3. Juliet
3
JULIET
2 months later…
“ D amn, girl, here again?” The sound of Cory’s deep voice pulls me to a halt. Sweat drips down the side of my face, making the faded blue tendrils of hair that have slipped out of my ponytail cling to my cheeks and neck. “Why’d you come in so early? Ain’t you in school yet?”
“School starts today,” I answer the gruff older man, bending as I catch my breath without looking his way. One look at my expression and there’s no doubt in my mind that Cory will guess the reason I decided to drag myself out of bed at five a.m. on a Monday morning for a workout before school. Hell, he probably doesn’t even need to see my face to know why, but I keep my face averted regardless.
“Ahh, right.” Cory’s voice drifts off and the only sound that can be heard in the responding silence is the drip of my sweat on one of the plentiful faded blue mats or the churning cough of the fifteen-year-old air conditioner.
I slam my carefully taped knuckles into the punching bag once more as Cory speaks again. “You’re going to Public now, I heard.”
I immediately reach out, catching the swinging bag as it jerks away before coming straight back. Holding it with both hands, I’ve never been more grateful for the lack of an early morning crowd in Cory’s gym than I am now. His continued words, though, mean he’s not intending to give me the stress relief I’m craving. He wants answers, and as one of the few people left in Silverwood who’ll actually treat me like a human being, I owe him at least my respect and consideration.
I lift my head and give the gym owner a bland look. “Yeah,” I tell him. “I transferred over the summer.” He already knows that, but I don’t point it out. As if he senses my inner thoughts, Cory shakes his head. The black dreads hanging down his back hardly move.
Turning away from Cory’s dark and insightful gaze, I reach for one of the towels and spray bottles that are stationed around the gym for people to wipe off the equipment they use. Presenting the nozzle to the outside of the punching bag, I douse it.
“Can’t says I blame you for coming here ‘stead of getting ready for school,” Cory mutters before lifting his voice a bit, “but you know you can’t be coming around as often now, right? No slacking on your school work.”
“I won’t slack,” I promise as I wipe down the equipment and replace the items in their rightful box. “I want out of this fucking town.”
Any other adult might have chastised me for cursing. Then again, most of the adults of Silverwood would’ve turned me away at the door—membership or not—simply because of my last name. Three months ago, being a Donovan had meant something good and powerful here in Silverwood. Now, it’s the name of a criminal. A pariah.
If anyone knows what’s going to happen the second I step into Silverwood Public, it’s Cory. He might have graduated over a decade ago, but he knows this town and its residents as well as anybody. He knows the tracks that divide the economic classes from obscenely wealthy to dirt poor, and even if he can’t understand every nuance of my sudden downfall in such a short time, Cory knows that someone like me won’t be accepted in Silverwood Public.
A fallen elite and the daughter of the man who wrecked half of this town by embezzling millions from the factories and businesses that keep most of them employed in some way or another. Those on the north side of Silverwood—other wealthy business investors and their prep school kids—managed to muddle through unscathed. Here, though, in the section of Silverwood where I now live because it’s all I can afford, they didn’t. Houses were lost. Life savings. Some of the more destitute even ended their lives when they realized how much they’d sunk into my father’s businesses and how much they’d been scammed.
In the last three months, there have been more suicides in Silverwood than homicides. Considering the violence of the criminal organizations that run rampant on the southside, that, more than anything else, was the wake-up call to make me realize how bad it is going to be when I show up at Silverwood Public.
“I don’t have a choice,” I say, half to myself and half to Cory. “If I want to leave Silverwood behind, I need a scholarship.” I put the spray bottle and paper towel roll back, glancing over at the gym’s owner briefly. He arches a brow at me. “I think this year is going to be my best academic year by far.”
Because I won’t accept another outcome. Failure is not an option.
Cory sighs and his shoulders droop as he nods towards the front of the gym. “Go on home,” he says. “Get properly cleaned up ‘fore the bus come ‘round.”
