Page 194 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

I had a good dream last night. The girl in the woods starred in it. This time, she didn’t get away.

I ignore my aching junk and go take a shower. I could jerk off in here, but I refuse to let my body dictate my actions anymore.

We’re all animals. Some of us just hide it better than others.

I used to be able to hide it until my party a few months ago. Feels like a fucking eternity that I’ve been stuck with my new, shitty reality. What a brave new world; everywhere I go, the whispers follow. All based on rumors and gossip, not a single fact. And as much as they dig, they’ll never find anything concrete.

Marcus made sure of that.

I shut off the angry stream of thoughts, squeezing my eyes shut as I turn off the heat and shove my head under the freezing cold jets.

Briar Manor is silent when I pad to the kitchen on bare feet. I eat a breakfast of dry cereal and coffee as I watch the sun rise over town. The family manor has one of the best views in Lavish, nestled along the side of the Devil’s Spine mountains. Lavish stretches out far below, thousands of perfect little houses clinging to their winding country roads. The manor’s surrounded by Blood Briar woods; our closest neighbora property that once belonged to the Davis’s. Might still, actually. Maybe the girl in the woods last night is a Davis—some far-flung cousin that came to visit. Only their kin would be brave enough to venture into my woods without a second thought to their own safety.

Those first few months after my mother died, Dad was at home enough that we could have actual conversations. The loving husband and father I’d grown up with changed. He became bitter and spiteful. For months, he’d hold monologues at the dinner table, instructing me on how to protect my things.

My land.

My sense of self.

My heart.

Claim them as yours, son. Claim them and never let anyone else take them from you.

He blames himself for what happened to my mother, Natalie. Not the accident, of course. A patch of black ice and poor driving skills were at fault.

The fact that she was in her car is what he blames himself for. From all the little snippets he’s told me over the years, I’ve pieced together the fact that Dad and Mom had an on-again, off-again relationship for about a decade before she settled down and became my full-time mother. That was several years after I was born, but my father never went into detail about why she wasn’t around all the time. I don’t ever expect him too—he’s a private man by nature, and it’s a miracle I know anything about the shit him and Mom went through.

I shake my head, draining the last of my coffee.

That girl shouldn’t have been where she was last night. Everyone in Lavish knows about the wild animal that roams those woods.

Now she does too.

After breakfast, I try contacting my father again. I don’t ever feel the need to ask his permission for Marcus to stay over, but it’s a chance—an excuse—to speak to him. If he ever answered, of course.

His phone, unsurprisingly, goes to voice mail.

I don’t bother leaving a message. He never listens to them anyway.

I stare out at the woods pressing up against Briar Manor’s ornate fencing. Times like this, it feels like I’m the only person in the world.

A feeling I used to loathe. A feeling I now embrace.

Indi

The fuck is this?

I stare at the clothes hanging from the door handle of my closet.

“Gran—” I cut off with a grimace. “Marigold?”

My hands fist at my sides as Marigold opens my door.

“What is that?” I point at the clothes.

“That’s your uniform, young lady.”

Cold-hearted bitch—she’s smiling, isn’t she?

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