32. Storm
STORM
Something’s wrong. Well, I mean, obviously, everything is wrong, but there’s a disquiet so goddamn palpable when I walk into the house.
Fresh from the hospital, all I want is to take a shower and promptly fall into bed.
I have a concussion (no surprise there), bruises that have had time to fully develop, and two extremely sore ribs that had previously been dislocated.
I don’t know what I expected from everyone, but it’s certainly not this.
Everyone’s giving me a berth wide enough to fit the Grand Canyon.
During the car ride home, Dad was on a business call, so no one spoke or even made eye contact with me.
Once he ends the conversation when we come in through the garage, I wait for him to address the elephant in the room, but he’s all too quick to answer his phone when it rings again.
Just like that, I’m dismissed, and it doesn’t get better when I go into the kitchen to ask Blythe for my own cell.
It had been left in my locker, and Dad promised to grab it when he stopped by the school to pick up my homework and textbooks.
Evidently, everyone thinks it’s best that I “recuperate” off school grounds for the time being, which is perfectly fine with me.
But I still want my phone.
Thank God I don’t have to ask Blythe for it, because I spot the device sitting on the counter beside the charger.
The second I unlock the screen on it, my suspicions are confirmed, because Blythe snatches the phone away from me like it’s a bomb about to explode.
What the hell? Her reaction is weird enough, sure, but what catches me off guard is the fact that I don’t have any new text messages or phone calls.
I may not be Miss Popularity at school, and I haven’t been able to contact Reed and my other coworkers to let them know what happened…
But not even Derek or Vanessa bothered reaching out either.
No matter how busy my sister may be with college and ballet, it’s hard to believe she wouldn’t at least message me to ask how I was doing.
And no way would my brother take this sitting down.
I was honestly surprised Derek hadn’t stormed into town, threatening to rain hellfire upon Trent and Sienna the second Blythe and my dad let him know about everything.
But the notifications (or lack thereof) confirm that not one single person tried contacting me.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding!
“You didn’t tell anyone what happened, did you?
” I want to scream my accusation at my stepmom, because, seriously, how fucked up is that?
If either of my siblings ended up in the goddamn hospital, I’d want to know!
What good—or even half-assed—reason could there be to keep this kind of information secret?
The look Blythe gives me has my blood freezing as she holds my phone behind her back, acting like I’m the bomb about to go off.
“Give me my phone.” Unlike Derek and Vanessa, I paid for my cell with my own money and currently cover the monthly cost of my additional line to the family’s bill. She literally has no right to keep it from me.
Between the concussion and reset ribs, my body silently screams at the movement, but I don’t care. I charge for Blythe, ready to pry the phone out of her death grip, when my dad clears his throat.
I freeze, and it’s not just my muscles coming to a standstill. My veins fill with ice as he says my name.
He won’t meet my eyes, focusing on the cell in his hands despite the screen going black. “I think it would be best if we all took a seat.”
Blythe looks all too prepared, and there’s something almost rehearsed in the way my dad and she take their positions at the table, raising yet another red flag in my mind.
My worst suspicions are confirmed when I see the stack of papers already placed on the table in front of my designated seat.
Sitting down, I find I don’t need to read through all of them. Skimming the top page tells me enough.
It’s an NDA.
I want to protest, to scream, but that cold invades the rest of me as Dad begins what is clearly a prepared speech.
As expected, Mr. Easton reached out, but instead of telling him to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, my dad and Blythe used my time in the hospital to negotiate the “terms” for a mutual agreement.
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
Dad’s tone is measured, but with all the legal jargon he keeps using, he may as well be a parrot regurgitating what he heard from his lawyer. And his favorite is apparently “good faith,” since it keeps coming up when I point out the obvious.
I don’t want to be bought off for my silence. I want to file fucking charges! Besides, a minor can’t sign an NDA and be legally bound to it anyway.
“You can’t make enemies with people like the Eastons and not expect there to be fallout,” Blythe finally snaps at me.
“Do you want to go to college? Because Roland Easton has connections with every university on the continent. By the time he’s done, there won’t be a single school that will want you.