Even though I’d been about to do just that, I check the old digital clock hanging on the wall above the entrance. “Bus doesn’t come for at least another hour,” I tell him.
“Ain’t you a girl?” Cory asks.
I cast him a confused look. “Has it taken you this long to notice?”
He snorts. “No, ‘course not. It’s just that girls need more time to get ready. Women always do.”
I shake my head and don’t offer a reply. Before? He would’ve been right. Before I wouldn’t have even bothered to glance at this podunk little hole-in-the-wall gym as I drove by in the cherry red BMW my parents had bought me for my seventeenth birthday—after I’d crashed the white convertible that they’d gotten me for my sixteenth.
A lot can change in twelve weeks. I’ve changed and there is no going back.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell Cory as I head towards the cubby holes for members to leave any extra shit they brought with them. Yanking my hoodie from the uppermost corner hole, I slip it on and flip the fabric over my head.
My hair hangs around my face, a mass of different shades of azure waves. The color is an uneven cheap box dye because if there’s anything a girl knows—regardless of which side of the tracks she’s from—control starts with the hair. Coloring it, chopping it, or giving yourself bangs, it doesn’t matter.
When the world is out of your control, you find something to latch on to and make yours.
For so long, I’d let my mom convince me that blonde was the perfect color. My one attempt at something different—a pretty sunrise red—she’d locked herself in her bedroom until I’d agreed to go back to her stylist and get it changed. Even then, her complaints hadn’t ceased, but now she’s not here. Neither of my parents are. My hair is my own.
Cory waves me off as I head towards the front of the gym with the only other item that’d been in my cubby—a ratty gym bag. Through the glass windows that frame the front of the gym, the sky is beginning to lighten. It’s usually a thirty-minute walk from Cory’s gym to the apartment complex I moved to after the authorities confiscated my parents’ assets and I’d refused to live with Dad’s best friend, Morpheus Calloway. I take a shortcut, though, jogging through an old junkyard sitting behind an abandoned grocery store. Still, I keep my hood up despite the warm August air in case someone spots me.
Hopefully most people haven’t caught on yet about the changed hair, but eventually it’ll get out. When I have to apply for jobs. When I go to school. There’s no point hiding who I am long term, but for just a little while, I want to cling to my anonymity even if it’s only a facade.
I hurry through a shower, the hot water running out quickly so I spend a good amount of time under icy spray just to get the sweat out of my hair.
When I hop out, I swipe a hand across the grimy, chipped mirror and take in my reflection. Dark circles underscore my eyes, and for a brief moment, the old me comes back and I wonder if I should try to cover it up with makeup. Almost as soon as that thought occurs though, I wave it away. There’s no point in wasting what little money I have left on my looks.
Finished with my shower, I throw on a pair of jeans and an oversized t-shirt. At least the one good thing about switching from Silverwood Prep to Silverwood Public is the lack of uniform. I check the microwave clock and scramble to yank on a pair of sneakers, snatching up my backpack, before sprinting out the door.
I spy the big yellow bus rattling up the street from the outside upper deck of the two-story apartment building and bolt for the stairs. A collection of other students wait on the road to be picked up. I draw my hoodie back on and perform the same ritual that has become so normal over the last several weeks, flipping the hood up to mask my features.
The bus comes to a slow halt, brakes squealing in protest as red lights flash, and the stop sign swings out from the opposite side. I jog up the sidewalk and watch the others get on first before following their lead. I haven’t ridden a bus since well before middle school, and even then, it was infrequent.
I hop up the steps into the bus, ducking my head lower when the driver looks at me curiously. Either my hood is doing its job or everyone is too tired from the first early morning they’ve had in months, but no one else spares me a glance as I move to the back of the bus and take a seat by a window.
Leaning back, I stare at the passing scenery as the bus speeds up and slows down to stop at frequent intervals. We pass by dilapidated brick buildings, millhouses with large patches on their roofs, and trailer parks as the vehicle begins to fill to overflowing. The bus even stops in front of a motel where one student hops on, their face turned down as they slide onto a seat towards the front since there’s certainly no more room in the back. I sink lower in my seat and turn away from the two who have taken up residence on my row with me.
