I hurried to pull on my pajamas, fleece lounge pants and a cami. The material stuck on my still damp skin a few times. When I rushed through the bathroom door, I felt slightly twisted. The tightly closed shutters blocked out the fading light and cast most of the house into darkness.
Using my hand as an anchor on the hallway wall, I moved to the living room where everyone waited. The one time of day Aunt Danielle actually joined in. Their quiet murmurs filled the house. They sat on their heels on the living room floor in a small circle. Each spoke the words from Belinda’s book. Words of protection. Moving toward the circle, I stepped between Mom and Gran to stand in the middle.
I could feel the sun setting outside and a cold scary presence growing. As one, they rose and reached their right hand toward me. Their fingertips brushed my bare arms and lethargy set in, cocooning me in safety. Their quiet words stopped.
“Sleep tight Tess,” my mom whispered wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
She led me to my room. I struggled to keep my eyelids open so I didn’t run into my bed. Waking up with a bruised shin made me grumpy.
Yep, I hated winter, weirdly induced sleep, and boys who died after committing their lives to me.
I woke with a start and glanced at my mute alarm clock. Seven a.m. Mom stood by my bed with a plate of toast ready. The cycle began anew.
With a sigh, I sat up and shoved a huge bite of toast into my mouth. While I chewed, I tossed on clothes and grabbed my bag. Though cheap and filling, I disliked toast. Maybe just because I had it every weekday. We’d tried having cereal weekdays, but I made an awful mess in my rush, usually wearing milk dribbles. Now cereal remained reserved for the weekends.
Within five minutes, I sat in the back seat of mom’s rusted out car. It long ago lost its emblem identifying the make and model. The cracked leather seats quickly warmed on the fifteen-minute drive to town. I dwelled on the unfairness that it took fifteen minutes to get to school, and forty to get home.
She and Aunt Grace dropped me off near the front steps of Middlelyn High with a wave good-bye. Only a few other late arrivals like me still rushed through the main doors. It meant fighting my way to my locker through crowded hallways.
As I trudged forward, I felt more than the usual stares boring into my back. Glancing around, I saw Brian with a group of boys talking quietly. They all watched my progress. Great. By rejecting Brian, I’d made matters worse. He probably told others about the bet. My refusal just made me more of a challenge.
With a mental sigh, I hurried to my locker placing the book I’d taken home inside and pulling out the books for my first two classes. Less locker time would be a good thing today.
Predictably, one of the boys broke away from the group and approached me.
I cut him off when he opened his mouth to say something. “Don’t waste your energy.”
Closing my locker, I walked away completely uninterested in whatever he’d been about to say. I could do without mockery, no doubt my remark about Brian’s drinking already fueled today’s rumor mill, or another attempt to get me to say yes to a bet-date.
The day crawled by as Brian’s group of friends took every opportunity to approach me. My patience wore thin when one of them approached me at lunch.
Clavin, I remembered hearing his name from a group of girls before I became an outcast, suggested that we ‘get it on in the supply closet’ for a date. Sitting alone at the table while he hovered close, gracing me with his magnificent presence, my words carried to the next table when I told him to sit on a broom handle instead. Everyone at that table snickered. He didn’t turn to glare at them as his face infused with red. Instead, his eyes narrowed on me before he stormed off. His look promised retribution.
By the end of the day, I’d managed to offend each member of Brian’s circle. Not intentionally after the cafeteria incident, but it didn’t matter what I said, they got angry. I hated their stupid bet and their callous attitudes about it.
The last bell rang and the halls flooded. I left the chemistry lab merging with the other students pouring into the halls while thinking of what Gran and I would make for dinner. With our meager pantry inventory running through my head, I didn’t notice Clavin walking beside me until he bumped me into a side hall where Brian waited. The students still passing in the hall looked away pretending not to notice.
Tripping over my own feet from the nudge he’d given me, I struggled to regain my balance. Bag falling of my shoulder and heart thumping from the narrow avoidance of a face plant to the floor, I looked up at Brian.
Before I could do more, he opened the supply closet door while Clavin pushed me from behind. I fell inside. They slammed the door behind me.
The sudden absence of light startled me as much as their abruptly cut off laughter worried me. If they thought this would turn me into a crying mess so they could then tease me, they needed to think again.