Page 66 of Malice
Camping felt like a death sentence. It had been the same way my entire life, yet every year my mom made the same plans with the same people to do the same things I hated. It took us forever to get there, and everyone wanted to sing and play games that made me want to cry. I was thirteen. Singing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” or playing Eye Spy was no longer fun.
I just wasn’t the type who liked to be out in the wilderness with bugs, snakes, and whatever else. I hated that there was no good way to charge my phone unless my Uncle Martin and Aunt Tilly let me use their truck. I hated that the only way to bathe for the entire week was in the little springs. Most of all, I hated leaving Jace behind, but my mom insisted that this was strictly family time.
“Alex, you’re going to be going off to college in a few years, and you will have these memories with your family for the rest of your life,” Mom said, her face glowing as she smiled.
As I suspected, it was seventeen hours of hell before we reached the campsite.
“Alex, help your cousin set up her tent,” Mom said, but Courtney glared at me. You couldn’t find two more opposite people, and for reasons I’d never figured out, Courtney hated me.
Doing as I was asked, I wandered over to Courtney. “Hey, did you want help with your tent?”
“If I wanted help, I would ask for it,” she bit back.
I went to turn away but stopped and instead took a step closer. My voice lowered so only she could hear. “What the hell is your problem with me? I rarely see you, and I’ve never done anything to you, so why the fuck are you like this?”
Courtney looked around, making sure that the adults were engrossed in their own conversation. “I may only see you three times a year, but I can’t get out from under your shadow. When we were little, all my parents talked about was you and how much they wished they had a boy, a boy just like Alex. Then it was how academically smart you are and how you’ll get a full scholarship to whatever school you want. You couldn’t stop there, though. Nope, the one thing I had was soccer, and I was amazing, but the moment you picked up a basketball and made the senior team, I lost that too.” Courtney took a step closer. “How many games do you think my dad made after that? None. Why? ‘Cause he was too busy going to your games to support you.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at me, her eyes narrowed into slits. “All I hear is how amazing you are and how they wished I could be more like you. If he weren’t my dad, I’d say he fucking likes you.”
“First, how is any of that my fault? Second, that’s fucking disgusting, like I’d want to fuck your dad, and lastly, all it says is your parents are jerks,” I said and realized that it was louder than I intended. I looked over my shoulder, and four sets of eyes stared at us. Shit.
“Huh, looks like you might have just dropped down a peg there, Alex. Thanks,” Courtney whispered and walked away.
The rest of the week was awkward. It was obvious that everyone had heard, and yet in our family, you didn’t ‘air your grievances,’ as my mother would say. My aunt and uncle took turns glaring at me, but Courtney was miraculously much nicer. Fuck, I hated camping.
Thankfully, we’d reached the last day, and because it was storming so hard, it gave me the perfect excuse to remain in my tent while the others took turns hanging out. The storm was getting nasty, and my tent blew around me like a tarp. The rain that drowned out everything continued without any end in sight. We would’ve floated away by now if we’d still been back home.
J: You back tomorrow?
A: Yeah, thank god.
J: You wanna hang out when you get back?
A: Not sure what time I’ll be back, but I’ll text you.
J: Cool. Check ya later.
A: Night.
I turned off the phone and placed it in my bag for safekeeping and realized just how dark it had gotten. I didn’t know what time it was when I was woken up. It was still dark outside, and the thunder rumbled with the driving rain.
I hadn’t heard my tent flap opening or registered the blanket disappearing until hands gripped my sleeping pants and tugged them down. My half-asleep, muddled mind made me think it was Jace until a hand gripped the back of my neck.
All the sleepy fuzz dissipated, and my eyes snapped open, but I couldn’t see who had me.
“Get off me,” I said and tried to push myself up off the ground.
A heavy weight pressed down on my back, and hot breath fanned my ear. I was fit for my age, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t move. My heart was racing wildly, and I wanted to yell for help, but something was stuffed into my mouth when I opened it to scream.
“You’re a disrespectful little prick.” I froze at the sound of my uncle’s voice. This wasn’t some stranger that had wandered into our campsite. This was someone I knew.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, but he didn’t listen. “Courtney made me angry. I didn’t mean to…”
“Shut the fuck up, and before you go squealing to your parents, they’ll never believe you. They’ll throw you out of the house, disown you for making trouble, and make sure that all your friends and family know exactly what you are…a cock lover.”
I gulped down the panic of what his words meant, and my body trembled with the spike of adrenaline. He held me down harder, my face painfully pressing into the pillow so that I could feel the rough ground beneath the thin tarp bottom. I struggled to breathe and kicked out, thrashing around, trying to break free of his grip. At six-five, he was a big man, but I’d never seen my uncle as a threat until this moment. As he forced my legs apart, all I could see was his glare from earlier in the day.
How had I missed the malice in his eyes?