Perhaps it’s the early morning, but few people bother to make conversation on the way to school. Instead, the sound of the bus’s engine and someone’s soft snores are all that linger in the air. By the time we roll up to Silverwood Public, I’m hopeful that I can get through the rest of this day as unseen as possible. Keeping my hood up, I exit the bus and follow the crowd toward the glass double doors leading into the school’s cafeteria. I’ve never entered Silverwood Public as anything more than a rival cheerleader—and those days are long behind me now. The double doors open and I find myself hovering in place as students line up and begin moving in a restricted single-file line through the metal detectors directed by tired-looking teachers. That’s something new to me. I don’t comment and quietly follow the rest even as my heart rate increases. On the other side is the cafeteria where several students are already seated.
Keep your head down and keep your guard up. Cory’s advice slides through my mind and I repeat it like a mantra. Head down. Guard up.
The ripe scent of stale weed and body odor slaps me in the face as I make it through and stride into the cafeteria. It’s louder in here as students greet each other. Despite the early hour, a few boisterous guys are already passing a football back and forth across one of the tables. The teachers linger about, ignoring it all in favor of gossiping amongst each other. I scan the room before directing myself towards an empty table at the far corner, stopping only when a voice calls out.
“Hey, no hoods!” I stop and glance back, spotting a tall older man with graying sideburns glaring my way. “You know the rules,” he barks.
I don’t, but he doesn’t know that. It’s obvious he doesn’t recognize me, but I know the second I take off the hood, he will, as will every fucking body else. I debate my choices. Take off the hood without a fight and hope I’ve changed enough for him not to realize who I am ... or ignore him.
I take route number two and start to walk away, moving faster than before.
Wrong decision, I realize a split second later as the sound of stomping footsteps follows me. “Hey, didn’t you hear me? I said—” A hard hand grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop and my hood flies off my head. The teacher stops talking abruptly and releases my arm like I’m a snake ready to bite. Who knows? Maybe I am.
Several gazes fall on me and a hush falls across the cafeteria. Mother fucker. Just what I wanted to avoid. I want to pull my hood back up, but it’s pointless now. “Got it,” I say. “I’ll keep my hood down.”
The teacher glares at me with barely repressed disgust, as if trying to maintain a professional expression is too much for him. He nods towards the tables. “Take a seat.”
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I spin away from him and finish my journey to the corner table, turning away from the crowd and facing the wall as I slide my backpack onto the seat next to me. It’s quiet behind me for several seconds, and I can feel the burn of people’s attention boring into the back of my skull. It only takes a few minutes for people to start talking again and once they do, their words penetrate me.
“—can’t believe she actually showed up.”
“The fucking nerve.”
“I heard her dad got beat up in jail and is in isolation.”
“Why is she here? I thought she’d have killed herself by now. I would’ve if I were her.”
“Wasn’t she supposed to be staying with Mr. Calloway?”
“He’s too nice. I wouldn’t trust her not to make off with whatever he has left after what her dad put him through.”
Hold it in, I warn myself. Do not react. It’ll only give them more fuel.
I rip open my backpack, yank out a worn library book, and flip it open. The words on the page blur in front of my eyes as the talking behind me grows louder. They’re not even bothering to whisper anymore. Instead, they're just outright speculating.
Was she in on it?
Did she know he was stealing money from the town?
Did she laugh when people lost their homes?
A part of me wants to stand up and scream at them all. Of course, I wasn’t in on it. If I was, did they honestly think I’d be here now? And no, people losing their homes isn’t funny—not even to me.
I’m not sure how much time has passed when a hand slams down on the end of the table I’m sitting at. Slowly, I lift my head. The girl standing at the end of the table looks like everything my mother would hate. Her bleach blonde hair is dark at the roots from lack of upkeep and her dark eyes are lined all the way around with black liner. She glares at me as two of her friends hover behind her with their arms folded and their own expressions of loathing evident.
