Page 3 of Hateful
“Maybe it is!” I scream. My head is swimming when I wrench myself away from my mother’s grasp as she reaches for me. My feet carry me back upstairs and into my bedroom.
I slam the door and lock it before sinking down to the floor, hyperventilating. My breaths feel sharp and jagged in my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut, struggling to breathe. I’ve never purposefully hurt one of my brothers before. And as rough as we can be, we’ve never drawn blood.
Not until today.
One day home, and this is already what it’s come to.
My time at Bleakwood has changed me, and it’s definitely for the worse.
Chapter Two
Maybe my mother is right.Maybe this school is too much for me to handle.
But there’s only one way to find out, and that’s only if I even end up going back.
I sit listening to everyone yelling and arguing for a while. I can’t make out what they’re saying; they’re just muffled voices drifting up the stairs. They die down after a bit, and I hear footsteps coming upstairs, but everyone seems to retreat to their respective bedrooms instead of coming to bother me in mine.
The idea of not going back to Bleakwood at all … I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind more than once. When I’m there at the school, everything seemed so much simpler. Everything I did, I did just to make it to the next day.
Something must have changed since the last time I was home, because in the few weeks between school breaks … suddenly, I’m struggling to see the bigger picture. Funny how perspective can do that to you.
Eventually, I change back into my nightgown. The mirror above my dresser shows a thin, slight girl, with fair hair cut short like a boy’s. If I stand a certain way, I look like a boy in a girl’s nightgown.
Or maybe that’s just what I’ve conditioned myself to believe.
I crawl into my bed and lay there for a long time as the house grows quiet—or at least as quiet as it ever does—around me. I stare at my darkened ceiling for a while, tracing the lines where the walls meet. I don’t realize that I’ve fallen asleep until I wake up, startled.
Pale morning light pushes through the slit in my curtains and lances across my comforter, which I’ve pushed to the end of the bed sometime during the night. The house is strangely quiet. It’s not the quiet of everyone sleeping; I’d hear snores if that were the case.
The silence is far more unsettling.
Just when I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been left alone in the house, someone raps their knuckles against my door, and I realize that’s why I woke up in the first place. This isn’t the first time they’ve knocked. Groggily, I push the tangled sheets off myself and sit up.
“Who’s there?” I slur sleepily, my words coming out meshed together into one barely intelligible syllable.
“It’s me.” Themeis Caleb.
My stomach turns over and twists itself into a knot. I consider sneaking out the window for a moment, but one glance outside at the snow-covered lawn and I know that’s not going to happen. Not today. So, as much as I want to crawl up under my bed and hide until Caleb forgets I exist, I slip off the bed and walk to the door to unlock it.
Caleb holds a muffin in each hand on the other side. Of course, he’s fully dressed. At least that makes one of us.
“Can we talk?” he asks quietly, the look of concern on his face badly masked behind the mugs held up as a peace offering in front of him.
I knew this conversation was coming eventually. Might as well happen now.
“Yeah,” I mumble, stepping back to let him in.
He walks past me and I shut the door and turn to see him already sitting cross-legged on my floor. The hand I stabbed has a Band-Aid over the little cuts. Even though the injury looks far less severe in the sober light of day, that doesn’t stop hot guilt from coloring my cheeks.
Caleb pats the floor across from him, and I mimic him, sitting cross-legged as he hands me a banana nut muffin.
“Your favorite,” he says with a smile as I take it from his bandaged hand.
It’snotmy favorite, but now is also not the time to point that out. I just settle down in my position on the floor and force a grateful smile onto my face.
“Where is everyone?”
“Mom’s dragging everyone to the mall.”
