Page 59 of Apathy
“Look who it is, guys,” an annoying voice echoed behind me, and I gripped the paper tighter in my hand, closing my eyes. I didn’t want to deal with her today. Actually, I didn’t want to see her this year, but fucking karma, destiny, and all the other things I couldn’t control had a different plan.
I turned around, coming face-to-face with Lilly Balland, the resident bitch of Winworth High. A self-proclaimed queen bee, social media influencer even though I didn’t think that she actually knew what that was, and the biggest pain in my ass. Her dark brown hair was pulled in a high ponytail, and the nails I felt on my face once before, were colored red, tapping against her upper arm.
A year ago, when things looked a little bit brighter, while Zane was still alive and our lives didn’t seem like a clusterfuck, Lilly hung out with us, pretending to be Kane’s girlfriend. Unfortunately for her, Kane didn’t have girlfriends. He had fuck buddies, girls that would throw themselves at him just because he was the captain of our football team and a St. Clare. For a moment, I felt bad for her.
It sucked liking somebody so much that you would stoop so low to do anything they wanted, while they never gave a fuck. I was there when Kane made her suck his dick in the living room of his home while all of us watched. I was there when she got so drunk that she didn’t know it was Zane she started clinging to, while Kane had his tongue down another girl’s throat. I was there when he told her to get lost, after the rumors of the two of them being a couple started surfacing and he found out she was the one spreading them.
And I was there when she posted that nasty video of all of us drunk and high, snorting coke from the glass table in Danny’s bedroom.
The favorite sons and daughters of Winworth, she named it. That night, my father busted my lip for snorting coke he didn’t provide. That night, he made me swallow ibuprofen like it was chocolate, allowing only a bottle of vodka with it.
The video was taken down, but my scars lasted longer than one day. And when Zane died, she connected the dots and realized that Kane would never be hers because he started fixating on me. That was when her claws quite literally came out to play, when she attacked me in front of the school, rewarding me with three slashes across my cheek because I couldn’t be bothered to defend myself.
But today… Today wasn’t the same day. Today, I was too angry to give a fuck about her broken heart and whatever fantasy she concocted in her head. Today, I wanted to see blood, and if it was hers, I wouldn’t mind.
“What do you want, Lilly?” I asked and picked up my bag, putting it on my shoulder.
The three girls always following her around like lost puppies looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here, but we all knew what rumors could do to people. Even if they wanted nothing to do with whatever this was, they had no choice. Lilly probably knew more about them than they wanted her to, and that fucking sucked.
Your friends weren’t supposed to be the ones you should be careful around. Your friends were your people, your tribe, and if you couldn’t trust them… Well, that wasn’t friendship then.
“I heard a rumor.” She chuckled, and I immediately wanted to drown out the annoying sound. People started gathering around, because we all knew that whenever she and I ended up in the same place, it couldn’t end well.
I lifted an eyebrow and smiled at her. “Are you sure you weren’t the one that started spreading it?”
Her face paled and she dropped her hands, taking a step closer to me. Looks were everything to her but looks could be deceiving. I knew that underneath this mask she wore, laid a scared little girl who wanted to fit in with the founding families. I knew her parents worked at City Hall, and that no matter how much she tried, she could never turn people to love her. She thought the video would ruin us, that it would show people who we really were, but even fucked up, high, and drunk, we were still more loved than she ever was.
“Megan.” She said her name as a threat, and I knew. I just fucking knew. Her lips pulled into a smile, and without warning, my heart started beating faster. We managed to keep the fact that Megan had my name on her body a secret. No one knew, not even our friends.
Only the police officers, Lauren, Dylan, and whoever else usually gets involved with murder investigations knew about that shit. And now she did too.
“I know, Skylar,” she taunted, her eyes sparkling with viciousness. “I know what they found in the woods.”
“You mean what I found?” I spat out, taking a step closer to her. Bright, defiant, brown eyes stared up at me, and she took a step backward, her resolution visibly wavering on her face. “Don’t fuck with me today, Lilly.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’m going to break that pretty little nose of yours.” I grinned. “And I know that Mommy and Daddy don’t exactly have money for another plastic surgery.”
The crowd around us gasped, shocked, because I never did this. I never fought back because what was the use? I realized a long time ago that no matter how hard you fought, or how much what people threw your way wasn’t correct, masses would still believe lies over the truth, because they loved reveling in someone else’s misery, rather than thinking about their own.
“You are such a—”
“Bitch?” I finished for her, enjoying the red spreading over her face. “You’re not very creative today, are you? Usually you call me a whore because I fucked Kane.” Another gasp, and the murmurs became louder. “You couldn’t get more than a couple of minutes on your knees, because even your mouth wasn’t appealing to him.”
The three girls standing behind her took a step back and looked at each other, and I knew that whatever story she told them didn’t have the information I had. And while I usually hated confrontation, hated raised voices and unnecessary drama, I was done with people walking all over me. Maybe it was because of the letter I still held in my hand, or maybe things just kept piling up, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I folded the letter in half and pushed it into the pocket of my jeans. “Just leave me alone, Lilly. This thing you’ve been doing is completely pointless.”
I turned around and started walking toward the crowd, thinking she had enough, but I was wrong. Oh, I was so fucking wrong.
“At least my name wasn’t carved in Megan’s body, Skylar.” She laughed, freezing me in place. “Maybe she got high with you guys, and you decided to cut her up and leave one final mark of the great Blackwood legacy.”
Megan’s lifeless eyes flashed in front of mine. The memory of her from last year was next—her smiling face, her blue eyes, hair the same color as mine. The memory of the tear-stained faces of students when I came to school the next day. The whispers in the wind, and the sight of my name on her skin. Her blood on my hands, underneath my nails, and I started rubbing my hands against my pants as if it was still there.
Red, red, red, dark crimson, and it was everywhere—in the periphery of my vision, in my dreams, on my body, on every surface I touched. I couldn’t wash it away. I couldn’t get rid of it. I couldn’t do anything about it. Everything started rushing to the surface.
The fists slamming into me from side to side as my father released his anger on me.
