20. Juliet
JULIET
I s it possible to fall in love with another person’s darkness?
The question permeates my thoughts and my mind all through the next several days and well into the next week.
Not just one of them, but all three of the psychopaths that have captured me and locked me in their orbit.
I’m still thinking about the sex I’ve been having, about them , when Megan makes her next move.
The door to the girls’ bathroom opens and I spy the lineup of girls that walk in. Not a single one of them heads into the stalls and the one other girl alone in the room with me at the sinks takes one look at them and leaves without drying her hands.
I sigh. This was bound to happen at some point. If I’m honest with myself, I kind of hoped it would eventually. Except, as I count how many girls there are, a note of irritation slithering through me, I’d hoped it would be fair.
The door to the bathroom opens again and Megan strides inside with her friends on either side. The girls split, allowing her passage through. All the while, I watch them in the reflection of the mirror. There’s a total of seven of them and one of me.
Unease prickles along my nape, but I finish washing my hands and then I move over to the dryer. Before I make it there, one of the girls—someone I don’t recognize—steps in front of me. She’s tall for a woman, with an athletic build and lips that are too thin for her face.
I stare at her as I lift my hands and wipe the backs of them straight down the front of her shirt. She stiffens and her upper lip curls back away from her teeth. I keep eye contact, not daring to look away as I finish drying my hands on her clothes since she’s in my way.
No one says a damn word.
A second ticks past, then another and another. It isn’t until the sound of a lock clicking and a bolt sliding into place echoes throughout the tiled room that someone finally moves. Lo and behold, it’s exactly who I expect too.
Megan moves forward, arms crossed over her low-cut top and a smug grin on her face. “There’s no getting away this time, Donovan.”
Turning away from Dryer Girl, I face her. “I’m not trying to get away.”
“You will,” she states, that smile never leaving her lips. I can sense Dryer Girl coming in behind me as another of the girls I don’t recognize moves towards the opposite side of the room. “ Try , that is.”
If going from the top of the elite—worshipped and revered—to the bottom of the barrel—an outcast and reviled—has taught me anything, it’s this: fear and respect are both weapons of choice and both are earned.
Megan might have earned these girls’ fear and respect or maybe it’s just the simple fact that my dad’s actions fucked up their lives and they want to take it out on me. Whatever the case is, though, I have no intention of letting myself stand here and take it.
I reach up, unzipping the pull-on jacket I’d stolen from Nolan that morning.
I don’t take it off, but I let it hang open as I picture what I might be able to do with it.
Seven on one is a hefty number and up until last summer, I hadn’t really known how to defend myself.
Even if Megan doesn’t partake in what’s about to happen, I’m still at a heavy disadvantage. I’ll use anything at my disposal.
I’ll have to because I know something about these girls. This is it for them. High school is where they peak. There is no college waiting for them on the other side. No sugar daddies with open arms ready to take them into their mansions and offer them the world.
They realize it, and so do I. But just because I understand that this is merely a way to blame me for their misfortune doesn’t mean I’ll let them kill me over it.
If I wouldn’t let that asshole break me when everyone looked at me and thought I had everything, I certainly won’t let these bitches break me either.
Megan’s grin turns to a scowl and she steps closer, dropping her arms so that our chests bump against one another’s. “You think I don’t see that look in your eye, Donovan?” she sneers. “You think we don’t know that you look down on us? You might be at our school, but you’ll never be one of us.”
“I don’t want to be one of you,” I tell her honestly. “I’m not a sheep.”
In hindsight, I should’ve tempered my mouth or at least seen the punch coming.
I don’t know why, but I’d expected that Megan wouldn’t dive into the fight headfirst. I thought she would stand back and let the others do her dirty work for her.
The thing about hindsight, though, is that it’s certainly clearer when blood isn’t clouding your vision.
My head whips back as Megan punches me right in the nose. Red dots my sight and it’s. Fucking. On.
Pandemonium. Chaos. Call it whatever you want, but that’s exactly what happens. Once the first punch is thrown, the rest follow suit.
I kick out, knocking Meg’s knees together and sending her sprawling to the dirty bathroom floor. The relish in watching her collapse is only a momentary thing, though, as her friends converge. Ducking down as Dryer Girl tries to wrap her arms around me, I dodge her hold and come up swinging.
