Chapter 57 The girl who saved me
Aria’s POV
My head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.
I groaned, squinting against the morning light streaming through my bedroom windows. My mouth tasted like regret and bottom-shelf tequila, and my body felt like I’d been hit by a truck.
There was a glass of water on my nightstand with two aspirin beside it.
I sat up slowly, the room spinning slightly, and reached for the pills. I swallowed them with half the glass of water, then drained the rest. My throat burned and my eyes felt swollen.
How much had I drunk last night?
I looked around my bedroom, trying to piece together how I’d gotten home. The last clear memory I had was… the bar. Melissa’s face when she picked me up. Her worried eyes.
Had I said something stupid? Done something embarrassing?
God, I hoped not.
I stood carefully, testing my balance, then padded across the plush carpet toward my bedroom door. I found her alone in the living room. She was curled up on my couch like a cat, still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Her dark hair was a mess, falling across her face. One arm was tucked under her head as a makeshift pillow, the other hanging off the edge of the couch. The throw blanket had slipped down to her waist.
She looked so small like that. I walked over quietly and knelt beside the couch. Gently, I brushed a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her eyeliner was smudged from crying.
She’d been crying.
My chest tightened.
I pulled the blanket up to cover her shoulders properly, making sure she was warm. She stirred slightly but didn’t wake. Just burrowed deeper into the cushions with a soft sigh.
I sat back on my heels and just… looked at her.
This girl. This beautiful, broken, fierce girl who’d saved my life without even knowing it.
———-
Four years ago. First week at NYU.
I’d thought moving to New York would change everything. Thought I could finally be free of my parents’ suffocating expectations, their plans for my life, and their endless disappointment in the daughter who liked art instead of business.
But freedom was just another word for alone.
I didn’t know how to make friends. I didn’t know how to be normal. Every conversation felt like a test I was failing.
The other art students looked at my purple hair and my thrift store clothes and saw a try-hard. A rich girl playing at rebellion. They weren’t entirely wrong.
That day in the courtyard, I was sitting alone, sketching in my journal, trying to pretend I didn’t care that I’d eaten lunch by myself every day for a week.
Then Becca Morrison and her friends walked past.
“Look, it’s the Purple Freak,” Becca said loudly. “Does your daddy know you’re wasting his money on that art school bullshit?”
Her friends laughed. I kept my head down, kept drawing, and pretended I couldn’t hear them.
“I’m talking to you, freak.”
Becca grabbed my sketchbook right out of my hands.
“Give it back,” I said quietly.
“Give it back,” she mimicked in a baby voice. “What are you gonna do about it? Call daddy? Oh wait, you can’t. He’s too busy actually contributing to society while you finger-paint like a five-year-old.”
She flipped through my sketchbook, her friends crowding around to look. Laughing at my work.
I felt my face burning. Tears prickling behind my eyes. But I didn’t move. I didn’t fight back. Because that’s what girls like me did…we took it. We smiled and pretended it didn’t hurt.
“These are terrible,” Becca announced. She held up a drawing I’d spent hours on. “My little cousin could do better. Actually, you know what?”
She ripped the page out.
My stomach dropped.
“Becca, don’t…”
She tore it in half. Then in half again. Let the pieces flutter to the ground like confetti.
“Oops,” she said with a smirk. “My bad.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
We all turned.looking for the source of the angry voice.
A girl was walking toward us…dark hair, winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut, wearing ripped jeans and a leather jacket despite the heat. She looked like she’d walked straight out of a rock concert.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Becca said.
“Actually, it does.” The girl stopped right in front of Becca, close enough that Becca had to take a step back. “Because what I just saw was you destroying someone’s property. And being a massive bitch. And I don’t like bitches.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Someone who’s about to make you regret every choice you’ve made today.” The girl smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Give her the sketchbook.”
“Make me.”
What happened next was fast.
The girl moved like liquid…fluid and graceful and absolutely terrifying. One second, Becca was holding my sketchbook. The next, she was on her ass on the ground, my sketchbook in the other girl’s hands, looking up with wide shocked eyes.
