Page 22 of The Venom We Bleed

Why am I even doing this? Why am I even trying?

I’m not going to be hired. No one with any sanity would dare hire the daughter of the man who ruined half of the town’s lives. I’d done this song and dance before already. As my pen hovers over the ‘name’ section, I bite down on my lip and growl in frustration. Before I can think better of it, I jab the pen downward, stabbing a hole through the application. I do it again and again until the top part is littered with ink-stained holes. Then, I crumple up the page, balling it in my fist and squeezing it as tight as I can as if I can make it—and the emotions of unfairness and anger—just disappear.

It doesn’t. Neither the paper nor my emotions.

I throw the ball away from me, tossing it across the room with no real direction. It’s not like I have a parent coming through my apartment demanding I keep it tidy or a maid to clean up my messes anymore. Being angry is tiring, more exhausting than people know. It smothers me, squeezing around my lungs like it’s trying to kill me. Sometimes, I wish it’d finish the job.

I’ve truly become pathetic.

A knock sounds on my door, dragging me out of my thoughts as it blares over the music in my ears. I open my eyes, not realizing I’d closed them, and then look out the balcony windows. The storm passed rather quickly—a fast summer rain, there one minute and gone the next. Now, everything outside appears dull and wet, but there are no more spirally leaves or bent trees.

With a grunt, I pull my headphones from my ears and get off the futon, stumbling through the short hallway to the front door. I swear to God if Mrs. Ritchie sent someone because she thought all that noise earlier was me, I’m going to?—

My thoughts cut off as the door swings open to a somewhat familiar face. “Hey, just wanted to—oh, it’s you.” The man standing in front of me is none other than Gio Vargas, the fucking playboy. His hair is more rumpled than it’d been at school the other day, strands sticking in various directions as if someone had run their fingers through it repeatedly.

“What the fuckare you doing here?” I demand, shoving my side against the frame and dragging the door closed so he can’t look into the rest of the apartment. I’m sure it’s not hard to guess that I’ve got virtually nothing, but he doesn’t need to see it.

Playboy doesn’t seem put off by my unwelcoming response to finding him on my doorstep. In fact, as he stares down at me,the surprised expression on his face slowly morphs into a ‘cat that ate the canary’ grin. He rocks back on his heels as his eyes travel down my frame, pausing and lingering over my breasts.Pig.

He jerks a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the apartment door next to mine. “I was pretty sure we pissed off the neighbors with our noise, so Iwasgoing to come over and apologize, but now that I realize it’s you…” His tongue touches the bottom of his teeth, poking slightly out as he continues to stare openly at my chest.

A part of me wants to cross my arms over my tits to disrupt his view, but I don’t want him to know that it bothers me, so I force down the urge and just glare at him. “Let me guess,” I say. “Now that you know it’s me, you’re just going to go harder next time to piss me off even more?”

He laughs and the sound isn’t completely hideous. It’s deep and masculine. My scowl deepens. “Actually…” His hand lands on the frame above my head and he leans forward until I can smell the hint of a spicy cologne and something else. I’m forced to turn my face up just to keep my eyes on his. “I wasn’t considering coming back for seconds, but if the little neighbor wants in on some of the action, I’d be all too happy to oblige.”

“I’d rather suck on an exhaust pipe,” I grit out, my nose wrinkling when I realize what that secondary scent is.Sex.He smells like pussy and I’m revolted.

“I’ve got an exhaust pipe you can?—”

“Finish that sentence, and I’ll knee your balls so far into your body it’ll take a surgeon to find them,” I warn him.

The sound of his laugh rings out into the air. I don’t know what shifted between when I’d seen him outside of school to now, but he’s in a far better mood, and seeing it is only managing to put me in a worse one. “If that’s all,” I start to easethe door shut, “maybe next time, you should keep in mind that other people live here too.”

Then again, he had said he doesn’t do seconds. I should be grateful for the manwhore’s ways. I go to finish closing the door in his face only for the damn thing to bounce back as he shoves his foot in the way. “What the?—”

Playboy tsks in the back of his throat, and gripping the frame tighter, leans in close until that scent overwhelms me. I crane my head backward. “Now, now, don’t be nasty,” he says gently.

“You’re one to talk,” I fire back. “You’re the one coming over here stinking like used cunt.”

His eyes widen and he blinks down at me as if shocked by the statement. “Stinking?” Playboy turns his head and sniffs at himself delicately. “Ah, you’re jealous.” He grins. “You want to mark me with your own scent?”

“No!” Finally breaking my internal desire not to touch him, I reach out and shove a hand against his chest. I push hard until he stumbles back and his foot and hand slip out of the way. “Now, get fucking lost, and next time—keep it down!”

I slam the door in his face and flip the lock, turning and pressing my back against the wood as I inhale sharp and rapid breaths. He’s insane. I shake my head, but then I hear the sound of his laughter again on the other side of the door. It rumbles through the wood and pierces my stomach, flooding my insides. It’s not attraction. Not even a little bit.

A thump raps against the outside—a hand hitting the door. “Deny it all you like, Prep Girl,” he says, “but if you ever want to unleash any of that anger you’re carting around, you know where to find me.”

The echo of his footsteps lingers outside of my apartment door as he walks away. My chest pumps up and down and more rage infuses my soul. As if I’d ever let him fucking touch me, the disgusting prick. Sex is the last thing on my mind, anyway, andI’m not going to be as stupid as I was before. No one is getting past my walls this time. Even before my dad was arrested, I’d been betrayed. Now that he’s in jail, the rest of my so-called friends have abandoned me as well. No one cares and even if they try, they’ll never stay anyway.

10

JULIET

It takes me until the second week of school to realize that Principal Long did me a favor by putting me in ISS for four days. Because other than day one, the first week goes by without much fanfare. It’s a pretty solid routine: go to school, do my assignments, get out, go job hunting, get turned down. Eat a shitty dinner. Try to sleep through the nightmares. Wake up tired as fuck. Rinse and repeat.

With it having been the first week of school, there was no one else in the ISS classroom with me. I was alone, save for the older substitute tasked with making sure I showed up and completed my assignments. It was actually kind of nice, and I have to wonder if I could make some sort of deal to just do this for the whole year, but I doubt it. At least, I managed to get ahead of most of my classes in terms of assignments and reading.

The second week, even though Megan is a nonissue because she’s serving her time, is different. I finally get my locker number and code only to find that the info has been leaked and the inside has already been decorated with trash. I scowl as the metal door swings open and toilet paper falls out, landing on my sneakers. A used wad of gum pulls away from the inside, makinglong-ass strings of the pinkish-white substance stretch in front of my face.

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