Page 22 of What Is Love
It was lunchtime, and I really didn’t want to sit in the cafeteria. I didn’t have the energy to keep up appearances or talk. I had a feeling Brandon wanted to sit with me today, too, the thought of which filled me with dread and exhaustion.
I took my seat with Alicia and Evie at the table we sat at every day. They didn’t talk to me, which wasn’t totally unusual. Sometimes they didn’t, but today felt intentional. I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t talk to me, either. Not after finding out I’d stolen Alicia’s crush.
“Alicia,” I said, wanting to explain somehow.
They stopped talking amongst themselves and looked at me. Alicia didn’t hide what she thought of me.
Scum.
Evie’s eyes moved from me to Alicia and back to me, eager to see what was about to happen.
I cleared my somewhat tender throat. “I?—”
“I’m not really in the mood to hear you speak right now,” Alicia cut me off.
“Then I’ll make this quick,” I said with a little bit of feeling back in my voice. It was annoyance, but at least it was something other than numbness. “Our parents set us up. I didn’t pursue him.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. You could have chosen not to listen to them.”
Evie nodded. “That’s a pretty lame excuse.”
“What is?” Brandon said as he pulled out the chair across from me. A few of his friends were with him and also took seats at our table. Everyone had food. For once, the sight and smells made me nauseous.
Alicia and Evie didn’t say anything to Brandon. Instead, they seemed more occupied with the guys sitting next to them.
“Nothing,” I answered as I reached for my bag in the vacant chair next to me. I planned to scroll on my phone while they all ate.
“What’s on your neck?” Brandon asked.
The anger in his voice made me look up to see who he was talking to. I found him glaring at the collar of my shirt.
I reached up to make sure the top of it was still buttoned. It wasn’t. Fiddling with the button made me realize that it was loose and if I didn’t get it fixed, it’d fall off soon.
Mother’s nails hadn’t cut into my skin, but had still left red marks that hadn’t fully turned purple yet. In the past, with any visible punishments, I’d use a concealer good enough to cover tattoos, but when I’d gone to use it this morning, I’d realized I was out. I’d placed an order for more. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was going to need it for the future. It wouldn’t be here until the day after tomorrow, though, and that was with express shipping. To the best of my ability, I’d tried to coverup the marks with my regular makeup, which I knew might get rubbed off by my hair and collar. Buttoning my shirt all the way was supposed to help with that possibility.
“Lottie told us it was a hickey,” Alicia said.
I look at her in shock. “I did not.”
“Oops.” She covered her mouth with her hand as if she’d made a mistake. “That was a bad joke.” From the side I could clearly see her smiling behind her hand as she stared at Brandon, who was glaring at me. Gone was the golden-boy persona he liked everyone to see.
Brandon pushed back his chair and got up. Everyone was quiet as they watched him round the table and seize my upper arm. I barely had enough time to grab my bag before he practically dragged me from the table and out of the cafeteria. He pulled me along down one hall and then another until we found a quiet one that appeared to be empty.
He let me go and turned to face me. “Show me.” It was an order, and the tone sounded so much like his father’s. The one that carried an unvoiced “or else.”
I pushed my hair behind my shoulder and pulled my collar down on the one side he had been glaring at in the cafeteria. I had marks on both sides, but he had only seemed to see the side where Mother had left a mark with her thumb. It was also the side she’d hit with the rolling pin. My collarbone was a large blotchy spot of black, purple, and blue. I made sure to pull my shirt open to show that, too.
His eyes went wide as he took it all in. I watched the angry, accusatory expression melt off his face.
“I was trying to get something down from my closet and a box full of old junk fell on me,” I lied before he could ask me what had happened. It had been the false tale I had made up that morning and made myself memorize.
Instead of looking understanding or remorseful for assuming the worst of me, he grabbed the back of his neck with both hands, clearly annoyed. “You should have said that when I asked you in the cafeteria. Now everyone is thinking you cheated on me.”
Is he serious?
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.” My defiant mouth was clearly a masochist.
His hands dropped from his neck and fisted at his sides. The annoyance was gone, and anger took its place again. The way he looked at me right then told me he’d hit me one day. Seeing that pain in my future tore into what little spirit I had left. It was a surprise I still had one at all after growing up with a mother like mine.
