Chapter Nine
Rosalie
My weekend is uneventful, and Dad is still missing. He left with his friends on Monday morning, and I haven’t seen him since.
Good.
A few years back, Dad going missing would have set me on edge.
I would have been searching all around town for him, checking the local bars and neighborhoods for his passed-out, slumped form in the ditches.
Most of the time, I would end up at the police station, seated in the sterile lobby with my hands crossed over my lap as I waited for the officers to release him.
Now, I don’t even think about him when he’s not around. I get to play house, and pretend my father isn’t probably on some bender and out of his mind as he terrorizes the local bartenders.
It’s been a change of pace, and I’ve used my free time to pour my effort into my valedictorian speech.
I’ve perfected it, but writing it was the easiest part.
The real test is here, and I think I’m going to hurl as the gymnasium fills with seniors.
I’m behind the stage’s curtain, gripping my speech so tightly that I’m creasing the paper.
There’s a sweat building on my brow, and I keep my eyes trained on the floor as I wait for our principal to finish her announcements as she paces the center stage. I’m not good at public speaking, but Charlie’s pointers keep circling my head.
Find a spot above the crowd to stare at.
Focus on your speech and let everything else take a backseat.
Easy enough for her to say. She isn’t the one speaking in front of hundreds of students. Even if she were, I’m sure she would kill it.
I’m the problem. Anything that puts me in the spotlight causes me to lock up. I have glassophobia, and this is my living nightmare.
I can’t shake the nerves buzzing under my skin, but I try to focus on my achievement rather than the paralyzing fear of speaking in front of hundreds of people.
I’m so wrapped up in thinking of how I’m going to walk the stage at graduation without tripping over my own two feet that I don’t register the crowding presence at my back until it’s too late.
“Dirt.”
Kairo’s voice makes me cringe as I whip around with wide eyes.
All three of them surround me, and Maddox stands at the head of their pack.
He’s holding his speech in one hand and a cup from the cafeteria in the other as he stares at me with narrowed eyes filled with a profound emotion that teeters on disdain.
He doesn’t look happy.
I take a cautious step back, my words tumbling. “H-hi?”
“Don’t look so nervous,” Roman croons as he tilts his head. “We just wanted to congratulate you.”
Somehow, I don’t believe that as I take another small step back. They close in, suffocating me until all I can see or hear is them.
The nape of my neck prickles with awareness, and breathing becomes impossible as their cologne smothers me. I lift my hands as if I can stop whatever they have planned, but I’m no match for them.
“Congrats,” Maddox bites ominously before tossing the glass of water onto the front of my pants.
I gasp as the cold seeps through the front of my jeans, creeping down my legs like melting ice. Glancing down, my face flushes with heat, mortified by what it must look like.
Roman pushed forward, backing me further onto the stage as he sneers. “You deserve this.”
He shoves me back with full force, slamming the air from my lungs as I crash onto my side on the stage—right in full view of the students packed into the bleachers.
There’s a beat of silence as I lift myself onto shaky arms. I stare at the stage, my eyes wide and unseeing as my heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest. The sounds around me slow painfully until all I can hear is my ragged, gasping breaths.
“Dirt pissed herself!” Someone in the audience shouts, and loud, echoing laughter shakes the gym.
Shame burns deep in my gut, and tears sting my eyes as they rise.
I can’t hold back the broken sob that rips from my throat, raw and loud, as everything around me shatters.
I’m sobbing—I know I am—but I can’t even hear myself over the cruel laughter echoing around me.
It all blurs together. The pain, the noise, the humiliation.
They feed off each other in some sick, twisted harmony, and the harder I cry, the louder my peers seem to laugh.
I try to stand, trembling, but the weight of it all presses down, making every action feel like dragging myself through pins and needles.
I’m spiraling.
I-I need to get away.
Mrs. Hurst storms past me, but I only faintly register her heels as they click angrily against the stage. Her voice rises over the crowd as she reprimands my bullies, but I don’t stick around to hear.
The moment I can take a step without my knees buckling, I sprint off the stage, and I don’t look back.
