Forever

I would like to thank all of you. This is my third most popular and reviewed fanfiction, right behind two fanfictions I've discontinued, so it's basically my most popular. As a reward for your loyal tolerance, I will now update this.

But before I do,I would like to set the record straight. On Pahkitew Island, Scarlett was able assert herself in the episode "Scarlett Fever" because she had the means to do so. She threatened to blow up everyone because she actually could. Here, she does not have anything. She has no weapon, no bombs, and no strength to make Tom back off. Tom is also twice her size and at least eleven times her strength, so you can see why she can't fight back.

But don't worry. Poor Scarlett's torment won't go on forever. When she finally has a mean to defend herself from the craziness of this school, she won't forget what Tom did to her...

AN EDIT: I'm SO sorry for taking so long to update this! I've been depressed and unmotivated recently, and I don't know why. Also, I'm having trouble deciding what I can get away with and still keep a T rating. But mostly the first thing. I wish I could give you all something nice for being so patient with me. Oh well. I do have an announcement next chapter though, that'll be interesting. Hopefully.

Chapter 8 - Insomnia

"He ate my heart. (I love that girl!) He ate my heart. (Wanna talk to her, she's hot as Hell!)" - "Monster" Lady Gaga

When I got back to the room, I was careful not to look at Max or Stephanie, who were sitting on the couch, staring at the wall, and doing nothing. I slipped into my room quietly, not wanting to disturb them. I sat on my bed, did some homework, then, I guess, fell asleep. I was awoken by a pounding on my door and Stephanie calling to me.

"Hey roomie!" she called through the door, "Wake up! It's like, time for bed!"

I blinked. Then why did she wake me up? I sighed, got up and got ready to go to bed properly. I considered pushing my desk against the door to keep Tom out of my room, but I knew it would probably do no good. Plus, it would probably just annoy him.

I layed down in my bed, with my back to the door. I didn't want to see Tom come in, and perhaps if I didn't notice him I could actually sleep through the night. But just as I started to fall asleep, a clock somewhere struck the hour, and I suddenly felt a hand on my side, rubbing gently. At Tom's touch, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn't heard him come in, so his prescence was truly surprising.

"Aw, baby, don't be surprised," I heard him murmur in my ear, "It's just me. I'll make the bad things go away."

Then I felt his lips on my neck. As I was not very familiar with the rituals of courtship, I was not exactly sure what he was doing. It felt odd, though, and I shivered. He continued by wrapping his arms around me and then pulling me against him. And then he started getting more... comfortable, shall we say. He started "feeling" me, and touching me in places that made me shudder. But I knew I could not make him stop.

I knew what he wanted to do. I did not understand why he did not simply do it and get it over with. When I asked him this, he let out a low chuckle.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said, "But I always deny myself pleasure. It makes my lust grow, and when I finally get it, it's all the more satisfying." He moved closer to me and murmured in my ear. "I can't wait to have sex with you."

Once again I did not sleep that night, and the next morning I was more tired than I had ever been. Even though it was Sunday, Max and Stephanie would not allow me to rest. When Tom left my room in the morning, I got maybe one minute of sleep before Max barged into my room, completely uninvited.

"Are you planning on sleeping through the day?" he asked me, without even explaining what he was doing in my room.

"That was the initial plan," I muttered, still laying in my bed, my eyes shut. Even so, I could almost see Max rolling his eyes at me.

"You know there's a great time when you can sleep without it interfering with your day," he remarked, smartly, "It's called night."

I was far too tired to come up with a witty retort. So instead I opened one eye to glare at him. "Is there something I can help you with?" I growled at him.

"You could be awake, for one thing," he replied. I wanted to kick him, but I didn't have the energy. He wasn't done talking, either. "You will accompany me to breakfast," he ordered.

"Don't wanna," I muttered simply, rolling over to turn my back on him. I was foolish to think that he would simply leave after that. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of bed as I groaned in protest.

"You need to keep your strength up, Scarlett," Max told me, "You can't keep skipping several meals in a row."

"Since when did you care?" I muttered under my breath. But I went along with him anyway (as if I really had a choice,) and we went down to the cafeteria. I was rather hoping that Max and I would be eating alone (as crazy of an idea that that is,) but of course Stephanie found us and forced us to sit with her and Tom. She led us over to the table and sat across from Tom, staring longingly into his eyes. I was about to sit next to her, but Max rudely cut me off which forced me to sit next to Tom.

I sighed in frustration (not out loud, of course!) and took my place, rubbing my temples to sooth the headache that was forming. The moment I sat down, I felt Tom put his hand on my knee and gently start rubbing it. Whether this was an affectionate gesture or one of warning, I could not say, but I did know that I had to try very hard not to glare at him.

"So roomie!" Stephanie said to me, "How was your first week of classes?"

"I've had better," I muttered in response.

"That's awesome!" she exclaimed. Clearly she had not heard my answer. "As for me, I like, have Brittany in almost all of my classes. She's like already got like, five kids sent to the Panic Room."

I would have asked her what the Panic Room was, but I was having trouble focusing, what with my headache, my sleep deprevation, and Tom. But luckily I would find out anyway.

"What's the Panic Room?" Max asked her.

"It's basically detention," Stephanie answered, "Only a lot worse. Trust me, you like, do not want to be sent to the Panic Room."

I sighed, deciding to try to change the topic. "So, Stephanie," I began.

"You can call me Steph," she corrected.

"Whatever," I replied, "You seem to know an aweful lot about this place. How long have you been here?"

I saw a strange sort of smile cross Stephanie's face. As if what I had just asked her brought her back to times she would have rather remained forgotten. But it was gone in an instant, before I had time to properly focus.

