Page 3 of Deafened By Silence
I don’t fully register him until he’s right in front of me. Tall, lean, tattooed. He’s my every weakness wrapped into one delicious package. He towers over me, phone pressed to one ear, blue eyes seeming to look straight through me. His hair is longer on top, thrown back haphazardly from the sharp lines of his razor-edged jaw and ink that traces the sides of his neck, dipping down over a broad Adam’s apple hidden underneath. Whetherhe notices my staring or not, he swallows slow and I swear my mouth waters.
“Yeah, yeah, Dad. I’m here, alright? Stop riding my balls,” he huffs, looking directly over my head. His voice is low and rough, the kind that makes your stomach flip if it says your name the right way, but my common sense starts to trickle back in. He is completely ignoring my existence.
Ending the call, the guy looks up at the gothic building and eventually, he lowers his head to address me.
“You haven’t seen a new girl walking around, have you?” he asks, causing his lip ring to glint. I blink, withdrawing from whatever daze I lost myself in. Oh damn, this is him. Rhys, the CEO’s son. I lick my lips, trying to find the words to sound nonchalant when he steps even closer, his cologne wrapping around me like invisible shackles. “She’s probably wandering around looking lost and shaking like a leaf. Maybe with a white stick or something. I don’t know, I wasn’t really listening.”
A wash of ice-cold water douses my libido. A white stick? Is he for real? I’m deaf, not blind. Whatever hold he had on me instantly snaps, and I sidestep him with a casual shrug.
“Nope. No idea.” I force my legs to move, despite the weight of his lingering gaze dragging down my spine. A shiver threatens to pass through me but I hold onto it until I’ve rounded a corner when I can slump against the building. I can still smell his cologne as if it’s branded on me. Looking directly at my jeans crotch, I hold my hands out.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I whisper to my vagina. I may be sheltered, but I hope, or more rather I hoped, I had more willpower than that. I can’t lose my mind over the first tattooed, arrogantly hot guy who crosses my path. Especially one who would chew me up and spit me out before I’ve had the chance to prove I even existed.
Chapter Two
My fist connects with his smug face right before I tackle him onto the wood flooring. Every time my knuckles crash into his skin, a shiver of delight ripples through my arm and down my spine. Fuck, what I’d give to never stop. To keep pounding the smirk cemented on his face until his blood coats my hands and his last breath rings in my ears like the purest melody. I jab his ribs hard enough to bruise but hold onto the last sliver of restraint not to break a bone.
Even before my two-year stint in the Juvenile Detention Center, labeled the JDC, I was accustomed to violence. Born in the slums and raised on scraps and survival. Fighting is part in my DNA, so if I wanted this asshole dead, he’d already be a goner. And as much as I hate the entitled shithead he is, I’m not about to get myself expelled because he seems to be in an even more irritable mood today than usual.
He slips out from under me on the slick, polished court and lands his elbow square on my jaw. I use my forearm to pin the squirmy fucker back in place. He tries to jerk his knee up into my balls. The cheap-shotting, over-privileged, cop-out motherf–
“I said, that’senough!” Coach bellows. I’m yanked into the air by several sets of hands and thrown aside like the trash they think I am. Coach’s face is the color of a goddamn beetroot as he helps Smirky-McShit-Face to his feet, even brushing off his jersey as if my germs might still be clinging to it. Once he’s satisfied I haven’t caused any real damage, Coach turns to me and jabs a finger into my heaving chest.
“Clayton! On this court, we’re a team. Leave your personal shit at the door or you won’t make it to your first game!” My jaw clenches and I refuse to be pushed back into line. Standing firm at two inches taller than the coach, my chest pushes against his.
“He shot from outside the line and you won’t call him out because his family signs your paycheck. He doesn’t even have a shred of talent,” I seethe, holding Coach’s hard stare. In my peripheral, the rest of the team steps away from me like I’ve grown horns, a sharp inhale cutting through the silence. I don’t give a shit how well-bred Rhys fucking Waversea is. If I had to earn my spot on this squad, then so should he.
Coach starts shaking with fury, bringing his whistle up to blare it in my face, and I can’t stop the roll of my eyes. “That’s it! Report back here after your classes today. You can run drills alone until you learn to be a valued team player!”
I shrug, making every effort to mask my annoyance. I guess I can kiss goodbye to my pre-booked slot in the boxing ring this afternoon. It’s always fully booked out on weekends, so I’ll have to wait an entire week, strung tighter than a lonely nymphomaniac who’s run out of batteries.
Maybe I could coax Coach into a little one-on-one as punishment, though for me, it’d be the exact opposite. The throbbing of my flesh after a decent pounding is the only time I feel remotely alive anymore. Still, beating my coach within an inch of his life probably isn’t the best long-term strategy. He maybe bulky, but he’s slow and clumsy, too easy a target to be any fun.
