From Bully To Beloved

Bianca remained silent, not wanting to burst her friend’s bubble. She knew she had to leave soon but she couldn’t just walk out on her friend. Not in this moment.

“I let him take my Cherrelry, Bianca.” It was Cherrel’s turn to cry.

“You were a virgin?” Bianca’s voice was shocked.

“No, silly.” Cherrel laughed through her tears. “My other Cherrelry.”

Bianca looked at her in confusion. “Huh?”

“I let him do anal, Bianca.” Cherrel sighed with exasperation. “He fucked me from behind.”

“Oh.” Bianca tried not to look at her friend in shock.

“He said it would be a way to show him how much I loved him.”

“Oh Cherrel.” Bianca wanted to go and slap Joshua.

“He had to use lube there,” Cherrel kept talking, “a lot of lube.”

“Ok.” Bianca looked at her friend and hugged her. “I’m sorry.”

“It fucking hurt, Bianca.” Cherrel half cried and half laughed. “And it was gross.”

“Why?”

“I had an accident.” Cherrel made a face and burst out laughing hysterically.

“Oh?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Cherrel screwed her face up. “He told me they were separated, you know.”

“Joshua?” Bianca’s voice was soft.

Cherrel looked at her in dismay and sighed. “Yeah. I’m so ashamed, Bianca.”

“It’s okay, Cherrel.” Bianca stroked her friend’s hair. “He took advantage of you.”

“Yeah.” Cherrel looked at her with blazing eyes. “But I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” She stood up and brushed her clothes. “Wanna grab lunch?”

“Can we do an early dinner?” Bianca asked. “I have an appointment now.”

“Sure.” Cherrel hugged her friend quickly and walked to the door. “I missed you, Bianca.”

“I missed you too, Cherrel.” Bianca smiled, her first genuine smile in days. She was happy her friend was back and was being honest. “I’ll call you about dinner.”

“Sounds good. Let me go shower now.” Cherrel ran out of the room and Bianca could hear her singing a Rihanna song. As Cherrel sang about liking the way it hurts, Bianca closed her eyes. She would never love this feeling. She prayed that when she opened her eyes, she would find herself in a different place, at a different time, and with this all being a dream. She counted to three and opened her eyes. Cherrel was singing about loving the way he lied and she sighed and walked out of the door.

“I have to leave in an hour.” Mildred, the librarian looked at her sternly. “I called you hours ago.”

“Sorry,” Bianca apologized. “I was helping a friend.”

Mildred studied the young girl in front of her and decided to keep her comments to herself. She’d seen too many young girls get caught up by men in the city to not know what had caused the dark circles under this girl’s eyes. She normally wouldn’t care what the stupid girls got caught up in but this one seemed smart. The fact that she had come to the library to do some research showed that. And she looked to be a naive one. Too naive to be caught up with someone like Jaxon Aschmidt. Mildred had spent the previous evening looking him up after she had shut down the library. Her bridge group hadn’t been able to meet and she hadn’t felt like going to the bookstore. Jaxon Aschmidt looked very rich, very handsome and way too old for someone like Bianca.

“Well, come and let me show you the databases you didn’t access yesterday.” Mildred hurried her over to the computer. She didn’t want to do all the work for the girl. “Look here.” She pointed to one of the tabs and walked back to her desk.

“Uh, thanks,” Bianca called back to the lady. Her phone rang and she grabbed it quickly. She’d forgotten to turn it off or put it on vibrate. She saw Jax’s name on the screen and she quickly pressed end.

“Please put that phone on vibrate,” Mildred screeched at her.

“Sorry,” Bianca muttered back to the lady. She really did seem to fit the stereotype of an older sour librarian. She put the phone on vibrate and stuffed it back in her bag. She quickly got to searching the databases and a whole slew of new articles popped up. Mildred was right, she hadn’t seen anything yesterday. She looked at the clock and realized she didn’t have much time left and she decided to print out all the articles that had interesting titles.

“You have five minutes,” Mildred called over to her.

“I’m almost done.” Bianca quickly kept pressing print and hoped she had enough money on her print account. She jumped up quickly and went over to the computer to release the prints and waited for them to print out. She stood there with about 100 articles in her hand and quickly stuffed them into her bag before going back to turn off the computer properly this time. She saw Mildred staring at her as she shut it down and she smiled at her as she left the library.

“Thanks so much.”

“Hopefully you can concentrate on your studies now.” Mildred dismissed her and Bianca walked out of the library and tried to hold in her laughter. She knew that her situation was horrible but something about Mildred’s holier than thou attitude had her laughing. What a mess!

She grabbed her phone to call Cherrel and see where she wanted to go for dinner when she noticed a limo by the Subway entrance on 116th Street. That was strange; she didn’t really see many limos by the campus. But she supposed a lot of rich kids went to Columbia, maybe one of them had a date or something. She walked past the limo; deliberately not looking inside when she heard the door open and someone jumped out and touched her on the back.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

She screamed and looked back. Jaxon was standing there, looking handsome and stern. She held back a smile and tried to stop the happy feeling in her stomach. I don’t like this man anymore. I don’t like him. I will not be happy to see him. She kept berating herself.

“Bianca.” He grabbed her by arm and she jumped back.

“Don’t touch me.” She glared at him but he didn’t remove his hand.

“You didn’t answer my calls.” He glared back at her. “I told you that I wanted to meet you for lunch.”

“I didn’t say yes,” she muttered.

“I tried calling you and sent you text messages.”

“I didn’t see any messages.”

“Your phone wasn’t off.”

“What are you? My stalker?” She glared at him. “How did you know I was here?”

“I had a feeling.” He paused. “What were you doing?”

“None of your business.” She pulled her arm away from him. “Anyway, I have a train to catch.”

“Come with me.” He looked at her with a frown.

“No.”

“Bianca, I swear to God, I will pick you up and put you in the car if I have to.”

Bianca swallowed and felt her face flush. “Whatever.” But she walked and got into the limo. The driver didn’t even turn around to look at her.

“Drive us around for a bit, Miles. I’ll let you know where we want to go in a bit.” Jaxon ordered the driver as he got into the car after her.

“Yes, Mr. Aschmidt.” With that, they were gone.

“Where are we going?” Bianca spoke to the window.

“I was hoping we could talk.” Jaxon reached over and gripped her face so that she turned towards him. He leaned down and kissed her staring into her eyes as he did so. “God, I’ve wanted to do that all day.”

“What?” She stared at him with wide eyes.

“Kiss you.” He smiled at her and kissed her again. Only this time the kiss was harder and deeper and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She found herself melting against him. He pulled away from her reluctantly and played with her hair, tucking it behind her ears. “You are so beautiful, Bianca.”

“No, I’m not.” She dismissed his words.