One punch to a girl’s jaw and another to someone’s abdomen. Someone latches on to my arm and stops my next hit. I wince as I’m thrown against one of the stall walls, the hard plastic digging into my spine. Wetness drips down to my upper lip and the taste of rust and iron stains my tongue.
“Bitch!”
“Cunt!”
“Get her!”
I put both of my forearms up over my face and head, blocking a few of the blows but not all of them. Air squeezes in past my lungs, filling my chest. Over and over again, I take the hits. Someone’s banging on the wall. There are screams, yells, louder than before.
Sweat dots my brow and slides over my back.
This has to stop. I need this to end. I can’t go on like this, letting people call me names and treat me like I mean nothing.
Even if I mean nothing to them, allowing the disrespect is a choice I’ve made.
I’ve allowed it because, somehow, deep down, I’m still that stupid girl who trusted her parents, who trusted her friends and boyfriend.
The girl who didn’t want to rock the boat. The one who kept silent when a bad man did bad things to her. The one who just wants people to go away and leave her alone.
It’s clear to me now that no one will leave me alone unless I make them, and the way to make them is to earn either their fear or their respect.
Fear and respect are both weapons of choice and both are earned.
More banging on the wall, wood splintering. The sounds are all a jumbled mess in my brain, but as I lower my arms back to my sides and someone takes a shot at my face again, I let them all go. The pain floats away. All of it just… drifts.
And I feel nothing again. Nothing but the rage.
I reach out, grabbing hold of someone’s arm. I don’t know how, but I do know that I twist it, wrenching it behind the girl’s back. There’s a gasp, a crack , and then a scream. I release her and the body drops away.
My knuckles connect with someone else’s face. Whoever it is goes down, but I’m not done. I follow her, climbing atop the body beneath me as she scrambles and tries to get away.
“Oh, no, you fucking don’t.” I grip a throat, squeezing and holding as I throw punch after punch. Something wet splatters against my wrist, drips over my hand.
Hard fingers grip me, dragging me up and off the girl. I turn, swinging wildly. I kick. I punch. I don’t see anyone around me. I just fight and fight and finally, I realize no one is fighting back.
I stop, panting. My breath saws in and out of my throat, burning down the airway. I blink rapidly, trying to clear the red from my vision. When I finally take in the sight of the bathroom, I’m stunned by what I see.
One of the stall doors is broken and hanging by a single bolt, lopsided and uneven.
Blood is smudged against the now cracked tiles of the floor.
Two girls are unconscious and a third is sobbing in the corner of the room with her hands and arms over her head.
Megan stares back at me, her nose at an odd angle, red smearing across her cheeks and mouth.
She’s got a black eye and a swollen, fat lip. Her friends are just as bad.
I look down and note the scratch marks along my arms. I’m almost afraid to turn around and look in the mirror. My head throbs with a deep, repetitive vibration that makes me feel like a bass has set up shop in the back of my skull.
No one moves for a long moment. The mass of us—those still conscious—watching each other with wary eyes.
I take a step towards the door and as one, everyone else shrinks away from the movement.
I pause. Fear and respect. The reminder of my thought comes back to me, flooding my system with a sense of power.
I take another step towards the door, this time ignoring the reaction of the others.
I don’t stop until I get there and when I do, I carefully slip the lock back out of place.
The door swings inward, revealing a female teacher and Principal Long as well as a tall, lanky custodian man with a hat drawn over his face and keys trembling in his hands.
Principal Long takes one look at my face and blanches. Damn it. I must look bad if she’s flinching away from me.
“Oh my god.” The female teacher claps a hand over her mouth as she looks past me into the room. “What…”
“They attacked me,” I deadpan.
The teacher stumbles into the room, slipping around me. Principal Long simply stands there and stares at me. “Juliet…”
“I’m going to go to the nurse,” I say quietly, reaching up and wincing when I get a feel for my face. Sore is an understatement.
“I can’t let you?—”
“I’m not going to try and run away from this,” I cut her off with a shake of my head. Bad idea, I realize a moment later, when the hallway tilts like I’m on a fair ride. Blinking rapidly to try and regain my momentum, I step past her and start walking. “I’m not running from anything anymore.”