Hate Me Like You Do, page 8
I’m not hiding. Okay, maybe I’m hiding. But it’s for my own protection. I’m protecting the merriment of the birthday spirit.
I drop all my books that I don’t immediately need for my first classes and grab an extra notebook. Before I pull away, my locker smacks against the side of my head.
“Oops, must’ve bumped it.” Kylie laughs.
Protect the birthday spirit.
I close my locker and give Kylie a smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just an accident. Probably just those few extra pounds you put on that makes it hard to stay in such a small confined space.” I reach over, closing her locker for her with the evilest grin I can summon.
“Did you just call me fat?” she shrieks in a shrill voice, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Yeah. I wanted to call you stupid, too, but I better get to class before I’m late.” The sweet smile I give her isn’t returned and her outrage just makes me even happier.
Kylie firmly closes her mouth without saying another word. Straightening my shoulders I walk around her, making sure to bump into her as I do.
My split lip still stings, bitch. But I can’t feel it at all in this moment.
Yes, I’m aware that was the most juvenile thing I’ve probably ever done… but damn does it feel good. Just to give her an ounce of what she has given to me.
Happy Birthday, Dee.
When I pass three boys who I’m all too aware of, I can’t help but glance up at them. Knox watches me with his cool, unphased attention. But Reed and Landon are both smirking, shaking with laughter.
And a little spark of heat warms my chest.
I hate how much I’m preening from their small genuine amusement.
But I don’t care. It’s my fucking birthday.
And I just don’t care about anyone else but me.
Not today.
First period is almost ready to start. The first ring of the bell sends students shuffling into their seats. I slide into my chair, getting my materials ready. Landon walks in. Neither of us making a move to acknowledge the other.
I made him laugh. That doesn’t make us friends.
We live together, yes, however each passing day makes us feel more and more like strangers. Even if he did try and snuggle up to me when he was drunk this weekend. Drunk people do stupid things and that was very stupid.
With the second ring, Mrs. Owens is instructing us to open up our books to blah, blah, blah. Math is my worst nightmare. Why do I even bother?
Oh yeah, that B average I need to get a scholarship. Should I start daydreaming about becoming a stripper already?
Maybe not yet.
I barely hear Mrs. Owens say my name at first.
“Violet. Violet Demure.” The teacher points to the back of the room directing my attention to a small brunette girl who has poked her head into the classroom.
“I was asked to bring you to the office,” the small girl says quietly.
“Okay... should I take my things with me?” My brows lower slightly as a jitter of nerves crawl in.
The office. That’s not good.
Irrational guilt floods me even though I haven’t done anything.
Hell, I haven’t even been here long enough to do anything.
Mrs. Owens looks back over at the student in the doorway who nods a quick yes that I should bring my things. Guess that means, I’ll be there awhile– also not encouraging for the nerves that are knotting within me.
I pack everything back up, shrugging into my bookbag. I pass Landon whose face is conveniently buried in the work that we haven’t even begun yet.
That’s Landon though, all good guy on the outside, asshole on the inside.
I ignore my petty thoughts as I follow after the girl. The normally crowded halls are empty now with everyone working in their classrooms. I follow the brunette through the wide, white halls to the office. She’s a young girl, likely a freshman.
“Do you know why I’m going to the office?” I ask her.
Her dark brown ponytail flicks behind her as she walks. “If I had to guess, you’re in trouble. They always send me during this period to get the troublemakers out of class.” She looks back at me. “What did you do?”
There’s that sick churning of guilt in my stomach again.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Look,” she says, her tone very frank. “I know they call you Venereal Violet. I doubt you’re as nice as you look.”
Wow.
Well, she thinks I look nice at least. See, something positive.
“No one here is as nice as they look,” I whisper back to her.
Together we step into the office and she points me to a row of stiff leather chairs outside the opaque door with the word HEADMASTER printed against the glass. I get cozy in the seat thinking over everything I’ve done at school.
Unless flunking Algebra or calling someone fat is a crime, I’ve got nothing to worry about. The kids who go here have done much worse than me and the teachers always look the other way.
Everything’s fine.
It’s fine.
Shit, what if it’s about my mother...what if something happened to her in jail...what if she did something...or someone did something to her…
I swallow hard and force the drilling thoughts from my mind.
I am not worrying long because the headmaster’s door opens and the large man waves me in. His head shines against the fluorescent lights like balding is a requirement for school principals. His nose is long and crooked, pointing down over paper thin lips. Without a word he sits down on the edge of his desk. Close enough like we are friends, but far enough to still show he is in charge.
I don’t like it. I don’t like when men linger too close.
And Headmaster Robins is too close to the seat that’s directly in front of him.
I shift where I stand just in front of the door.
He looks friendly enough but I’ve had my share of judgmental counselors and other authority type figures who have shown me there is more cruelty to be found in the world. With his large hand he points down to the seat in front of his shining oak desk.
The one just near his big thigh.
