Chapter 5 Rio

Trigger Warning***

Amy's POV

He made me pay for it, for fighting.

The belt came off with a sound I had memorised without meaning to that particular snap of leather pulling free from the loops. I curled into myself and took it, counting the seconds the way I always did, the way that made time feel like something I had control over even when everything else had been stripped from me.

When it was over he left without a word.

I lay on my side in the dark and breathed through the pain, slow and deliberate, until my heartbeat came back down to something manageable. The welts across my back and legs burned. I didn't cry. I had stopped crying a long time ago, tears only ever made me feel worse and they changed nothing.

I stared at the ceiling until the darkness outside the window began to soften into grey.

Then I got up.

.......

Getting dressed took longer than usual. I moved carefully, choosing a loose hoodie and the baggiest pair of sweatpants I owned coverage, always coverage, and pulled my hair into a knot without looking in the mirror. I already knew what I would see and I didn't need the reminder.

I went downstairs.

Mark was already gone. No note, which wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the kitchen counter bare. No lunch money. No bus fare. I went upstairs and opened the drawer where I kept the small amount of savings I had been putting aside for months, loose notes folded inside an old envelope.

It was empty.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the empty drawer, and felt something cold move through me. He had gone through my room. He had found it and taken every single note without leaving so much as a coin.

I closed the drawer carefully, the way you close things when you don't trust yourself to do it with feeling.

Fine, I would walk. Not like I had any other choice.

It wasn't that far. I had done it before. I picked up my bag, ate the last of Sandra's cookies standing at the counter, they were stale now but I ate them anyway and stepped out into the early morning.

.......

I had been walking for about ten minutes, arms folded against the morning chill, eyes on the pavement, when I heard the car slow down beside me.

I didn't look up.

"Amy."

Lia's voice. I looked up.

It was a sleek black car idling at the kerb, window rolled down, Lia leaning across the passenger seat with a small frown on her face. In the driver's seat, expression unreadable as always, was Leo.

Of course it was.

"What are you doing walking?" Lia asked.

"Getting exercise," I said.

"It's seven in the morning and it's cold. Get in."

"I'm fine..."

"Amy. Get in the car."

I looked down the road ahead of me, calculated how much further I had to go, and weighed it against the look on Lia's face. She wasn't going to drive away. I knew that much about her already.

I got in.

The car was warm and smelled faintly of cologne Leo's, that was his scent. I buckled my seatbelt and fixed my eyes on the window.

"Good morning to you too, Clumsy," Leo said from the front, pulling back onto the road.

I said nothing.

"Wow. Not even a glare today? You must be really tired."

I watched a line of houses pass outside the window and kept my mouth shut.

"Leo," Lia said, her voice carrying a warning.

"I'm just saying.."

"I know what you're doing, and I'm asking you to stop."

A beat of silence. Then Leo exhaled through his nose and said nothing more.

Lia turned to look at me from the passenger seat. I could feel her studying my face the way she had started to do quietly, like she was trying to work something out without making it obvious.

"Did you eat breakfast?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. The cookies technically counted.

She looked like she didn't entirely believe me but she let it go.

The rest of the ride passed in silence. When Leo pulled into the school car park I had the door open before he had fully stopped, murmuring a thanks that was aimed somewhere between him and Lia and stepping out into the cold air.

.......

I got through the morning on autopilot.

I sat in my seat. I copied notes. I kept my eyes on whichever teacher was speaking and made sure to look like I was paying attention, which was different from actually paying attention. Every time I shifted in my chair the welts on my back pulled tight, and I had to breathe through it without letting it show on my face.

I was good at that.

"You've said about four words since this morning," Mia said, appearing at my shoulder between second and third period. "And two of them were excuse me."

"I'm just tired," I said.

"You're always tired," Lia said, falling into step on my other side. She and Mia exchanged a look over my head that I pretended not to notice.

"I'm fine," I said, which was the most useless sentence in the English language and I knew it even as I said it.

Neither of them pushed. That was the thing about Lia and Mia, they knew when to pull back, which somehow made it harder to keep them at a distance than if they had just been relentless about it.

