The wedding was pushed back by several weeks with the excuse that my father needed time to recuperate before the wedding. He wanted to be able to walk Lila to the limo, and dance the first dance, and all that jazz.
I could only think of the extra time as extra time to figure out how to tell everyone my father was an abusive man who would beat the crap out of them without a second thought.
Plans were not coming along well.
On the bright side, school started today. The downside, it's a public high school since there aren't any private schools in the area that are worth a crud.
The school is the basic high school that has a never ending population of idiots, not enough smart people, and way too many people who think they can scare me. One guy, Bryon Anderson, thought that it was fun to trip me and push me into lockers on my first day.
Kade saw.
He just kinda turned his head so he didn't have to watch. I didn't know why it hurt so much that he turned away from my pain. I thought we had bonded on game night, but I guess not enough to stop me from getting beat up at school.
None of the boys even acknowledged me at school. They were the popular, rich, bad-ass Steel boys. Of course they wouldn't affiliate with me. That would ruin them.
Didn't mean it wouldn't be nice to have someone there.
I sat in the library during lunch because father conveniently forgot to give me money for lunch, and there was nothing to eat in the house except week old take-out. I was not eating that. I wouldn't even touch it. I was pretty sure it had stuff growing on it.
In all actuality, I would probably be eating it tonight. Since my father's kicking leg was out of commission, he had to come up with new, clever ways to torture me.
Attempted food poisoning was one of them.
"Hey, you're the new girl, right?" A blond haired, blue eyed girl plopped down in front of me. I nodded slowly, not sure where this was going.
I had never moved before. Was this the point where I was about to make a new friend? Like the books?
She smiled and started eating her lunch in front of me. I was hungry, sure, but I had been for much longer periods of time than two days without food.
"Do you want any of this?" She asked, pointing at her food. I looked in her eyes and saw honest curiosity. There was something about this girl that compelled me to trust her.
"Sure, thanks. I'm Ariel, by the way." I mumbled. She slid her tray in-between us. I took a soggy french fry. It honestly wasn't all that bad.
"I'm Kasey, but everyone calls me Kas. I'm in your Honors Literature class." She said, covering her mouth with her hand so she could finish eating and talk at the same time. At least she was polite about it.
"That class is way too easy to be honors." I smiled slightly as the conversation picked up. This was an exciting and new prospect for me. A friend, that is.
"Are you crazy? I've been struggling with that class since the first day of school!" Kas laughed at my words. I cracked a confused smile. Did I say something funny?
"Oh, i'm sorry. What don't you understand?" I asked. She shrugged and dipped her fry into the ketchup. She ate the last fry and walked off to throw her plate away, before coming back to the table and sat down.
"I don't know. It's just something about literature that I don't get. Words don't come easy to me, but put me in front of a chemical equation and i'm game." Kas laughed again, but softer again. Did I miss the funny part again? Why did I miss everything? Was I as oblivious and stupid as my father often told me I was?
"So chemistry is easy for you?" I asked. She nodded, a smile breaking out over her face. My eyes wandered from her face, down to her wrist. There was a hand-print bruise that covered her wrist. She saw me looking and pulled down her sleeve from where it had ridden up to show the bruise.
I decided then and there to do something completely out of the ordinary. This girl got it. She was going through what I was.
I pulled up my sleeve and showed the several hand-prints that covered my arm. She analyzed my calm face and then tugged on my sleeve, pulling it down as a teacher walked past.
"So, I guess we're more alike than we thought." She whispered. I nodded, thinking over my life.
"I have eight soon-to-be step-brothers that live in the same house as my abusive father and my soon-to-be step-mother. What about you?" I asked. Her eyes widened at my sentence before she cracked a small smile.
"Drunk dad, druggie mom. No siblings. The most popular girl in school has an abusive father, who woulda thought?" Kas asked, a sad sort of smile situated on her lips.
Now that I understood.
"I wouldn't have." I whispered. Kas and I sat in silence for the rest of the period. I had study hall for seventh period, so I stayed in the library and read a couple of good books. Kas skipped class and stayed with me. We both felt comfortable with the other, more comfortable than when we had to be around a bunch of people we could never get close to because we would constantly have to be lying to them.
This was much better.
"Ariel, the bell rang." Kas was shaking me out of my thoughts. I got out of my chair, slid my book back into its place on the shelf, and grabbed my book bag. Lila had taken the liberty of getting everything for me. I couldn't decide if it was annoying or sweet.
I took the bus home. When I got off, I got off three houses down from where I lived. I didn't want anyone finding out until they had to.
Maybe Kas could come over and escape her father for a night, one night this week. But speaking from experience, you never really escape.