Page 4 of Hateful
I nod. Shame floods my insides as I pick at the wrapper of the muffin.
“Nobody wanted me to come, huh?”
Caleb rolls his eyes and nudges me a little too hard for it to be entirely playful. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Though I’m guessing that’s notjustbecause you wanted some alone time with your favorite sock.”
This time, when Caleb nudges me, there’s no guise of playful left.
“Shut up, stupid,” he snaps as I regain my posture on the floor and pick up the muffin from where it tumbled onto the carpet beside me. “I told Mom and Dad that I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“You don’t think I’m dangerous?” I ask softly.
He snorts, nodding at some of Taco’s dog hairs that have stuck to the outside of my muffin.
“I touched your food and you stabbed me with a fork. Honestly, the reaction was kind of warranted.” He shifts his weight and starts unwrapping his own muffin. “It’s just not like you, is all.”
I grin. “Are you saying I should get stabby more often?”
“Maybe,” he laughs. “Mostly, though, I’m saying that something’s up, and I wanna know what.”
I sigh. I don’t even know where to begin.
I’d originally planned to keep my entire adventure at Bleakwood private from my family … right up until they figured out for themselves that I’d been pretending to be a boy this whole time.
And like everything else, they didn’t seem to care.
Not enough, anyway, for me to worry that telling Caleb a little more is actually going to change anything.
So, for lack of a better lie to replace the truth, I start at the beginning.
Right there on my bedroom floor, I start telling Caleb about everything that happened over this past semester. How I wasmarkedfor torture by this thing called “The Brotherhood”. How this fraternity, these boys—Jasper, Heath, and Beck—have been bullying me for months, taking my food, pushing me around.
I even show him some of the scars I have from throwing myself down the stairs.
He’d asked about that before, but I’d been too banged up then to actually show him. It’s relieving in a way. And also, in a way, it only serves to make the heat in my face burn brighter.
And despite all I tell Caleb, I don’t tell himeverything.
I leave out that they all seem to be attracted to me despite me looking like a boy, and that Jasper now knows I’m a girl. I also leave out mentioning Dean Robin, since I’m not entirely sure what that means for me anyway. She said she wants some eyes and ears at Bleakwood, but I have no clue what that’s actually going to entail.
The last thing I want is Caleb or anyone else worrying about me more than they already are. Bullies I can handle. Pretending to be a boy, that seems reasonable enough.
But add in that those same bullies have tried to assault and kiss you … and that one of your only allies seems determined to use you, well …
Even I know that’s a bit much.
Caleb sits, chewing silently until I’ve finished speaking.
“So,” he says, nodding seriously. “Do you want to learn some good fighting techniques?”
“What?”
I’m a little taken aback. I didn’t expect anything mushy from my brother, from anyone in my family, but I also didn’t expect this.
“Some stuff for self-defense,” he says, shrugging. “I know how schools are. The professors won’t do shit, and this is a rich kid school, right? Their parents could probably just pay them off to look the other way.”
I nod, feeling a slight swelling of something somehow reassuring in my chest. Ever since I arrived at Bleakwood, there’s been the quietest voice in my head saying I was wrong about The Brotherhood. Somehow, Caleb assuming the same thing that I have—that there’s no point in trying to fight them the administrative way—it’s validating.
