They cackle again and I get up with my plate, too sick to keep eating. What a great guy to have as a brother. I mean, the twins didn't exactly seem like upstanding human beings, but no one deserves a sibling who speaks so badly of them, and in such a public way.
I leave the dining hall to walk to my next class, and I try to ignore the looks and whispers.
* * *
The girls’ dorms don't have individual private bathrooms, so you have to use a giant communal bathroom.
It’s worse than being in the group home.
I manage to get in and out of the shower before any of the other girls come in to the bathroom, and I tuck my toiletries bag under my arm as I walk back to my room. I'm dressed in old boxer shorts and an old band tee that I love.
Every girl in my dorm stops and watches me walk past.
I don't get what their problems are with me. Surely being on a scholarship doesn't mean I'm the enemy, and yet I haven't had a single student try and talk nicely to me. It's exhausting.
As I open my door, I hear Avery's voice, and I pause for a second.
“Fucking pathetic.”
I whip my head around to stare at her. She’s leaning against her own door frame across the hall from my room. I can see her room is at least four times bigger than mine and furnished luxuriously. I can't help but feel jealous, even as her eyes are fixed on my shirt. I glance down, but there are no holes or stains in it. What does she have against band tees?
“If you think that will get his attention, you're an even more stupid Mounty slut than I thought.”
“Whose attention? These are my pajamas; I don't want to show them to a guy.”
She stares at me for a second before smirking. She is strikingly beautiful, but with her lips twisted into a sneer, I think she looks older than fifteen.
“You're totally clueless. Even better.”
I see a flash and blink owlishly. She's taken a photo of me on her phone and then retreated into her room, locking the door behind her.
These rich kids are going to do me in.
After I'm safely behind my own locked door, I collapse onto my bed and groan. I had better end up with an amazing career for putting up with this school.
I check my phone and see Matteo has texted me again.
Are you raising hell yet?
I bite my lip. While I've always been academically driven, and always the top of my classes, I had a reputation for being a bitch at my last school. Not that I was a bully, I just had a lot of anger because of my home life.
My mom was addicted to drugs and, because of that, neglected me.
It's hard to admit that out loud. It makes me feel like she mustn't have loved me very much if she was willing to spend all our food money on heroin, coke, meth, pills, whatever she could get her hands on really. I didn't ever want to admit how much easier my life had become after she died. I must be the worst child in the world to think that, and yet it's true. In foster care, I never had to worry about if there was going to be food on the table at night.
Granted, the food was shit and never quite enough.
My mom told me that my dad had been sent to prison in a different state for drug trafficking, which meant I had basically been left to raise myself. I think I'd done a great job of not turning into a hopeless asshole, and someday I would be a doctor or an engineer or some other career that paid ridiculous money. Then I would never have to worry about food ever again.
So I was known for having a smart mouth and being angry all the time. It had worked out in my favor with Matteo.
I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
I smile as I hit send. Matteo had sent the same message to me the day after he had moved out of the group care home. Back then, I'd wished so hard that I could move out of there with him. He was like a security blanket to me in the group home. Something safe to go home to. He'd told me when I'd accepted the scholarship that I would have to go back to him when I was done with school, that I wasn't allowed to grow apart from him. It made me feel wanted, in a dark, twisted way.
I’ve never felt that before.
Come home then, kid. I'll take good care of you.
