Chapter 8
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I was floating. Arms outspread, water lapping my body, breathing in a summery fragrance of salt and coconut. I lifted my chin and the sun shone so brightly that I had to squint through spangles of light just to see where I was.

Somebody else was floating beside me. Someone I liked alot, who made me laugh and smile and forget everything in the human world.

He wrapped his arms tightly around me and I giggled, enjoying myself a lot. I stayed with him for what seemed like ages, unable to control my happy sighs.

I could hear Bree's distant laughing, Adam's chuckling, and Leo's game console. I could see all sorts of blue and yellow mountains up in the horizon, glowing brilliantly like a colourful dazzling inferno. The strong smell of sweet peaches and pineapples clogged my sense of smell, but I didn't care. I was with Chase, and that's all that mattered.

I stopped floating and turned to face him. His hair was soaking wet, and so was mine. Water lapped gently at our bodies and moved in silent waves, blocking out the world with swift, sharp motions.

I tried desperately to savour this moment, tried to catch it, pin it down, keep it safe, before all of these precious moments became yet another single memory.

Chase looked at me with his big, beautiful brown eyes. They captivated my own, refusing to let go until I had the courage to break our eye contact (which I, thankfully, never did).

Then the unthinkable happened.

I was ripped away from him recklessly, my flesh almost tearing out of my skin and landing in the hands of whoever tried to grapple my skin.

Chase was shocked, trying to stand up to run over to me. But it all happened so fast. I was rapidly moving across the sand, but it wasn't me controlling my legs. I was getting carried away, I was getting harrassed by someone I didn't even know the name of.

I was thrust inside a white van, and I knew that it was my father's company car. But why? Why did he have to ruin my happiness? What was wrong with him?!

Furious, I pounded on the back of the doors with my fists and screeched like a banshee. My "dad" told me to shut the hell up, but I wouldn't. I kept crying, thrashing about, yelling, shifting. He couldn't do anything to stop me.

Once my throat started to hurt, and my eyes were fresh out of tears, and my head felt like it had been pounded with a hammer, I quietened down. But that didn't stop me from whimpering his name; Chase Chase Chase.

Was this my fathers cruel way of showing me that I simply can't be happy? Didn't he want to move on?

I secretly loathed him. He had dealt with my mothers death so well in the first couple months after her funeral. He had been so organised, forever going to work and coming back home on the right time.

He started to try and forget about her completely. He'd take several family photos and frames down, chucking them in the bin as if they meant nothing to him. I'd sometimes crawl out of bed and take them out, feeling guilty that I didn't try to stop him earlier.

He was right all along. It was my fault.

I remember it so clearly, as if it happened yesterday. We were walking back home from the cinema, me and my mom. We walked through an alleyway that always seemed so safe and secure, but not this night. We were so unfortunate; so silly, so clueless.

I had the joy of wearing mine and my moms 3D glasses on the way. My sight was dark and blurred, but I didn't care. I stumbled and laughed and danced, but then I heard a scream and froze, heart thudding.

There was a man no bigger then 6'7, and he had a menacing gun in his hand. It was so shiny, it looked so fake. I laughed and waved, thinking that it wasn't real... but it was. Oh, it so was. He trapped my mom in a headlock, cackling evily, cocked the gun towards her head, and pulled the trigger.

Gunshots. Blood, lots of it. Gore and red liquid oozing on the slimy pavement. The 3D glasses ripped from my face. Tears streaming down my cheeks and staining my hoodie.

The van ceased to a halt and I was harshly pulled out from the back, swimsuit and all. We were at my house again, but it felt like a strangers' den. It wasn't the same anymore. No matter how many times I wanted to forget the past and keep my future intact, it couldn't be done.

"Shut up, Candice!" he snarled, hurling me on the stairs. "What was that about, eh?! What's your problem?!"

Anger boiled up inside of me, and I lashed out. "Me?! My problem?! My problem is you! Why did you do that?! I was happy! What is wrong with you?!"

"Do not talk back to me like that!" he yelled, seizing me by the shoulders and shaking me viciously. "I forbid you to ever see that boy again! Do you hear?!"

I didn't want to hear him. I was yelling so loud that everything he said wasn't the slightest bit audible. But I did hear him, alright. I heard him but I couldn't bear to understand him.

"No! You can't control me anymore! You dont even act like a father! I hate you!"

'Dad' slapped my face and yanked on my hair, his eyes crossed between cold fury and pure hatred. "You will not talk to me like that! No daughter of mine is going to go off with a Davenport!" he said Chase's surname spitefully, as if it was responsible for every single crappy thing that's ever happened to him.

"Stop telling me what to do!" I shouted, trying to run up the stairs. He was too fast, and grabbed my elbow. I was instantly pulled down, the stairs muffling my desperate screams for help.

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