Chapter 9
Quill
Fourteen years old
Idon’t know what it is about me that wants to hurt her.
I’ve been battling that urge from the moment I first locked eyes on her in fifth grade. She was a skinny little thing with ugly round horn-rimmed glasses, about three times too big for her face. Between that, her thin, pale, freckled face and her bushy red hair, she looked like an insect.
I had to fist my hands at my side to resist the urge to march right up to her, grab those stupid glasses off her nose, and stomp them under my foot.
I felt the same way about the rest of her. I could crush her in my hand, smite the life out of her. I could destroy her without even breaking a sweat.
Fucking insect.
The urge was completely absurd. She hadn’t done a thing to me. I hadn’t even heard her talk yet, though I would, in the months to come, and every time I’d hear her chirpy, cheerful little voice, I’d want to drive a screwdriver straight through my skull.
I’d never felt such an urge before, and I had no idea what to do with it. People say psychopaths start by killing insects. I guess she’s my first insect. Does that make me a psychopath?
I have no idea. All I know is that when I saw Jax bully her, I took all my anger out on him. I beat him up, and she probably imagined I was some kind of hero. Instead of the real monster.
I know what Mom would have said. She’d have said I had a crush on her. Sometimes I’m glad Mom abandoned me so I don’t have to hear such asinine bullshit.
I’m stuck with Dad now, and I know better than to bring any of that up to him. Not that he’d care. But he’s always looking for reasons to kick my ass. And hearing the name of the poorest girl in town on my tongue would be reason enough. He wouldn’t even wait to hear the context.
Hey Dad, it’s fine. I don’t want to fuck her. I just want to kill her.
I did my best to avoid her all of fifth grade, because, as much as I wanted to kill her, I didn’t want to end up in jail.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Dad put me in a private charter school instead of the public middle school she went to.
But then, I nearly clawed my eyes out when I found out we’d be going to the same high school.
Her voice has always been like a cheese grater against my brain. All the more so because of how absurd it is for her to remain cheerful when she’s getting bullied left and right.
Even though we went to different middle schools, I spent every moment watching her come and go outside the building. My own school days were shorter, because the charter school had a lot of idealist ideas about how students learn best, but my grades didn’t increase. Only my dark obsession did.
Her round glasses seemed to grow along with the rest of her, and they made her look bug-eyed. By the end of middle school, she looked even more like an insect than on the first day of fifth grade, and I fucking hated her.
Even when I wasn’t stalking her, she was still a constant presence because she had latched herself onto my brain. Like a parasite. The longer I went without seeing her, the more I thought of her. Of her high-pitched, giggly voice, her horn-rimmed glasses, the nose that was always buried in a book.
A small nose, slightly turned up, with a dash of freckles on it.
Greenish eyes, but I didn’t often see the color because they were hidden behind her permanently fogged-up, askew glasses.
When she blushed, her pale skin took on a blotchy red tint, but she didn’t blush that often. She was so annoyingly sure of herself.
I gave her a ride once, because it was pouring rain, and it was all I could do to not crush her tiny body between my arms.
God, I fucking hate her.
And now she’s in my high school. I just can’t seem to get rid of her.
I actually hesitated to ask Dad to let me change schools, and I would have spoken to him about it if I hadn’t already known it was pointless.
Dad’s done everything to set me up in life, according to his idea of what that means.
Buy the right house so you’re in the right district to go to the right school, so that when you finish high school, Devil will recruit you.
They recruit their teen soldiers from Astley High.
Instead of trying to avoid her, which would have been the sane thing to do, I’ve changed my entire schedule so I can be in all her classes.
Wanting to feel the hatred surge in me, the contempt, as I watch the skinny little insect sit three rows in front of me, or walk around the hallways.
The bag on her back seems to completely engulf her as her face is invariably stuck in a book even when she walks, her hand absentmindedly nudging back up her huge round glasses on the bridge of her nose.
I don’t think I am a psychopath, because I’ve never had the urge to kill anyone else. Just her. A true psychopath would want to kill everyone, wouldn’t he?
Sometimes the thought scares me. I don’t want to turn into a serial killer and fry on the electric chair.
I never had an opinion about Dad’s plan in life for me, but maybe working for Devil will be a good thing.
I could channel all my rage into killing people who are not the incredibly annoying insect currently standing in front of me.
Fuck. Today’s the worst day of my life.
Because my hatred of her has reached such a boiling point that as I look at her, smiling happily at me in the hallway, I get the feeling I have what it takes to murder her.