The office around me is decorated in lovely shades of brown and mauvy reds. Knick knacks and framed certificates of achievement clutter the shelves. My seat deflates when I sink into it, leaning to one side to create the illusion of space for my mind that’s slamming full speed with too many disgusting scenarios.
I can’t help but glance back at the frosted glass door. I can’t see out, no one can see in.
That nasty feeling in my stomach rears up all over again.
“Ms. Demure?” Headmaster Robins begins.
“That’s my name.” I’m trying to joke with him but it comes out like I’ve got a smart mouth. Which I do, I’m just not trying to put it into practice at this exact moment in time.
It’s all from a build up of nerves and it’s coming out anxiously now.
Lowering his heavy chin, he looks down at me, no sign of laughter or amusement in his expression. “Someone reported you, Ms. Demure.”
“They did what?”
Suddenly I don’t feel threatened by the big man.
I feel threatened by every fucking person at this academy.
“Reported you.” He stands up, walking around his desk. In one swift movement he opens up the top drawer, pulls something out and looks at it before showing me.
A needle. An empty needle.
“They reported you and when your locker was searched, this is what we found.”
What the fuck.
“You’re joking.” I want him to be joking. I want this to be some sort of ridiculous practical joke where the camera crew emerges from the woodworks and swarms me in laughter. “That’s not mine. That’s a mistake–”
“We’ve heard your mother had,” he pauses trying to choose his words carefully, “a hard time in the past with this sort of,” another pause, “situation.”
Anger and hurt, the purest form of offense, splices through me. “My mother is in prison if that’s what you’re hinting at, and I am not my mother. I am not an idiot.”
I don’t want to appear as if he has cut me in a wound that never truly heals but I find myself sitting on the edge of the seat now, my fingers digging into the leather arms of the chair. The paled stretched skin over my knuckles might suggest otherwise.
“Well it’s unused and we would like to keep it that way. We’ve spoken with your current guardian, Mr. Reyes and he does vouch for you. He says you’re a sweet girl but he agrees that perhaps with some counseling we could get ahead of this thing.”
“Get ahead of this thing,” I scoff under my breath as dark rage burns through my chest.
Get. Ahead. Of. This. Thing.
I’ve never been so completely pissed off over the most vague fucking sentence in my entire life.
“Ms. Demure, I know you have not lived an easy life but I want this school to be a safe place for all students that go here. That includes you. This could be a good stepping stone to your future.” He smiles.
This school isn’t a safe place. This school is the plague and it will likely be the death of me. I stand up quickly, my backpack bouncing against my shoulder with the momentum.
“Am I able to return to class now?”
He opens the door pointing me out with a sympathetic smile. A fake smile. He doesn’t care about the safety of his students, he doesn’t care about me. He cares about the reputation of his school.
I give him another look before I leave.
“Counseling?” I ask.
“Counseling. Every day after school.” He nods, his chins nodding right along with him.
Counseling it is. The very last thing I want, is to talk to someone about my screwed up life right now.
Nine
Reed
Metal clanks loudly as I drop the bar back in its place. Sweat beads against my forehead a combined effort between the weights I’m lifting and the temperature coach likes to keep this room. The air in here sticks to you too. It clings to every inch of your body, pressing in and making the heat feel more like a heavy coat.
I have frustrations I need to get out. The heavy smell of rubber and metal has become a calming scent to me. The bench creaks loudly as I sit up finally, pulling my shirt off and using it to remove the moisture dripping from my pale hair.
This school has done something I didn’t think it could do. I had no doubts that Knox could dig himself into that atrocious abyss of corruption his father beat into him when he was younger. However, I never once thought he could make an entire school do it.
He just had to plant the violent seed. Landon and I watered it. Then Mournmount Academy let it grow. We no longer had to whisper dirty ideas to others about mean tricks that can be played on her, they happen on their own now.
These kids, they’re doers. Their future employers will be so fucking proud.
I just can’t say the same about myself.
Thankfully, I’m too busy with football to see most of it. But the painful look behind her eyes, the one behind that fake smile she gives us, tells me it’s happening.
We aren’t so different, her and I. An annoying idea that I’m constantly reminded of for some reason.
She isn’t the only one with a parent that has an addiction. Her family just doesn’t have the kind of money to cover it up.
Bitterly, I reminisce over the many times my mom left me alone with my dad because she went on a ‘girls trip’ or a ‘mini vaca’. As I got older, I got wiser. Those are just code words for mom has to go to AA meetings and stay away until she’s sober enough again to be seen in public.
It’s a harsh cycle we go through every year. I hate it. And I hate that I know I’m too much like her.
Crossing one arm at a time over my body, I stretch out a bit. Music pounds out of the black radio mounted in the corner of the room. It blares from the radio really. I walk over and click the switch, letting silence descend the moment the melody cuts out.
My heavy breathing is the only thing I can hear. Blood still pounds in my head from pushing myself too hard. Dangerous, considering I’m by myself.
I turn off the lights and step into the hallway.
Everyone has left for the school day, all trying to take in the last of the warm weather before cold starts to sweep in and take all the memories of summer with it. The school is creepy when it’s just me. Always making weird creaking noises.