Hell, you’ll be lucky to get a job working at a drive-thru. ”
“Trent tried to rape me!”
Blythe doesn’t even try to hide that she’s rolling her eyes. “Honestly, Ali, have you seen that boy? How could you expect anyone to believe that?”
She may as well have sucker-punched me in the gut, because my breath outright sputters, and it takes a moment to regain it as I fend off the knots forming inside my chest.
“You believe me, right?” I look solely at my dad, but he won’t return the favor.
No, he just runs his hands over his face and hair, still looking at the dark phone screen.
“You need to think about your future, sweetheart. If this ever went to court, the defense would drag you through the mud, and hit pieces would circulate online. Whenever someone so much as searches your name, this would be what appears first. This one incident would follow you for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?”
“I want justice !”
This hadn’t been the first time Trent did something like that.
The fact that he felt emboldened to do it in public speaks volumes in itself.
The fact that his father is so well-versed in NDAs?
Trent is a serial offender, and I can only imagine how many other girls in school have been subjected to him.
Since we’re minors, we can’t be held to NDAs.
If someone gets the ball rolling, others will no doubt speak up.
And what about Principal Harris and the chief of police?
They’d have to tell the truth on the witness stand, and even if they lied, there’s no way to explain the video footage.
Security cameras are placed at all the entrances to the school, as well as the front offices.
There would be proof Mr. Easton was let into Harris’s office alone with me.
And if the footage mysteriously gets deleted, that would only raise more suspicions.
“And what about the rest of us?” Blythe demands.
My dad rests his hand over hers, likely to get her to stop, but she rips it out from under him.
“No, Everett! This affects everybody. How much do you want to bet that your endorsement offers will suddenly dry up? No dance company would so much as look at Vanessa, let alone take her on. All of the donations to my charities will dry up, as will any career prospects for Derek. Ali can’t possibly be this selfish to ruin everything we’ve all worked for! ”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t push back. He doesn’t defend me.
He does nothing.
He doesn’t need to.
His silence says it all.
And I’m not sure what hurts more: the possibility that he doesn’t even believe me or that he actually does but is too much of a chickenshit to stand up for his daughter?
Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m not worth standing up for.
Blythe begins hashing out details about the payout, but I stop hearing it.
I can barely process anything over the pounding in my ears.
The floor may as well open up and swallow me whole, because I’m free falling into the chasm that used to hold my heart.
All that’s left in my chest is rage and despair and unending hollowness, the combination leaving me numb.
The legs of my chair scrape across the hardwood floor as I rise from my seat, and I’m only vaguely aware of the fact that Blythe finally shut least for the moment.
She rears back from me as I round the table, like I might hit her.
Instead, I just grab my phone sitting in front of her and go to the back set of stairs.
I don’t care that she’s yelling my name and demanding I come back.
I head to the bathroom, lock myself inside, and turn on the shower for the next hour and a half.
I don’t even have to open the bathroom door to hear Blythe’s screeching from downstairs when I eventually shut off the water. Her voice carries through the vents just fine. Though, I’m pretty sure the sheer volume of it is enough for even the neighbors to hear.
It seems someone associated with the Eastons called my dad again while I was in the shower, and this individual was none too happy to hear I hadn’t signed the NDA yet.
Yeah, well, they can all take my noncompliance and shove it up their asses.
The simple act of securing the bath towel around my chest puts pressure against my aching rib cage, solidifying my stance. The hot water from the shower did nothing to soothe my bruises or my head, and the broken skin on my knees and palms still stings from the soap.
My phone hadn’t made a peep the entire time I was in the shower, and now I see why. The screen lights up with several notifications in a row, reminding me that I had set the device on silent mode back when I entered school.
In the few seconds it takes to unlock the screen, several more notifications come in, and when I change the mode, my cell starts doing its best impression of a vibrator.
Names of fellow classmates start popping up, indicating they’ve messaged me through the school’s directory app.
That’s…weird. The only time I ever get anything from anyone on here is when we’re working on a group project, which we aren’t.