"Oh, long enough," was her vague answer. She gave a little laugh. "I'm sure I'm close to graduating from here soon. Not that I would like, you know, want to leave my friends or anything." She looked down at the table and a strange sadness seemed to settle in her eyes. Of course, I could have been mistaken. Tom's hand on my knee was making it hard for me to think straight.

The rest of the day is just a fog in my memory. I had never gone so long without sleep, and every time I tried to go to my room to sleep, Max would force me out and make me go with him to somewhere pointless. Well, I'm sure it wasn't pointless to him, but at that moment I was too annoyed and tired to care. By the time we were finished running his (fairly stupid) errands, it was night and time for bed.

I had just gotten into my night clothes and let my hair down for bed when Tom came into my room without even knocking. I jumped a little when he came in, as normally I was actually in my bed when he came in, but this wasn't the only thing that would surprise me. Without any warning, he seized me around the waist, pressed me tight against him and kissed me hard. One would think that I would be used to this by now, but the power and force he put into his lust and passion took me off guard. He shoved me onto my bed and was on top of me in an instant. Hardly giving me time to breath, he took advantage of my surprise and took the opportunity to slide his tongue down my throat. I felt him shoving himself against me, almost as if he was trying to glue himself to me so I could never get away. I was puzzled when he suddenly stopped and sat up. But my nervousness, and all of my tension returned when he whipped his shirt off. I flinched, fearing what he was going to do to me. He pinned my shoulders down, leaned down and kissed me again. His fingers were digging hard into my shoulders, and his lips were pressed hard against my mouth. Long into the night this went on. I could hear Max snoring in the room next to mine, and I longed to call out to him (I know. Me, wishing for Max's help. That's how desperate I was.) But I would not dare the risk; I knew Tom could injure me very badly, possibley permanantly.

After awhile of him trying to force his tongue down my throat, he rolled over, still clutching me, but now I could breath. He wrapped his arms around me, and leaned in to whisper in my ear. I will not tell you what he said because I hate you, but let's just say it made me shudder and fidgit uncomfortabley.

"Damn, Scarlett," he murmured, "I can't take my hands off of ya, if you know what I mean."

"Go to Hell," I hissed silently at him.

I swear that the sun knew how much torture I was going through and took longer to rise than usual. And I didn't sleep a wink. Tom has his arms around me, and his mouth pressed to mine all night. I knew today would be even worse than the past two days, because today I had classes. Tom seemed reluctant to leave my room today, and gave me one last hard kiss before leaving to his own room. He was gone for only about thirty seconds before Max pounded on my door, demanding that I get up.

That morning seemed to go extra slow for me as I got up, got dressed, and fixed my hair. Max was still waiting for me when I exited my room. I really wished he hadn't personally assigned himself to be my alarm clock. I was already annoyed at him enough as it were.

At breakfast, Max and I studied our schedules and I was deeply aggrivated to see that we had every single class of ours that day. Every, single, one. That would give us no spare time at all, and took us from just after breakfast, to just before dinner. It was the first time in my life I felt like crying in frustration. How was I going to stay awake through eleven classes in one day?! Looking at Max, I could tell he was just as frustrated as I was.

"Well, this is going to be a fun day," he muttered angrily.

We didn't waste any time and went straight to our first class which was Math with Mr. Medlicott. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the man reminded me vaguely of Chef Hatchet. Something about the way he yelled everything.

Everyone was calm and quiet as we waited for class to begin. We didn't want to incur Medlicott's wrath or anything like that. Our teacher came in right as the bell wrang, looking sour-faced as usual.

"LISTEN UP, MAGGOTS!" he screamed at us, "TODAY WE ARE GOING TO LEARN ABOUT FRACTIONS AND PERCENTAGES! TAKE OUT A PAPER AND PENCIL AND SOLVE THE PROBLEM I AM ABOUT TO GIVE TO YOU!"

Everyone scrambled to do as he said. After I did, I took a few breaths to try to collect myself. I hoped that I would be able to focus on the problem and be able to think straight. I was also avoiding looking over at Tom, who was sitting one desk away from me.

"ALL RIGHT," Mr. Medlicott shouted, "IF STEVE HAS FORTY SIX APPLES, AND HE GIVES TWENTY FOUR TO SALLY, WHAT PERCENT OF HIS PAY IS DOCKED FOR GIVING SALLY FREE APPLES?"

I was glad, when having a quick glance around, to see that I was not the only one confused by this question. The entire class looked quite dumbfounded.

When no one moved to try to solve the problem, Mr. Medlicott sighed. "THE ANSWER, OF COURSE, IS 100%! HE WOULD BE FIRED IF HE GAVE HALF OF THE APPLES AWAY FOR FREE! WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE GET THAT?"

For the rest of class, Mr. Medlicott gave us more strange and unsolvable problems while he screamed at us. Needless to say, I was quite glad when the bell wrang, ending the class. I sighed and looked at my schedule. One class down, ten to go.

I think this is a good place to end this chapter. I mostly wanted to show Scarlett's descent into sleep deprevation because of Tom keeping her up at night. Next chapter we shall continue that, while she goes to her other classes.

Again, I am SO sorry about how long it took me to update this! I've been busy, and depressed, and I was looking for a job. But I promise the next chapter will be up faster. It shouldn't be too hard; I've created a seperate document for Scarlett and Max's schedules. It was easy since they have basically the same classes. I'm stuck on the last class, though, but that shouldn't hinder anything. Anyway, don't forget to leave a comment/very vocal and angry message about my absence! And put up the drapes to cancel out the echo!