Trying To Endure

Chapter Fifty-Three

SONG: Adele - Rolling In The Deep

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Derek Matthews

I'm stupid. 

So, so, so fucking stupid. 

What the hell was I thinking? 

Notwithstanding the fact my voice wasn't raised, the tone was hostile and sour. She never and does not deserve that. Someone fucking hurt her, you goddamn asshole — probably why she is silent.

Putting on the face mask, I manage to glance at her. She is fixated on the teachers and ... My chest congeals in despicable regret.

Fuck, she's crying.

I close my eyes, the blackness muffling a punishing groan. "You're a fucking idiot."

Where is Grandma when you need her cane?

Re-opening, she's gone. Shit. Where did she go? 

I trail her inconsolable disappearance, craving to apologise. Face-mask yanked and gathered below my chin, I crane my neck up, shoving through the altercations jamming the broadened corridor, hunting for her significant feature — those luscious, tight curls. I distinguish her too far, far up ahead to hear me calling her name.

And I see it.

I witnessed it.

Rhett Wallace's egotistical and admonitory wink.

Dolorous tears runnelling to her mouth, she stiffens into a traumatised fear — exactly equivalent to how she dreadfully gaped at him in Biology, as if he was the monster under her bed, the shadow of her sleep paralysis, the demon in her head.

Heedlessly, she subconsciously fondles her neck. I breathe in sharply, gobsmacked. I observed her repeating that action three times when Rhett Wallace was near: weeks ago, around the time Zavian, Treyvon, April and I were conversing by the painting; this morning in the art class, and in Biology when Wallace bafflingly grinned at her as if there was an inside joke between the two.

It was him.

He hurt her.

He left those claws on her supple neck.

It has to be him. Wait, what if it was his friends, too? When we had that presentation to do, she never looked at them. She looked scared.

It makes sense — every time they are close, she either flinches, cowers, avoids their gaze or her fingers quake as if she is about to undergo another panic attack. It has to be him.

It has to be them.

April hurries to the girls' bathroom. I swiftly made a mental note to apologise to her in person. Wallace titters to himself and resumes his promenade to the school's field, his mates trailing like a pack of hyenas, perfusing antipathy.

If he truly harmed her — or anyone for that matter — he will suffer the consequences.

My pace maliciously enhances, each step is a singularity of humid blood-red. Closer, closer, closer, an accidental visualisation of the pain and fear on her face. Closer, closer, closer, I remotely view her neck — tender and harmed, red marks seperated of thin whites that outline fingers, modifying into a stomach-churning purple at her nape.

She had a meltdown this morning, convincing us it was her dead brother. Or was it Wallace? The thought blinds my sight in fury. Her legs were shaking. Her body was shaking. She was sobbing, sobbing and sobbing into Ines's chest, and I goddamn wished I embraced her. It was so fucking heart-breaking to see her like that. Something died — her essence? I never saw her cry that much, and I hope I never will again, despite our petite quarrel.