I ignore them for the time being, seeing I’ve gotten a text from my sister.
Thank God.
Despite how distant our relationship has become, especially with her away at college, I know I can still confide in her about the big things. And right about now, I need my siblings more than anything else.
For a fleeting second, I think maybe Blythe or our father actually decided to fill Vanessa in on what happened and that’s why she’s reaching out, but instead, I’m greeted with a message that says:
Hey, I hope it’s okay that I gave out your email. Blythe said you weren’t feeling well, so I didn’t want to bother you.
One of your classmates texted me the other day, asking for it so she could forward the assignments and worksheets you’ve missed out on.
Huh?
I have no idea who she could be referring to, and when I open my email, I don’t find any messages from this supposed classmate. What I do find: at least seventy notification emails from the school’s directory app, all issued in the last half hour.
Did someone die? I’ve never gotten more than five notifications over an entire week.
The subject on the latest simply reads, “A REACTION TO YOUR RECENT UPDATE,” with a comment showing nothing but a line of vomit emojis.
Again, huh?
I go to the next ones, reading, “WTF?” and “There goes my lunch! ??”
Then, “I just reported this. Seriously, what the hell was she thinking posting this?!?”
My heart drops into my stomach as I scroll to the bottom of my notifications. The first is a security notice, letting me know that I supposedly logged in from another device thirty-seven minutes ago…while I was in the shower.
The next reads, “Update to profile picture posted.”
A fresh wave of nausea rolls through me, because I haven’t made an update to my profile in over a year.
Hands shaking, I open up the app, go to my account, and—
It takes a second too long to process the image, because no.
No, this can’t be happening.
But the longer I stare at the newly uploaded image on my profile, the clearer my reality becomes.
In place of my yearbook picture is me…in the locker room.
My back is to the camera, my skin and hair soaking wet, and I’m naked!
My bare ass is on full display, and yet, that’s not the worst part.
At first, I’m tempted to believe Trent and Sienna manipulated the photo by using some ghoulish depiction of someone else’s body in place of mine, but the very distinguishable beauty mark on the right side of my back is still there.
It’s me…but I don’t recognize the girl I’m staring at.
I had always been thin, and it honestly never bothered me, until Blythe kept pointing it out. Even then, it was only ever an insecurity. But the constant torment from Trent and Sienna and their minions inevitably got to me. How could it not?
How many times did Trent or one of his cronies grab my ass or palm my chest, only to ridicule me for the fact that there wasn’t “anything there”? How many times did Sienna mock me for being “so ugly” that I apparently “scared off puberty”?
You can only hear those comments so many times before it begins eating away at you.
And it did. Slowly but surely, I’ve become so utterly ashamed of my body that it hurts to even look at it in the mirror now.
So I don’t.
Only once I’m fully clothed and drowning in oversized layers do I dare anymore, and even then, I try to avoid it. Hell, I try not to even look at my face if I can. All I ever see now is “Butt-ugly Birdie” and “The Ugly Duckling.”
And their torment hadn’t just been eating away at my emotional health.
I’ve always struggled with my appetite when I’m stressed, and that’s all I’ve ever been for the past three years.
I never “loved” school, but it still used to be a reprieve from my stepmom.
Now, I don’t have anywhere. When Blythe isn’t cutting me down at home, I can always depend on the Untouchables to harass me everywhere else. Even at my job.
I knew I had dropped weight but hadn’t allowed myself to see just how much.
I’m not just thin or even “skinny.”
I look like a walking corpse.
There isn’t a discernible ounce of fat or muscle on me, just flesh clinging to bones. All of my ribs are visible, as well as the notches on my spine, and my hip bones jut out almost painfully.
I can’t breathe.
I do the only thing I can: I rid myself of the image by swiping my finger down the screen of my phone—
And I instantly regret it as I’m taken to the comment section.
“God, if I looked like that, I’d kill myself.”
“Looks like she’s already halfway there.”
“She seriously needs help. Is that why she was sent to the hospital?”