Chapter 4
Charlotte
Closing the cover of my notebook, I attach the pen by the cap at the top. Smiling to myself as I envision a large, hairy man slamming Priest down on a cold, metal cot and fucking his ass raw until Priest begs his nonexistent deity for mercy and a swift death.
I feel the rugged hands that grip my ass cheeks and force them apart. I feel my
soul leave my body as some nameless, faceless monster takes what was not freely
given.
My teeth grit together, and I shake away the memory that surges forth. A tear carves a path down my cheek without permission. A salty reminder that, like everything else, I also have no control over this.
I swipe angrily at the unwelcome aqueous rebel and look at the clock on the wall–6:52 PM, almost group free time.
Standing, I stretch my arms above my head and lean to each side. The gurney-style beds we sleep in are basically cinderblocks with a layer of one-ply tissue paper as padding, and it is killing my back.
Movement catches my attention to my right. HD and his ward partner, “Small Dick Rick” are watching the gesticulation of my body with lecherous scrutiny.
I act like I’m stretching my neck to the side and take a sly peek around to see who else is in the meditation room with me. No one. Not a single fucking soul but me and these two pervy assholes. Great .
Mustering the courage to act chill as a cucumber, I begin to walk towards them– of fucking course, they’re standing in the doorway. The only way through is to squeeze between them or for one of them to move out of the way. As I approach, SDR licks his chapped lips and shamelessly stares right at my chest. I clear my throat in an attempt to move them apart to let me pass.
The smirk on HD’s face tells me they have no intention of moving. I swallow thickly, square my shoulders, and squeak out, “Excuse me.” I think as thin of thoughts as I can and turn sideways to shimmy between them. Aiming to make my curvy body as slim as humanly possible. SDR takes the opportunity to also turn to the side and grind his junk against my ass while letting out a sickly moan.
I quickly force my way through their bodies and book it down the hallway like a fire was just lit under my ass. Their spine-chilling chuckles fill the echoey hallway as I approach the activity center.
A few patients are huddled in small groups in the hallway outside the activity center, gossiping, swapping stories, and swapping pills that have been cheeked at med time. Miss me with that.
The facility is separated into four wings by two categories: gender and age. The building has an “X” shape, with each of the four hallways leading to its respective wing. On the north side of the building is the younger group– known as the junior wing. Ages range from twelve to fifteen; boys dorms are located on the left wing, girls are on the right.
Then we have the older crew, ages sixteen to nineteen, taking up the south side wings—known as the senior wing. Boys are on the right, and girls are on the left.
The hallways all converge to the lifeblood of the facility. A circular center filled with a handful of therapy rooms and staff offices, a meditation room, an activity room, the cafeteria, a small gym, and a family meeting room. The compact laundry room is the last accessible space to patients before the long, barren stretch of hallway that leads to the Quiet Room.
A whimper from one of the closed therapy rooms draws my attention as I pass the closed door. The window on its right has tightly drawn shades, and no light emanates from the space. Female voices reverberate off the linoleum. Snickers and taunts float in the sterile air. Fuck, I hate this place. Rolling my eyes, I continue into the activity room.
The room is filled with black hard plastic chairs lining two long, rectangular plastic tables, intermingled with a few threadbare loveseats and four oversized tye-dye beanbag chairs.
Meals and group activities are the only times the ages and genders are simultaneously in the same place, so everyone tries to get here quickly to grab desirable accommodations for the next hour.
Even though I’m still a few minutes early, I’m late. There are two current seating options: a loveseat with a very sweaty, stick-thin boy. I’m not sure of his name, but I do know that he constantly tries to bite anyone who comes within arm’s reach– no thanks.
The other choice is to sidesaddle Roman– Starry North’s resident muff whisperer and King shit. All the girls in the senior wing get their panties wet over him, and he loves it.
I consider Bitey McBiter. His lip curls up at my glance, showing me his snaggled canine, and I’m pretty sure he let out a growl. Screw that.
Roman whistles to get my attention and tips his chin, beckoning me over like the complete tool he is. My gaze swings in his direction, and my brow quirks, thoroughly unimpressed.
He makes a show of widening his legs across the beanbag, opening a space to fit my body between them. The disgust crawls over my face, and I reevaluate the biteability of Chompy McChomperson.
