared as well. It was unusual for me to let myself feel, but I found myself holding back tears before I had a chance to stop it. 

"Are you okay Rep?" Debut cocked her head curiously, looking over at me. 

"Yeah I'm fine," I said unsurely. "It's just... a lot," 

"You're allowed to cry, I'm not going to like, be mad at you or something for being sad, he hurt you," She said. She didn't realise the impact those words had on me, and I was suddenly very grateful for the limited light as I blinked once and a single tear came out. I started thinking back to my past, to all the shitty people that made me so unfeeling. I had learnt to shove down my emotions so much that sometimes I hurt people by accident. 

"Do you wanna talk about it?" She asked, earning a hesitant head shake from me. I decided I would talk about my feelings, but not to her, she'd been through too much in the past day for me to dump all of my stuff on her as well. 

"Do you want to?" I offered. She shied away, shaking her head. "I dunno what he did to you but I just wanted to let you know that you are not defined by him hurting you. I won't leave you alone, I promise I will refuse to leave if he tries to make me, I'm going to try my best to help you be less scared," 

"Thank you Rep," She whispered. "You don't know how much that means to me," 

"Trust me, I do," I said. "Also, no pressure at all, but could you let me have a look at the damage? Just so that I can know how to help you and see if I need to help you dress the wounds," 

"Um," She paused. "I- I don't know," She shook her head. 

"We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with, I just need to make sure you're okay and you don't get infected like me, alright?" I was feeling a bit better after having pain killers and cleaning my cuts, but there was no denying that if I wasn't in Bicycle's basement then I would probably need to be on antibiotics. 

"O-Okay," She nodded slowly. "But please stick to what you said, this is really hard and I don't want to do it at all," 

"It's going to be alright," I stood up, walking over and then sitting on the edge of her bed softly, as to not alarm her. "Can you hold my hand?" I offered her my hand as I had last night, this time seeing her fight the urge to retreat. She bit her lip, shakily placing her small hand in my own. "Good job, you're doing great, I know this is hard for you," 

"Okay, I'm going to have to look at the damage, how do you want me to do that? I might need to see your back and stomach," I said gently. I knew that I would have to tread carefully with this. Knowing Bicycle, he probably was a borderline pedophile who barely avoided imprisonment by never going that one step further. 

"I don't want to take my shirt off," She whispered with wide, fearful eyes. "Please don't make me," 

"I won't I promised I wouldn't force you to do anything, remember?" I squeezed her hand gently. "How about you sit on the edge of the bed and you only lift up your shirt so that I can see what happened?" 

"That won't work," She breathed. "There's- There's one cut going a-all the way down my back," 

"Calm down, it's alright," I soothed. I shuffled a bit more so that I was next to her. I left her enough room so that we wouldn't accidentally touch, but her grip remained on my hand. "I got you," 

"I want to hug you but I can't be- because my brain won't let me, I know I would just freak out," She cried. 

"We can go slowly, okay- my main priority is just to help you, and if you want a hug I'll help you become comfortable with it," I said. While I was definitely not a hugger myself, and it was the last thing I wanted to do, I remembered how rude I had been to the poor girl at times, and the least I could do was to help her right then. 

She breathed deeply, releasing my hand and wrapping her arms around me. I struggled not to tense up, reminding myself that this wasn't about me. It was an awkward hug, both of us side by side as Debut remained sat with her knees to her chest. 

"I'm going to put my arm around you, that okay?" She nodded, and I snaked an arm around her shoulder as she rested her head on mine. I felt my shirt becoming wet as her tears dropped silently. "Doing okay?"  

"Yeah," I saw her smile in the dim light. "I think I'm ready to let you help put the stuff on the cuts," 

A/N; I'll probably post another part later today but I can't be bothered to finish this right now so here you go. 

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