I stare into the medicine cabinet’s mirror in my dingy bathroom. The yellow lights overhead flicker, a clear sign that the power may go out at any moment, but I don’t care.
All I can focus on are my swollen, puffy, and bloodshot eyes.
I ran straight home after the speech incident and didn’t stop until I closed myself in the trailer.
The moment I was alone, I fell to my knees in shambles.
Every scream and sob was confined to these walls, contained and bleeding my agony back to me in haunting echoes.
I screamed until my throat scratched and my voice cracked.
I cried until there was nothing left but a heavy weight on my chest, and bitter resentment curling around my psyche.
Now, I’m left staring at everything that reminds me of her.
The woman who walked out on me without a second thought. The same face that everyone seems to hate.
Well, I fucking hate it too.
My mouth twists unpleasantly as my teeth grind. It all becomes too much, and something horrid and angry grips me unrelentingly.
I don’t even think as I grab the medicine cabinet’s mirror and wrench it with all my might. My ragged breaths fill the bathroom as I scream, and all I want is to make it go away.
I can’t stomach the sight of myself anymore.
The moment the cabinet gives, I stumble back and drop the mirror onto the floor. It shatters, glass dancing over my feet and making me hiss as shards embed into my skin. The light catches each fragment, causing it to glisten like something beautiful rather than a gateway to what makes me sick.
The pain is welcome. It distracts from everything else and makes me feel something.
Anything but the tragedy unfolding inside my head.
Anything.
My chest caves with my breath as I take in the carnage at my feet. As the quiet becomes unsettling, I crouch down and run my fingers over the shards. The pricks of sharp edges ghost over the pads of my fingers, and I shiver at the pain.
As my psyche threatens to break beyond the clear, thin boundary that’s held me back for years, I press my palm into the glass until pins prick every inch of skin. I bite my lower lip hard as the pain grounds me and prevents the oncoming panic attack.
When I ease off the pressure, some shards are embedded in my fingers, while the others fall back to the ground with a small tinkling sound.
My frame buzzes with energy, causing my limbs to shake as I rise. Blood is beginning to well up from my cuts, and I shove my appendage under the faucet before turning the spout on.
I don’t look as I clean myself up. With every pass of my other hand, the sharp, stinging pain of my wounds cements my mind further. It brings me back from the void, and surfacing is surreal.
The lights are too bright, and everything around me is overcrowding my field of vision as I deftly clean up my mess.
Once I’ve picked enough glass from my palm and scooped the remaining into a small pile, I numbly walk to the pantry.
I don’t even flick the light on as I grab the old dust pan and return to the bathroom.
Every movement I make is loud—too loud—each sound ricocheting off the walls and making my eyes involuntarily squint.
Even the laughter from the gym that replays over and over again in my head feels weaponized, echoing with perfect cruelty through my skull.
I flinch at the sharpness of it, cringing as if the noise knows exactly where to gouge and pick.
“Stop,” I grit as my eyes squeeze shut. “Stop thinking about it!”
I toss the glass into the trash can so hard that it makes a crackling sound. I slam the lid closed before forcing myself to go to my room.
I snatch my bookbag far more harshly than I should off my bed, and only stop when the Juilliard pamphlet flutters to the ground.
The brightly colored front page winks back at me, the picture of smiling college students huddled together in a recording studio as its drawing point.
They look pleased with whatever scene they just finished, and it makes my chest pang as I bend down and grab it.
I set my bag aside as I fall onto my bed and open the brochure. Silence fills my room as I gloss over every offered class, scholarship, and perk to attending the institution. The mocking laughter of the gymnasium fades until there’s nothing.
After I’m done, I don’t speak my thoughts out loud as I pin the brochure to my vanity. It looks out of place with the cracked, aged wood, but it feels right.
Intuition is something I never prided myself on. It’s hard to see the upside of any situation or think beyond the next day when one is subjected to a lifestyle as unforgiving as mine.
But as I stare at the small spark of hope, I can only see a future where I have it all. Everything else fades, and I forget for a moment about the life I plan to abandon.
It’s a turning point for me—something I never allowed myself to believe in until today.
I’m going to do this.
Even if it kills me.