Chapter 16
“Pass me the ball, you bell-end.”
Fucking Liam. He’s always so selfish.
“I’m wide open,” I call for the ball again, and I’m ignored. Again.
He shoots and misses.
Fuck’s sake.
“Sorry, man, I thought I had it.”
“Dude, I was calling for the ball, wide fucking open.”
“Just like your sister,” Harry Leverton shouts from behind me, and I see red.
“Leave it,” Billy mutters, but it’s too late. Harry’s spent the whole of lunch winding me up, and this is the last straw. I turn around to where he’s standing, surrounded by his mates. The ringleader of a truly shitty gang.
“What you say?”
“You heard me,” Harry says. The fat lump takes a step back, closer to his sidekicks.
Secondary school has made Harry even more of an arrogant toss pot, and each year he gets a little wider, a little bit thicker, and a little bit more of a twat.
He thinks he owns the school.
“Have you seen her? What a beauty I’d love to—”
“Shut your mouth, Harry,” I spit, pointing as I march over to where he stands. “Don’t you finish that sentence. Don’t you even fucking look at her.”
“Oh sorry, I forgot. No one is allowed to call her your sister, some weird fucked up foster kid shit. Is that so you can bone her yourself?”
It’s like someone has flipped a switch. It erupts out of me like a volcano, the rage. So much of it, pent up deep within, suppressed, like I’ve suppressed the pain and anger of James and our messed-up home situation.
And Harry fucking Levington has just popped the top.
I don’t even realise I’ve thrown a punch until the pain radiates through my knuckles from connecting with his nose. Blood spurts out like a soda stream. I don’t stop, though.
I can’t, even if I wanted to.
Even as his mates jump in and start pulling me off him, I continue to pummel the fat lump.
“She’s.”
Punch.
“Not.”
Punch.
“My.”
Punch.
“Fucking.”
Punch.
“Sister.”
Punch.
Arms wrap around my waist and pull me backwards. With his mates pushing me off Harry, I’m falling onto the body who has pulled me away, and I land, heaving on Billy.
“What the fuck, man?” he asks, his own breaths puffing out. “You could have fucking killed him.” I look down to my blood-coated knuckles. The adrenaline and red mist lifts with every breath.
Bodies surround where Harry lays, blocking my view. But as they part, I see the bloody mess of Harry’s face. The wide eyes of his friends burn into me. The screams filter through next, and then I see her.
Running over the field towards me, to where I’m lying next to Billy, wondering what I’ve done.
Harry isn’t moving.
I can’t decide what’s more fucked up.
That I’ve done something to someone else like James does to me all too regularly. Or the fact that I might not be ready to admit to myself that Harry’s statement about me liking Lucy in a way that I really shouldn’t is true.