“How did you…”
“Self-defense classes since I was ten,” the girl said calmly. “My dad made sure I could handle myself. Now get the fuck out of here before I decide to use more than just your wrist against you.”
Becca scrambled to her feet, her friends already backing away.
“You’re crazy,” Becca spat.
“Yeah,” the girl agreed. “I really am. So maybe don’t test me.”
They left. Actually ran away.
The girl turned to me, her expression softening. She knelt down and started gathering the torn pieces of my drawing.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t save this one.”
I stared at her, still processing what had just happened.
“You… you just…”
“Took down a bully? Yeah.” She handed me my sketchbook and the torn pieces. “I’ve dealt with enough assholes in my life to spot one from a mile away. I’m Melissa, by the way. Melissa Hayes Spenser.”
“Aria,” I managed. “Aria Martinez.”
“Nice to meet you, Aria Martinez.” Melissa sat down beside me on the bench. “Your art is beautiful, by the way. That girl was full of shit.”
Something in my chest cracked open.
I started crying. Right there in the courtyard. Big, ugly, embarrassing sobs.
And Melissa…this stranger who’d just saved me…put her arm around my shoulders and let me cry on her leather jacket.
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I’ve got you. You’re not alone anymore.”
And I wasn’t.After that day, we were inseparable.
Melissa taught me how to stand up for myself. How to throw a punch.
We took self-defense classes together. Spent late nights in the studio. Got matching stick-and-poke tattoos behind our ears when we were drunk…tiny stars that our families would never see.
She was the sister I’d never had. The person who understood what it meant to have a family that loved you but didn’t really see you.
She saved me.
And now…
Now she was the one drowning, and I couldn’t save her back.
I couldn’t save her from Gavin. Couldn’t save her from the impossible situation she was trapped in. Couldn’t even save her from herself.
All I could do was be there. And hold her hand.
My eyes burned. I blinked hard, trying to push back the tears.
I stood up carefully, leaving Melissa sleeping on the couch, and walked to the bathroom. My stomach was churning…whether from the alcohol or the guilt, I couldn’t tell.
I barely made it to the toilet before I was throwing up everything from last night.
Trying to forget Christian. Trying to forget the wedding I didn’t want. Trying to forget that in eight months, my entire life would belong to someone else.
I flushed the toilet and slumped against the cool bathroom tile, breathing hard.
My phone was buzzing from the bedroom. It had been buzzing for a while, I realized. I’d just been too out of it to notice.
I forced myself to stand, rinsed my mouth, and went back to my bedroom to grab my phone.
Twelve missed calls. Fifteen text messages.
All from Christian.
My hands started shaking as I scrolled through them.
Christian: Where are you? We have the charity gala today.
Christian: Aria, answer your phone.
Christian: This is unacceptable. My parents are asking questions.
Christian: We were supposed to leave three hours ago. Where the fuck are you?
Christian: If you’re trying to embarrass me…
Christian: ANSWER YOUR PHONE
Christian: I’m trying to be patient with you. I’m trying to understand that this is an adjustment. But you’re making this very difficult.
Christian: My mother is furious. Do you have any idea how this makes me look?
Christian: We’re going to have a conversation about respect when I see you.
Christian: I don’t want to hurt you, Aria. But don’t you dare disrespect me one more time.
The last message had come through ten minutes ago.
I don’t want to hurt you, Aria.
My chest felt tight. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
I walked to my bedroom window and looked out at the city below. The morning sun was painting everything gold. People were already moving on the streets…heading to brunch, to the park, to wherever normal people with normal lives went on Sunday mornings.
I pressed my palm against the cool glass.
I don’t want to hurt you, Aria.But he would. Eventually.
Maybe not with his fists. But there were so many other ways to hurt someone. To slowly chip away at them until there was nothing left but the shape they wanted you to be.
I watched it happen to my mother. I watched her shrink and fade until she was just a beautiful accessory on my father’s arm.
And in eight months, it would be my turn.
Unless…
Unless what?
I had no way out. No escape plan. No Melissa to swoop in and save me this time.
My phone buzzed again in my hand.
I didn’t look at it.
I just stood there at the window, watching the city wake up, and wondered what it would feel like to be free.