On his command, the rest of the team jogs back to the center of the court and fall into line like the obedient lapdogs they are. The ball moves back and forth between black and yellow jerseys, only the occasional bounce echoing through the empty gym like a thunderclap. Over his shoulder, Rhys lifts his busted lip into another smirk, reminding me exactly why I smashed it in the first place. My fists clench on instinct.
I drop heavily onto the side bench, dragging my gym bag closer and tugging my sports jacket over my shoulders. I’ve only been on the basketball team officially for two weeks, and already I’m over these five a.m. drills. The fact that we have to wear the matching uniforms this early in the morning is a whole other level of stupid. Coach says they’re supposed to ‘unite’ us. Well, I say screw that. I don’t want to be united with any fucker who has as much privilege asWavershit. Just being in the same room as him pisses me off.
He and I have clashed and fought ever since our first semester. The bastard seems to show up wherever I go, somehow always managing to scribble his name on every sign-up sheet right below mine. He’s goading me. I’m sure of it. Our hatred sparked immediately. Well,that, and the fact that on day one, I caught him pinning another scholarship student to the ground while he rubbed dirt into her face. So yeah, I took it upon myself to knock him off his diamond-studded pedestal.
Rhys is my polar opposite in every way. Where my hair is shaggy and sun-bleached, his is dark brown and cropped short on the sides and back. Where I’m six-two, muscled and broad, he’s an inch shorter and lean. From his knuckles to his jawline and every inch in between, his skin is inked in shitty black lines that hold no meaning. A silver ring clings to the side of his bottom lip, matching the one in his eyebrow. Rhys might have ahigh pain tolerance, but he still punches like a little bitch scared to chip one of his manicured nails.
The fourteen players left on the court run back and forth at Coach’s whistle, dropping at the back line for sets of push-ups like clockwork. My eyes track them, not envious in the slightest to be watching from the sidelines. Wait a minute…why am I watching from the sidelines? Coach has his back to me and it seems the only reason I’m sitting here like a wounded puppy is because I’m an idiot. Sliding down the bench, I sling my bag over my shoulder and wait for the next whistle to mask the sound of my sneakers squeezing against the lino as I dart for the sport’s hall exit.
In the far corner of the hall, a pair of sophomores lounge against the bleachers. It’s a joke really, us down here busting our asses each morning whilst they stick to their private practices, only to be the star players on the court whenever we have a match. Rumor is they are scouting new talent, seeing who can take their place once they leave. Their gazes trail after me in silence, the one with hazel eyes and blond hair quirking a brow. I look straight ahead and keep walking.
I don’t do friends, and I definitely don’t have the patience to be part of the group he keeps trying to recruit me into. I have one goal here and one goal only, to make a better future for my mom. That’s why I’m starting at the academy a year late, thanks to my cell-block vacation. That’s why I have to bust my ass to maintain my scholarship. That’s why I can’t beat the life out of the guy whose family owns the same school that offered me a second chance.
All I can do is keep quiet and keep acing my classes. Otherwise, it’s game over.
Stepping outside, the cold air slaps me across the face, goosebumps prickling my arms within the jacket. I stall long enough to pull a gray beanie over my head, and then head downthe hill to cut across the deserted campus. I pass silent buildings and locked doors, their windows blank like watching eyes. The sky overhead is heavy and ominous, promising another unforgiving winter’s day.
Crossing the central quad, flanked by towering stone buildings, my thoughts drift to those back home. The ones who won’t be able to afford heating, who’ll line up outside the soup kitchen hoping for a hot meal to carry them through another frozen night.
I stuff my hands deep into my pockets and force the guilt down. Guilt is a pointless emotion when I’ve worked this hard to claw my way out of a dead-end, but my loyalty to the streets still runs deep. Deep enough that catching the first bus home is always sitting at the back of my mind. Back where people actually look out for one another. Back to where gratitude exists. Not like at Waversea, where students only care about getting high, partying hard, and scraping by on the bare minimum. Not me. I need to focus.
As I enter the main courtyard, I glance toward the giant fountain that marks the center of campus. The lip around the base is wide enough to sit on, and I imagine in the summer, students flock here, cramming around the tiered sculpture praying for a little mist to cool off. Four neatly paved paths branch out from the fountain in all directions, cutting through perfectly maintained lawns.
Massive buildings stand on each side, a concrete ribcage protecting the pulsing heart of the campus. The cafeteria, the main hall, and the library are all buried within them, meaning every student will pass through this quadrant at some point today. To my left is the grand entrance to the Dean’s and faculty offices, guarded by a proud, bronze statue of the academy’s founder. Great grandaddy Waversea.
