Page 81 of Hateful
“Just a … amisunderstanding?”
Jasper’s face looks stricken as I step forward. I keep my eyes on him as I address Beck.
“I’d say it was a bit more than that,” I snap, my eyes finally cutting over to Beck. “Jasper only found out because he tried torape me.”
There it is.
I’ve finally said it.
That bile in my throat rears up again, threatening to choke me. For months now I’ve kept that in, kept it hidden—even from myself.
But saying it … saying it out loud has triggered something in me. And I’m not the only one, it seems.
Beck gapes at Jasper, and in turn Jasper glares daggers at me.
I stare down both of them. “Don’t be pissed at me,” I snap. “You’re the one who almost—”
“Stop,” Jasper growls.
“You almost …” Beck stands frozen, his hand still clenched like an unmovable marble fist in the fabric at Jasper’s neck. It looks almost like he’s started to choke him, but Jasper does nothing besides gulp uncomfortably in his friend’s grasp. It seems Beck isn’t able to bring himself to say it either. He searches his friend’s face, his lips turning up in a snarl.
My anger is no longer simply simmering, it boils over.
“That’s right,” I say, my voice some kind of feral growl. “Go ahead and ask him about it. But don’t you go and act all righteous now. Just because he tried that doesn’t make what you’ve been doing to me any better. You’ve been doingsome shitto me, too.”
Beck’s mouth clamps shut. “I—I didn’t—” But he can’t finish the sentence, so I don’t know what it is he didn’t do. Instead, he turns to Jasper. “How? When?”
Jasper sighs heavily, regretfully. He gives me a pleading look, but I’m not willing to let him off the hook for this. Let his friends know what kind of monster he really is, what he’s really capable of.
It’s about time.
“It was at the dance before Christmas break.”
“The dance?” Beck chokes out. “So—monthsago?”
Jasper nods, flicking his eyes up quickly to look at Beck’s face. “Alex had taken Olive to the dance, remember? Made me look like an idiot. I was … mad.”
“I remember that,” Beck says, nodding thoughtfully. “You werereallymad.” He chuckles under his breath. “I thought you were going to kill him. Her,” he corrects himself, shooting me a wide-eyed look as everything begins to fall into place.
“He actually almost did,” I clarify. “He cornered me in a classroom and started beating the shit out of me.”
Jasper winces and turns away as Beck’s eyes shoot back over to me.
“What?”
“Yeah, but apparently death wasn’t bad enough for me. The only reason he stopped,” I continue, my eyes boring a hole in the back of Jasper’s head, “is because he didn’t find what he was looking for between my legs.”
My own chest is heaving as I look from one of them to the other. “So, do with that what you will.”
Beck’s expression is unreadable. He looks over at Jasper, then back to me. He shuffles awkwardly and tucks his hands into his pockets.
“You’ve gone too far this time Jasper,” he says, but his voice is barely above a whisper. Shame, either for himself or for Jasper, is plain on his face. Silence falls between us for a long moment that stretches on until Beck clears his throat, angling his body away from Jasper, blocking him out of the conversation. “And you’re really sure Heath doesn’t know?”
“I never told him,” is all I say. “But I don’t really think it matters.”
I shove my hands into my pockets and rock back and forth on the balls of my feet.
It doesn’t feel like I’m talking to Beck and Jasper anymore. I stand before them, a stranger, and that is … strange. For once, for the first time, I stand before them as myself.
