Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Scoffing, I back away. She doesn’t move, staring at me, waiting for me to leave. There’s something broken about her. Something deeply wrong. Otherwise, how could she stand there so completely still and silent?
She doesn’t move until I open the door, in fact. A door I leave open, standing against it to hold it open so anyone passing by can see. If I can’t get a reaction out of her, maybe they will. “For fuck’s sake, Maya,” I call out, turning my face toward the hall so everyone out there can hear me. “Pull up your fucking pants. You look desperate.”
I don’t bother looking back at her to catch her reaction. Hearing the laughter and whistles from everyone nearby is more than enough for me.
6
MAYA
Ifeel nothing. Nothing can touch me. Nothing matters.
My body feels that way, anyway. I don’t know about my head. Even with the door closed, I hear them out there. Snickering, some flat-out laughing, all of them thinking they’re so clever. So much better than me. Well, maybe they are. Maybe I’m just the last one to know. Then again, how many of them basically killed their own mother?
Not here. Not now.
A layer of ice settles over me, numbing me the way I prefer to be. There’s no problem here. I’m going to pull myself together and leave this room. By then, everybody will have forgotten or at least moved on. They’re all a bunch of idiots, anyway. Most of them barely have the attention span of a goldfish. That’s what I cling to as I pull up my pants, refusing to look at the scars. He just had to see them, didn’t he? He has to strip me down fully, has to leave me defenseless. It’s like he lives for it. I will never understand what drives him or anyone who thrives on bullying.
It doesn’t matter right now. I need to focus on what matters in the moment. Getting the hell out of this room. Going somewhere I can breathe. It’s like the walls are closing in, walls around me, walls around my brain. The pressure is too much. Maybe it’ll kill me. Maybe part of me wishes it would.
Once my clothes are straightened out, I pick up my bag, treating myself to a few deep, shuddering breaths. I hear their voices out there. They’re still snickering, some of them waiting for me to come out. I can tell by the way they laugh, by the way they shush each other. Like a bunch of people hanging around, prepared to surprise the lucky person whose party it is. Only this is no happy surprise party. It’s anything but.
Since I know better than to think they’ll ever go away until I come out, I open the door, my head held as high as I can manage. They are not going to break me. Besides, I’m already broken.
“Nicely done, Maya!”
“If I only knew it was so easy to get you to drop your pants…”
“When do the rest of us get a turn?”
Ugly, all of them. Ugly people with ugly souls. I need to hold onto that and keep holding onto it, because it’s the only thing that makes it possible to put one foot in front of the other. Their snide laughter follows me out of the building, where a wave of heat immediately hits me straight in the face. It’s like walking into an oven, but I keep walking, ignoring the way the denim feels on my legs; how hot and sticky and uncomfortable it is once I start to sweat as I quicken my pace, my head down. It’s clear where I’m going before I even realize I made a decision. Rather than sit outside to clear my head before my next class, I duck into the library, where it’s cool and darker and nobody knows what happened back there. Word might spread—it usually does—but for right now, the people around here are busy studying.
Well, except for one other person. I hear her behind me as I swipe my student ID to go beyond the vestibule. “Maya!” Wren’s voice is a whisper, fierce and sharp and heavy with concern. Oh, wonderful. I should’ve known better than to think I could be alone.
This is your friend. Yes, she is my friend, and I’ve tried to be a good friend to her. There is no reason to feel so apprehensive when she joins me, falling in step beside me as I search for a quiet corner to duck into. Normally, the smell of so many books would stir comfort in my soul, the hushed voices of people speaking if they speak at all. It’s something familiar. It’s safe.
Though it doesn’t feel exactly safe, once Wren grabs me by the arm and pulls me between the stacks. If only I didn’t have to see the look of pain written across her face while her eyes search mine. She takes a scrunchy from her wrist and pulls her hair back, tugging at the neckline of her tank top like she’s trying to cool herself off. “It is brutal out there. Didn’t you hear me calling your name? I was practically running after you.”