When I couldn't take it anymore, I started swinging on the girls he sent after me. He told everyone I had mouth herpes, and they believed him, so I'd spit on them, too. It didn't end the torment entirely, but it certainly slowed it down. No one wanted to get kicked out of their clubs or team sports for fighting, but I didn't give a shit. I had nothing to lose.
It's pretty hard to fuck with someone who has nothing to lose, someone who stopped caring a long time ago.
Then, he graduated and moved into the dorms at West Pine University. Because of his injury, he lost his scholarship offer toplay in Maine; he stopped going to physical therapy and never played hockey again.
My senior year was a little better. My peers were still terrified Elias would catch them befriending me, but without him there to pat them on the head, the physical and emotional torment decreased significantly. I even made a couple of friends in a neighboring town—the kind of people who had nothing to lose like me, so they weren't too worried about Elias and his followers.
And then I met a guy. Don't get me wrong, I've met guys in the past two years—none from ACHS, of course. But for some reason, I let this one convince me he liked me for more than just hooking up. He asked me to go to grad with him, and I bought a dress—a black strapless mini dress with a bubble skirt. Somehow, Elias found out about him and paid one of his friends to sleep with him two days before the dance and then tell me about it.
I let it hurt me, but only a little bit. I leave that dress hanging on the back of my closet door with the tags still on, just in case I ever need the reminder.
He doesn't come home much—not even for the holidays. He showed up for his grandmother's funeral, which my mother and I were not invited to attend, and then again back in April to pick up his black Porsche Cayman when he got his license back.
Then, when he moved out of the dorms and into a townhouse on campus, purchased by his rich ass friend Dax's dad, he came back in the middle of the night and took my fucking dog.
Thatpissed me off.
I smile a little as I round the corner toward the front porch. Like I said, Elias doesn't bother me anymore, but I know nothing pisses him off quite like my presence.
Wearing only jeans, my white Vans, and a black push-up bra, I step inside and then through the kitchen to the laundry room, where I discard my wet, vomit-stained shirt. I grab the orange juice from the fridge, drinking directly from the carton before replacing it. When I turn around, I find myself face-to-face with my mom, brow furrowed with concern, lips pressed in a tight, thin line.
"Where were you?" she asks.
I shrug. "The backyard, mostly."
"Where's your shirt?"
"In the laundry room."
"It's move-in day, Saige."
"So?"
"So…we're leaving in two hours. You look horrible."
"I am horrible." As I push past her, she grabs me by my arm, examining the lyrics etched inside my left biceps in black ink, the surrounding area bruised.
I met a guy at a show a few months ago who's apprenticing, and I've been letting him practice on me. The angel wings under my collarbones were the first. It hurt like a bitch, but it didn't bruise like this one. I think he might have pushed too hard this time.
"Did you getanothertattoo?"
"Looks like it."
"What happened to you?" she asks. "You were such a good girl, Saige."
I swallow hard and then shrug, pulling my arm back. "You know what happened, Mom."
She sighs, leaving the room and heading toward the staircase. "Take a shower, okay? Be ready in an hour."
She hasn't been my best friend for a long time. I know she misses me, and sometimes, when I see her like this and hear her voice like that, I feel bad about it. But I can't stop blaming her for the way the past couple of years have been, even though sometimes I want to.
Alex lied about the state of his marriage when their relationship started. He told her they were living separately, and it was months before she found out that it wasn't true. By then, she was deeply in love with him, and he promised he'd pack his things that night if she'd stay.
Once, she tried to tell me about how Elias's mother's depression was violent—that he couldn't take the physical and mental abuse anymore, but he'd been too afraid to leave her with Elias. I didn't want to hear it.
They seem like a happy couple, as much as I hate to admit it. He doesn't yell like my dad did, and she doesn't cry in her bedroom. They drive to work together every day and hold hands in the car.
It makes me sick.