.......

By lunchtime I had calculated, for the fourth time, that I had exactly nothing in my bag.

No money. No snacks. Nothing left over from breakfast because there had been nothing at breakfast except two stale cookies.

"Come on," Mia said, grabbing my wrist and steering me toward the cafeteria. "You barely touched anything yesterday either."

"I'm not hungry," I said.

"You're always not hungry," Lia said from behind us. "Funny how that works."

"Lia..."

"We're going to lunch," Mia said simply, in the tone that meant the conversation was already over.

I let them pull me along because fighting it would have taken energy I didn't have.

At the counter I stepped back and let them order, keeping my hands in my hoodie pocket.

"What are you having?" Lia asked, turning to me.

"Nothing. I'm not really..."

"Amy."

The way she said my name not sharp, not frustrated, just very calm and very certain made something in my chest ache.

"I don't have any money on me today," I said quietly, looking somewhere past her shoulder. "Mark forgot to leave me any."

Lia didn't miss a beat. She turned back to the counter. "She'll have the same as me."

"Lia, you don't have to.."

"I know I don't have to," she said easily, picking up her tray. "I want to. There's a difference. Now come on before Mia eats all the good seats."

I followed her to the table, sat down, and stared at the food in front of me.

"Eat," Mia said, without looking up from her own plate.

I ate.

It was the first proper thing I'd had all day and it took everything I had not to let that show on my face.

.......

When the final bell went I was ready.

I had spent the last ten minutes of class quietly working out the logistics. Lia would come to find me. She would want to walk out together, take the bus, do the same thing we had done yesterday. And I couldn't. I couldn't sit in that car with Leo or stand at that bus stop making small talk, and I especially couldn't walk back to our street with Lia and have her see which house I went into and start asking questions I didn't know how to answer.

I slipped out of class before most people had finished packing, took a left instead of a right at the bottom of the stairs, and ducked into the narrow alcove behind the languages block where the old vending machine had been taken out and never replaced. It left a little hollow in the wall deep enough to stand in, hidden enough that you'd have to know it was there.

I pressed my back carefully against the wall away from the bruised side, and waited.

Five minutes. Ten. The noise of the school emptying out gradually thinned.

"Interesting hiding spot."

I startled so hard I knocked my elbow against the wall.

Rio was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, one ankle over the other, watching me with an expression that was more curious than amused. He had a jacket on now dark green, collar turned up, and he looked like someone who had absolutely nowhere to be and no intention of pretending otherwise.

"I'm not hiding," I said.

"You're standing in an alcove behind the languages block," he said. "Alone. After the bell." He tilted his head slightly. "But sure."

I looked away.

"Lia's been looking for you," he said, after a moment.

"I know."

"She's worried."

"She doesn't need to be."

Rio was quiet for a moment. He didn't try to fill the silence the way Lia did, or push through it the way Mia might. He just stood there, easy and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and wasn't going to use any of it to make me uncomfortable.

"You okay?" he asked eventually. It was simple, no frills.

"I'm fine," I said.

He nodded slowly, like he was filing that away alongside everything else.

"You don't have to tell me anything," he said. "I'm not asking you to. I just..." He paused, chose his words carefully. "You've looked like someone carrying something really heavy all day. And I noticed. That's all."

The back of my throat tightened.

I looked at him, really looked, for a moment and saw nothing in his face except what he had said. No agenda, no angle. Just someone who had noticed and thought it was worth saying.

"I'm fine," I said again, quieter this time.

Rio held my gaze for a second longer, then pushed off from the wall.

"Alright," he said, like he meant it. Like he was actually going to let me have that. "Take care of yourself, Amy."

He walked away without another word, hands in his jacket pockets, disappearing around the corner of the languages block.

I stayed in the alcove for another few minutes, long after his footsteps had faded.

Take care of yourself.

I tried to remember the last time someone had said that to me and meant it.

I couldn't.

I pulled my hoodie tight, stepped out of the alcove, and started the long walk home alone.