A different sort of sound leaves me frozen where I stand in the enormous gymnasium. Sniffles, crying.
My sneakers squeak against glossy floor. The janitor is likely gone for the day too. I pray it isn’t the janitor though. I’m not sure how well I could comfort the little Greek woman, I’m not even sure she speaks English.
Women don’t exactly look to me for comfort usually.
Other things, sure. But I’m not known for making them feel better. Not for more than an hour anyway.
I follow the sound of the drifting sobs against the anxiousness that builds within me now. It comes from the girl’s locker room. Who in the actual hell is still here? God, it’s going to be that ghost from Harry Potter that jumps out at me next.
...Not that I’ve watched that movie in weeks...or years, I mean...
Against my better judgement, I walk into the dimly lit locker room. It isn’t a ghost I see. Though from the look of her, the crumpled shell of a person clinging to her bare legs, she might as well be one.
And everything in me sinks hard all at once.
I’ve never seen Dee look this weak.
Scared, yes. Angry, yes. Nervous, yes. Crying, never.
I lean against the gym lockers, my hand fisting tighter around my damp shirt. There are no words I could say to make this any better, so I watch her with a quiet gaze.
Dee looks up slowly. Tears leave behind streaks on her cheeks, her eyelashes dark and damp around her red rimmed eyes. Goosebumps cover every inch of her as the air conditioning blows against her naked skin. I try not to let my attention snag on her thin black lace bra and panties.
Knox wanted to create a monster out of this school. Congratulations. It’s a living breathing beast now.
And I have to suck it up and keep feeding the fucking thing. Because I’m committed. I don’t half ass shit. Even shit that I hate. Like hurting her.
“Someone take your clothes?” Stupid question but I ask it anyway.
Her eyes narrow in an icy glare. “Actually, I was having such a good day, I donated them.” Sarcasm twists her lips up into cruel smile. She would never let us know she was hurting or ask for help. She isn’t the type.
She’d really rather sink into her own misery than ask me for help…
Vomit stings my throat and I swallow the rising guilt back down into its place deep inside me.
“Get up. I have a spare shirt somewhere.” I turn, ready to take her in to the men’s room to grab my extra clothing. Something to cover her up. Anything to keep me from having to look at the very off limits curves of her body. Violet Demure gives me dangerous thoughts when my guard is down.
Right now, my guard’s so far down it might never come back up.
“Don’t whiplash me with your goddamn guilted kindness, you football fuck.” She spits the words out, stinging me with them like poison.
Football fuck. Fucking woah, Dee.
Someone run to get the bar of soap to wash that sweet mouth out.
It was that sweet mouth that encouraged me during the summer. The calming melody of her voice that I hear sometimes when my thoughts go dark. When I want to get black out drunk rather than face the fakeness of my life.
It had been a quiet moment between us that passed after I sent away a freshly fucked girl and I sense Dee rather than see her as she follows me down to the liquor cabinet. I stood staring blankly at the alcohol for a long time. Dee slipped passed me and walked around to the fridge, the tap water trickling into a glass as she poured herself a drink.
She always reminded me of pureness. Looking at her, her soft blonde hair and big bright eyes, she was the perfect image of an angel.
Even if I knew her mind was anything but innocent.
“You must be parched after all that, um, work.” She arched her pale brow and then offered me her glass. It was like she was offering me an escape. A reason to turn away from what would have been a nasty, messy night.
“I could put in some overtime, if you needed me,” I purred, caging her in against the counter until her back arched and her perfect tits pressed fully against me.
Fuck. What I wouldn’t give for the smallest taste of Violet Demure.
The way she shifted against me, making me rock hard in an instant only fueled that fiery tension that always laid between us.
“You’re so into yourself, I don’t know how you ever make time for anyone else.” She shoved at my chest, her fingers lingering against my pecs, nails digging lightly into my skin in the most delicious way.
“I’d make time for you, Dee,” I whispered along her ear, making her tremble in my arms. “Just say the word and I’ll forget about how much I should be drinking right now.”
Then she said it; the thing I wanted to believe more than anything else.
“We aren’t our parents, you know. I’m not my disaster of a mother or my absent, unknown father. And you aren’t your mother.” She smiled softly. Sadly. “Or your father, or some simple football dream. Reed Carrington, you are solely yourself. Loyal. Sweet.”
No one. No one had ever called me sweet.
But the banter between us, the quiet words and easy laughter, maybe I was sweet when I was with her.
Steps sounded from somewhere down the hall and I pulled back from her, honoring that fucking rule that loomed over my existence every time I wanted to claim her, kiss her, fuck her.
The moment I stepped back, she disappeared down the dimly lit hall. Leaving me craving, but not for the carelessness of being drunk.
I was craving her.
I hear her honest words now, ringing in my head. But somehow I’m my father’s son once again and I refuse to let myself open up or to chase after the girl I can never have. My feet are planted firmly but when it’s clear nothing good will come of this, I turn slowly away from her.