Roman clears his throat, loudly, making a show of tucking his body to the side of the chair, leaving a decent space for me to sit on the side of him. He pats the now open spot, giving me his best impression of a church boy, a picture of innocence and pure intentions with rapid flutters of his lashes.
I scoff and unceremoniously flop onto the foam-filled sack. Something I didn’t account for was our vast weight difference. His large form dips down lower than mine, bringing our bodies together against my efforts to do the opposite.
“Relax, Chantelle. I won’t bite… unless you beg for it,” he whispers hotly into my right ear. An unbidden shiver crawls up my spine as his meaty arm slings across my shoulders, bringing his fingertips to graze the tops of my breasts.
This fucker.
I bring my hand up to his, lightly running my forefinger across his skin, eliciting a shudder through his body at the contact. I lean closer to him, bringing our mouths a hairsbreadth away from each other– no room for the Holy Spirit here– my tongue darts out to wet my lower lip, letting him feel the warmth of my mouth. He unconsciously tightens his grip on my breast.
“The only one who will be begging will be you when I jab my pen right in your disease-riddled shrimp dick–” the words come out so sensual and melodic that it takes their meaning a moment to sink into the useless gray matter floating inside his dome. When they finally do, his eyes widen comically large, and he shoves himself away from me at record speed. “ – And it’s Charlotte, you twat.”
With a now respectable space between us, I settle further into my seat and drum my fingers across the cover of my notebook, trying not to chuckle when I see him continuously eyeball me in suspicion from the corner of my eye.
Commotion from the doorway commands the attention of the room. The three self-proclaimed queen bees saunter in.
Their leader is nonother than my dickmatized roommate, Cassie. Her stringy, bleach-blonde, shoulder-length hair is pulled back in a low messy bun; she wears the same facility-issued uniform we all do– basic white cotton tee, light teal zip-up hoodie, matching sweat pants, and white slip-ons. Her average height and lack of desirable “assets” make her pretty face and warm, willing holes the only appealing thing about her.
Flanking her on the right is Charity. Slightly taller and more busty than Cassie, Charity has long black hair braided in a fishtail down to her ass. She’s definitely what the guys refer to as a “butter face”, as in everything is fuckable, but her face. I’ve overheard some of the senior boys joking about how it would definitely be an act of charity to fuck her.
Finally, hoe bag number three on her left, Carina. She’s the hottest of the merry band of skanks; she’s also the quietest. With a svelte form, shoulder- length naturally platinum blonde hair, and curves in all the right places, it’s a wonder she doesn’t overtake Cassie for the head bitch in charge title. The triumvirate of cunts who bully together rule together, I suppose.
The menage-a-twats cackle as they walk up to an occupied loveseat. “Get the fuck out of our seat, rodent,” Cassie hisses at a pair of junior girls who quickly scatter from the furniture and make a new spot on the hard floor.
Every part of me wants to jump up and pop that bitch right in her suckhole. Without incident . The DA’s words play on a loop in my mind, halting my violent desires. I shove the need deep down and sit here like a good little criminal. I flip my notebook open to a blank page and begin to doodle.
A few minutes go by, and everyone is busy with their own conversations, games, or notebooks when a slight squeak of rubber on the floor draws my focus. No one else looks up, but I can’t look away. The breath is stolen from my lungs. There’s no fucking way…
In the doorway, a girl is making herself as small as possible. Her eyes dart rapidly around the space, looking for friendly faces, an invitation to join a conversation, or even just an acknowledgment of existence. She finds none of those. I watch as her shoulders sag in on themselves when she spots the trampy trio. Her gaze quickly leaves them and lands. Right. On. Me.
The change is visibly noticeable in her body the moment recognition strikes her. Those sky-blue eyes fill with unshed tears. Those freckled spotted cheeks stain red. Those flaming locks tangle around her left hand’s long, black-painted fingernails. Her chest rises and falls expeditiously as if building the momentum for battle. She wraps her free hand across her soft middle in a stance of vulnerability. As she tightens her grip on herself, a white bandage peeks out from under her sleeve.
I wish I had the audacity to be offended by her reaction to me. I wish I were delusional enough not to understand where her terror comes from.
But no, I have no such luxury. The last words I spoke to her slam into me with crushing force.
“You are a fucking joke, Aurelia. At least Jade is original and confident, even if she is a
horrid skank. You? You are nothing. Pathetic. You will always be a loser. Yo u
could kill yourself today, and no one would even notice… You might be insignificant as yourself, but you are less than nothing as someone else.”