I sigh. “Listen,” I start, “before you do anything, just know, I’m not here to fight.”
“Why are you here then?” she demands. “You don’t fucking belong here.”
Because dropping out of school isn’t an option and I can’t afford Silverwood Prep anymore. I don’t say as much though and simply hold up my hands in the universal ‘I don’t want any trouble’ gesture.
“I’m just here to graduate like everyone else.”
“You think you have a right to be here?” She scoffs and removes her hand from the table, rounding it to move towards me.
Irritation slithers through my veins. Looks like all of my hopes and dreams of managing to get through this day with my head down are dying right here … and first period hasn’t even started yet. Go me.
I rise up from my seat as she stops in front of me. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let her hover over me and put me in a vulnerable position—not when I can see the barely repressed anger shaking through her whole body. She’s skinnier than me, but she’s got years at Silverwood Public—so I can’t take anything for granted. I open my mouth to tell her she needs to walk away when she rears back and spits in my face. A wad of saliva lands on my cheek and then slides down my jaw.
I blink, frozen for a brief second. Reaching up, I touch my cheek, feeling the wetness there. I wipe it off with the back of my hand and stare down at the sheen on my skin. So. Fucking. Gross.
With a sigh, I shake my head. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Yeah?” Her friends hurry to join her at her back. “What are you going to do about it?”
In my periphery, I see the teachers from before, just as locked onto this dramatic scene as every fucking body else in the cafeteria. They haven’t stopped what they know is coming, though.
Why?
Because they hate me too.
Everyone hates Juliet Donovan—the girl whose dad embezzled millions and ruined thousands of lives. So, what’s a little catfight in the school cafeteria going to do? It’ll give them some semblance of control, as if being cruel to a Donovan will somehow make them feel better about their own sad sack shitty lives.
I wanted to avoid this as much as I could, but now I know I was right to prepare. They think the pretty little prep princess can’t fight and if they continue to think that, then people are going to be coming after me all year.
No one can be trusted. Not even him. Not anymore.
“Listen,” I say, lowering my voice, “just walk the fuck away. Walk away and let it go.”
Internally, I’m shaking. Enraged. Disgusted. I want to scrub my skin clean of her saliva. I want to shove this bitch to the floor and stomp her into submission. I hold it back. I hold it all back—the rage, the injustice, the cruelty that’s bubbling up beneath my flesh.
“Make. Me,” the girl says right before she pulls her fist back and slams it into my face.
First day of school and I’m already taking punches like a pro. My head snaps back, but I don’t stumble. All of Cory’s training and advice is about to come in handy, I realize. For some reason, a small fissure of glee shoots up my spine, filling my bloodstream with adrenaline.
I really hadn’t been hoping for this. I know that for a fact. Yet, I also recognize that after three months of hiding and being treated like the town pariah, I’ve been wanting something to take out all of my rage on. Something that isn’t a punching bag or a sparring partner that doesn’t hate me. Too bad for this bitch, it’s about to be her.
I reach up and run a finger under the side of my nose and it comes away wet with my blood.
“Would you take a good look at that. Looks like the silverbloods of Silverwood bleed red like the rest of us peasants,” the girl taunts, and at her back, her minions cackle. “Why don’t you do everyone a favor and just leave? No one wants you here. S’not like you deserve to even breathe the same air we do after what your family did to this town.”
As expected, the teachers don’t do or say shit. They just watch. Useless bunch of assholes. The girl pushes against my chest hard enough to send me back into the table. The backs of my calves slam into the attached stools, but I remain standing. I finish wiping away the blood with the back of my hand and take a deep breath, clenching my fists at my sides.
“Awww is the preppy bitch gonna cry?”
I look up. Cry? She thinks this will make me cry? “Sorry,” I say, not feeling the least bit sorry at all as I clench my hand into a fist. “The preppy bitch you were expecting couldn’t make it. I’m just a bitch.”