Grayson’s POV
I sleep all night. I sleep all day.
I sleep to the extent where Aunt Cecilia and four other people are banging on my door so hard, I can feel my whole bed shaking. I don’t get up, though. I lie in the dark with the curtains drawn, and I stare at the glow-in-the-dark raindrops on my ceiling.
It’s basically a glowing shade of gray, seeing as the world wanted me to be colorblind. But it reminds me of London; a place where my dad had taken me when I was younger. I was always a dark, moody child, and I suppose he thought that it’d suit me appropriately.
How ironic that he named me Grayson. So. Damn. Ironic.
“Graaaayson! Open up your door!” I hear voices on the other end, and there’s more frantic banging on my poor door. “Grayson!”
I roll over and look at the clock. It’s about two in the afternoon. All I’ve done is sleep and dream and think about a certain boy who shall not be named.
When did such a little twat get so much control over me, though? That’s what I don’t fucking understand.
I close my eyes and put the headphones on again, and I blast it on high. I can feel the bass, and it seems as if it is thudding to the beat of my heart.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
“Graaaayson!”
Shit. I can still hear everyone from here.
I wish that there would be just one day where everyone would leave me the fuck alone. One day where I can simply just curl up into a little ball and bawl my eyes out and throw paint around my room and scream and cry
and cry
and cry
and cry.
That will never happen.
Someone will always need me as their maid. I’m going to have to clean up a juice spill or help weed the yard or some stupid shit. Then I’m going to have to do some asshat’s homework because Aunt Cecilia will get her ‘kids’ taken away if they don’t do well in school.
“GRAYSON!”
A startling sound comes from the direction of my door and I leap up, feeling the cool skin on my bare chest. There’s a saw coming in through the middle of my precious door, and I tug the door open before any more damage can be done.
“You motherfucker!” I yell at Lucca, who has let go of the saw. He jumps back in surprise once he sees me. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“I’m cutting your door open? Everyone thought you were dead?” Lucca says in that annoying let’s-end-everything-with-a-question-mark voice, as if it were so fucking obvious. His voice irritates me so much, and I just want to hack a saw into his fucking vocal chords.
Everyone thought I was dead.
And the most they could’ve done was cut my door open?
I mean, if I had a child and I thought they were dead, I’d be calling the damn police and breaking down windows and calling everyone I could find. I would…care.
Is that want everyone wants? For me to be dead?
Because I have no problem with that. If I was gone— hey, one less mouth to feed. One less burden to take care off. The annoying asshole will be gone. There’ll be no more grouchy boy who lives in his aunt’s house. One less person to tolerate.
Life would certainly be a better place without me.
Blaire suddenly walks past, and his eyes widen in horror at my door. “What happened?!”
“Well, everyone thought he was dead? So we were going to go into his room and see if it were true?” Lucca restates, rolling his eyes.
Blaire catches my eyes, and he mouths something.
Kill them with kindness.
So I do.
I put on a fake smile and whip the saw out of my door, smiling at Lucca. “It’s perfectly fine, Lucca! Sawing down my door was no big deal! I understand! In fact, why don’t you come in?”
In my mind, I’m extremely sarcastic. But I guess everyone thinks differently.
Lucca stares at me like I’m mental. “Uh? Okay?”
No one’s ever been into my room before, besides Blaire. Blaire stalks in after us and sits down on my bed. I watch as Lucca hesitantly walks around my room, and merely five seconds later, Talia and Brookie burst in.
“I’ve never been in here before!” Brookie runs around, pulling open my drawers and digging through my closet. “Wow!”
“Yeah!” I smiled, feeling my cheekbones hurt. “Isn’t it great?! In fact, we might as well invite the whole household in here!”
And before I know it, everyone’s in my room.
I resist the urge to scream and kill everyone with that saw on my floor.
“Awww, Grayson, this is so cute, boy!” Talia holds up a snowglobe that my father got me when I was ten, from Germany. “Damn, boy. Can I have it?”
Can I have it?
Can I have it.
Are you fucking kidding me.
But I plaster on that fake-ass smile of mine again. “Sure, take it! Why don’t you take whatever else your eyes may catch? Go on, take everything!”
Blaire stares at me oddly, and he’s the only one doing so. Everyone else is picking up articles of clothing and posters that my mother had bought me and odd knickknacks around my room.
No big deal.
“Thanks Grayson! “ “Yo, thanks, man.” “You’re so nice?”
They all file out, and I realize that everything I loved— or used to love, is gone. My possessions. It’s. All. Gone.
But that’s okay.
I won’t be needing it anytime soon. Now, in the future, nope.
Not at all.
I slowly take out a sharp object from my bedside drawer. And before I know it, there’s a cut across my left wrist.
How beautiful that blood is, leaking out.
Blaire’s POV
I think Aunt Cecilia is crazy.
