Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
The side of my face still stings and I’m sure it looks like shit too.
I’m not going to school. Not looking like this. It would make Richard all too happy to know I had to go out with the proof that he beat the shit out of me so easily seen.
Even better for him because those asshole teachers think I deserve it. Everyone does. I’m just the piece of shit kid from her first marriage who’s acting out and needs his ass beat.
That’s what the last principal told my mom. That I needed my ass beat.
Maybe I do. I don’t need to be sneaking out and going to parties. I just need my ass beat day in and day out until I don’t feel this way anymore.
I swallow thickly and sit up in bed to crack my neck.
There’s only a dresser and my bed in this room. I don’t have much since we moved after Dad died. Most of my stuff I left behind. My gaze moves toward the closet, where I have two duffle bags.
My uncle doesn’t want me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t leave. I can go somewhere. I have a little bit of cash saved up from working with Uncle Rob this past summer. I can buy a cheap car and live in it.
I might be kicked out of school; I don’t know, and I don’t care. I can still get a job with Nick up the street, doing landscaping. He’d hire me. He knew my dad and I’ve met him a few times.
I force myself off the bed quietly. The only question on my mind is whether or not I should even bother telling my mother goodbye. A sharp pain shoots from my jaw to the back of my skull, radiating there when I bend down to the bottom dresser drawer to pack up my jeans.
I don’t think she’d give a fuck either way. But maybe it’d be easier for her if I don’t tell her. Then she won’t have to pretend like she feels a certain way. She can just be happy with Rick and her new life.
I’m not a piece of shit like he calls me. I’m not a waste of life.
I close my eyes and refuse to cry. I’ll never cry because of what they think of me.
They can both go fuck themselves.
ALLISON
My heart pounds in my chest. It’s way too loud and I can’t hear anything else for a moment, but as the front door to Mike’s place opens wide, the music overwhelms me. With each beat, it thumps and stirs the anxiety in my stomach.
I’m really doing it.
“I’m here for Mike,” I say abruptly the second the guy opens his mouth. He’s tall, so tall I have to crane my neck. I don’t recognize him. He’s a skinny guy with long hair, and pimples line his jaw. His face is red too. It takes me a moment to realize the color in his cheeks is from drinking.
“We brought booze,” Sam says, shoving the bottle of wine into the guy’s chest and then walks right in like she belongs here, brushing past his shoulder.
The guy just laughs, a half-drunken sound, holding out the bottle and pointing to the back room with it. He smells like skunk and whiskey. It’s what Sam’s mom’s boyfriend smells like all the time.
I follow Sam’s lead and avoid looking around the house too obviously. But I chance a peek here and there as I move inside and slip off my coat. Every time I look around, I see someone kissing or rubbing someone else. I would feel underdressed without the protection of my jacket, but given what the other girls here are wearing, I think I fit right in. Thank God.
There’s a lot of laughter coming from the kitchen and I’m happy Sam’s steering me in that direction. Where there are people other than couples trying to dry hump in the dark corners of the living room.
I’m still looking around and taking in the place when Sam shrieks, “Mike!”
She yells over the music and makes a show of running over and hugging him. One heel kicks up in the air as she pulls Mike closer, wrapping her arm around his neck and then pointing at me. Her enthusiasm always makes me laugh. “Look what I brought you,” she says playfully while I stand there tucking a stray blond lock behind my ear. The nerves settle some though when Mike smiles, and Sam lets go of him.
“Hey,” I say, and it doesn’t quite come out loud enough over the music, but that doesn’t stop Mike from coming closer and practically yelling in my face, “I’m so glad you came.”
He leans in and all I smell is beer. Probably some cheap beer that he spilled on his shirt hours ago.