My cruel words assault my memory as her observation turns to panic, and she spins around and takes off down the hallway.
The desire to chase after her plows into me with the force of a Mac Truck, but my body remains frozen in my seat as our history replays on a loop like mirrors in a fun house.
My internal deep dive into animal attacks is interrupted by a tap on my shoulder. I boredly look behind me and see one of the girls that hang out with Jason and Jade’s crew. I think her name is Aurelia.
I’ve seen her throughout the year in this class, but we’ve never spoken. She keeps to herself, sitting in the back row with her headphones hugging tightly to her flaming auburn locks. Mr. Vale and the rest of our classmates seem to ignore her existence. She appears comfortable with being insignificant.
She’s cute in an innocently Gothy sort of way. Like a baby Lucifer before his jealous rage sent him falling from the heavens. She has burnt umber freckles dotting a vast majority of visible skin. Her pale complexion is reminiscent of the fur on an Arctic Fox. I cock an eyebrow at her, questioning.
“Um, Charlotte? A-are you…” she stutters and lets out a nervous cough. “Are you okay?” her soft, kind, unsure sky-blue eyes meet mine.
I tilt my head slightly to the side and narrow my eyes, studying her. “Why do you fucking care, freak?” I bite back at her kindness. Fuck her. She’s probably pretending to be concerned so she can gather information on me to take back to her Dark Mommy Overlord. Nope, not happening, Elvira.
She flinches as if I’ve struck her, and I guess, in a way, I have. She shrinks into herself as much as she can. Tucking her fists into the sleeves of her oversized sweater and slides down further in her chair. “I-I was just asking because you don’t look like yourself. You seem really upset. I just t-think Jason isn’t… worth it.” her voice decreases even further, making me have to lean in her direction and strain to hear her.
I twist my whole body to face her and smash my palm down hard on the top of her desk, making her yelp and jolt in surprise. “You think that cheating bastard is the cause of this?” I swipe my hand up and down my body to indicate my appearance, “Fuck Jason. This has nothing to do with him.”
Alright, that’s not entirely true. But he is a very small part of my current state of mind. Very small. Aurelia gently shrugs one shoulder, still not meeting my eyes, and it’s pissing me off. If she’s going to talk about shit she has no business being involved in, then the least she could do is look me in the fucking eyes.
I curl my lip, ready to unleash more vitriol at her. I snarl, “You think you’re invisible? Honey, I’ve seen you follow Jade around like a fucking dog. Begging for scraps of attention. Copying her look, trying to carry yourself with the same arrogance. Did you actually think if you looked and acted like her, Jason would look at you twice?” I cruelly laugh at her; I see the tears start to escape her clenched eyes, but I can’t stop now. I knew I had seen that lovesick look in her eyes before. She has a thing for Jason.
I tip my head back towards the water-stained tiles on the ceiling and let out a deep, throaty laugh. “Oh, sweetie, you did, didn’t you? That’s hilariously sad,” bringing my razor-sharp stare back to hers, I hiss at her, “You are a fucking joke, Aurelia. At least Jade is original and confident, even if she is a horrid skank. You? You are nothing. Pathetic. You will always be a loser. You could kill yourself today, and no one would even notice.”
She sucks in a harsh breath and pushes back from the desk, grabbing her backpack off the floor. In her haste to get away, her foot snags on the metal leg of the desk, and she falls forward; the audible sound of her knee smashing against the hard tile perforates the now-silent classroom.
A few muffled laughs sound around the space, bouncing off the walls like an echo chamber.
I slowly move to a standing position and walk over to her. I gently bump her foot with mine, and she recoils, bringing her leg up to her body in a fetal position.
I look over her shaking frame and bend down to a crouch beside her.
Reaching my hand out, I gently part her cherry tresses to see her heat-bloomed, tear-stained cheeks.
She is sobbing silently and refusing to open her eyes. I softly run the backside of my index finger against the apple of her cheek as I lean down so close that my lips skim the edge of her ear, “You might be insignificant as yourself, but you are less than nothing as someone else. ”
Tears streak down my cheeks, and I watch in a trance as they fall on the white and blue-lined paper, their drops spreading, claiming the unblemished space as their own. I can’t stop the torrent of emotion flooding through me, drowning me with intensity. I swipe the wetness away from my eyes with agitation and return my attention to the now-empty doorway.
“Aurelia?”