She’s dragging a tent with one hand and hauling three sleeping bags with the other, setting them down in front of the door. Everyone’s not even helping. They’re sitting around and being slobs, and Aunt Cecilia is tugging things around.
“Grayson usually does this,” she grumbles. “Lazyass.”
I kind of want to cry now, for Grayson. When I questioned her of her…camping inquiries, she simply stated that we were going camping.
I think I’m in a nut house.
I stalk over to the door and throw it open, an arm over my nose again like my dear little sexy Edward Cullen. I was heading over to talk to my flowers, until Justin comes up and hugs me from behind.
“Hi baby,” he smiles, kissing the top of my head. “You ready to go camping?”
“Yeah,…” Not weird at all. I just need to make sure to pack that exfoliating mask, that macaroni-and-cheese colored nail polish, a hairbrush, facial cleanse—
Damn. I sound like a chick.
Grayson’s POV
“Camping? The fuckery!?”
“Don’t use that language with me, Grayson,” Aunt Cecilia snaps, and she hauls another sleeping bag and throws it at me. “Just go put this away.”
I frown. “Why on earth are we camping?! And where the fuck are we camping?!”
“Oh!” Aunt Cecilia’s eyes suddenly lighten up. “Justin showed me this lovely place through the forest!”
I can feel my face turning red and my heart rate speed up as she follows me down the stairs. “It’s so beautiful, Grayson! There’s a wide lake out there and mist and fog and redwood trees and….” She sighs. “It’s just so beautiful!”
My breathing speeds up and my head starts pounding. “What color is the lake?”
She looks at me funny. “That’s an odd question, Grayson. But it’s a really sparkly silver color, kind of. The mist among the redwoods are SO beautiful! You have to see, Grayson. You have to.”
It feels like a stake is being stabbed repeatedly into me, over and over again. As if the pain I had before wasn’t enough. As if I wasn’t trying my hardest already.
Drive me over the edge. Place me down on the edge of a cliff and see if I jump.
I will.
When I pass Justin, he gives me such a look, it’s unbelievable. He knows it’s my special place. He knows.
Kill them with kindness, Blaire says inside my head. So I do. I smile at Justin and keep walking.
And yet, I’m keeping a fucking mask on as I pass him, carrying about thirty pounds worth of sleeping bags on me as he sits on the couch and sips his coke.
I want to cry.
“Do we have any more food?” I hear Talia from the kitchen, and I can see Aunt Cecilia’s facial expression change dramatically. I know what that means.
No more money for food.
“Uh, yeah, hang on!” She drops everything and leaves me alone, looking like an idiot in the middle of the living room.
I suddenly remember a wad of cash I had saved up just for this purpose specifically, and I drop everything and run.
I have about fifty dollars, and I make my way over to the cash drawer before Aunt Cecilia comes back. I slide it open, but my jacket catches on the side and I fall.
“GRAYSON!”
I look up. “ARE YOU STEALING MONEY?!” Aunt Cecilia shrieks. She grabs the money from my hands and tucks it away.
Aunt Cecilia is pissed,big time. “So you’re the person who’s been stealing all the money.”
“I was putting money in!” I argue, but she doesn’t take no for an answer.
“Grayson, I thought I could trust you. You’re the reason why I’ve been missing money here and there.”
“You can! I wasn’t stealing any fucking money!”
Aunt Cecilia shakes her head in disappointment as I sit on the floor, the tears ready to fall out any second. “I. Did. Not. Steal!”I feel a sob well up in my chest, but I hold it in.
“Just go clean up the mess in the living room, Grayson. I never thought my own nephew would do this.”
Why doesn’t anyone believe me?! Every time I try to do something nice, this happens. I try to feed this family— oh, hey, guess what! Grayson’s not working hard enough! He doesn’t deserve anything!
All that I have is now gone.
I hope everyone’s happy.
Aunt Cecilia pushes us all into the van once she’s done shaking her head at me, and speeds through the woods— yes, through my special little path— and wrecks every bush in sight to try to get to the campsite. Blaire’s sitting on Justin’s lap, and it kills me when Brookie starts gushing with Jordan about the ‘cute couple.’
I bite the inside of my mouth so hard, I tasted blood. And once we get to the campsite, Sarah has a brand-new telescope, aiming it at the sky already. Blaire and Justin are too preoccupied with Jordan in the lake, splashing around as Talia yells at them to not get her wet. Lucca’s sucking on a chocolate bar, and Brookie’s busy flaunting around like a butterfly. They look like they’re having so much fun, instead of pitching a tent and starting a fire, like a certain someone who’s wrist is now bound in a wrist-warmer.
Aunt Cecilia is sending me the stink eye every five seconds, and I’m too exhausted to even bother explaining the cash drawer situation.
I miss my parents.
They’re the only ones that will believe me.
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