Page 19 of Revenge At Raleigh High
Why don’t u just fucking kill urself.
I cover my mouth, not blinking, staring at the screen, and for a long second I think I might be about to burst into tears and let out a furious scream at the same time—the conflicting emotions feel like they’re going to rip me in two.
I was such a fucking fool. After the shooting, I allowed myself to forget. Raleigh was, and still is gripped in a fog of grief. My fellow classmates have been walking around in a daze, trying to remember how to be carefree teenagers again when there are still bullet holes in the plastered walls, and reminders of violence lurk down every corridor and hallway. People were too distracted to make life hard for me, and I became complacent, daring to lift my head and look around. I allowed myself to believe I was no longer a target for hatred and cruelty, and it was stupidest fucking thing I could have done.
And then I got the first text message.
People don’t forget. People don’t move on. People aren’t intrinsically good, no matter how badly I want them to be. High school is a Battle Royale, a fight for survival, and no one stays their hands for long. In order to make it through the experience unscathed, people will hurt and cut and bite and kick at anyone who appears weaker than them in order to get ahead. And to the students of Raleigh High, I am the easiest fucking target there is.
I tuck my knees up under my chin, a wave of sadness rippling over me as I stare at the phone lying there on the mattress two feet away. Sadness, quickly morphing to anger. So many people died when Leon walked into Raleigh and opened fire. We were taught a hard, painful lesson…but it seems some people still haven’t learned. People fight back. When you corner an injured animal, eventually it kicks and bites back even harder, and tragic things happen.
I’m done ignoring these messages. I don’t plan on participating in this vicious cycle of cruelty and short-sightedness. I just fuckingwon’t. I’m done bowing my head and pretending I don’t notice them staring. Pretending I don’t hear the awful, sickening things they whisper about me as I walk to class. I am donetakingthis. I’m not going to hide from it anymore, or let them get away with it. I’m going to face whatever abuse is hurled at me head-on, and I’m not going to back down. Because…fuck them. Life itself is a fragile, tenuous thing. It can be taken away or snuffed out at any moment. If I have another twenty-three thousand days left on Earth or only another one hundred, I’m not going to allow a small-minded, hateful group of idiots to make me scared for a single one of them.
My hand is surprisingly steady as I pick up my phone. I’m relieved as I tap out a reply to the message.Relieved. God…how have I not realized before now? All of this time spent being afraid of my classmates at Raleigh? It’s been exhausting. Living on the edge of panic, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, permanently existing in this maelstrom of fight or flight…it’s been quietly grueling in a way that I haven’t realized until this very moment. And now that I’ve made this decision—that I won’t be an active participant in their abuse—it feels like I’ve severed the taut cord that’s been dragging me underwater, trying to fucking drown me.
I hit send, and then study the one-word reply I’ve sent, the buzzing in the back of my head fading to nothing but static.
Me: COWARD
It’s appropriate. It says it all. That one word was all I needed to send. Somewhere in Raleigh, a student who goes to my high school is also studying my response, and it’s shaking them to their core…because they know it’s the truth. For some reason, whatever that might be, they’re scared too. And with that one word, I have reached down their throats, closed my hand around their heart, and I’vesqueezed.
“SILVER! OUT OF YOUR PIT, KIDDO! WE’VE GOT COMPANY!”
Downstairs, the front door slams closed, echoing throughout the empty house. The sound of my father’s voice floats up the stairs, quieter than the drill sergeant-level holler he just blasted up at me, and I realize that he’s laughing. Boots being kicked off; bags being dumped on the kitchen counter; cabinet doors slamming shut. From the racket, there are eight people in the lower level of the house and they’re as clumsy and heavy-footed as a herd of elephants.
“Silver! If you’re not down here in five minutes, I’m going to tell Alex about the time you shit yourself at Seattle Zoo.”
What?
Ooooh no.
Uh-uh.
No fucking way.
Alex isn’t here. He can’t be. It’s too early. He’s not supposed to pick me up for another…wait. What time is it? I snatch Mickey up from the bedside table, gripped with horror when I see that it’s nearly time to leave for school and Alex probablyishere.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” My foot catches in the bedsheets and I nearly eat dirt when I launch myself out of bed. The Seattle Zoo shit story is not a good one. If my father breathes one word of what happened that day, I’m going to fucking kill him.
This is the problem with parents. They spend years cleaning up your vomit, teaching you how to use a bathroom, how not to shove peas/coins/marbles up your nose, dealing with you screaming and basically being a little bastard, and all the while, they’re biding their time, waiting for the day to arrive when they can tell someone you deeply care about that when you were seven years old, you sneezed so hard in front of the giraffe enclosure at Seattle Zoo that you soiled your underwear.
In my bathroom, I throw water at my face, jam my toothbrush into my mouth and try to tame my hair all at the same time. I bounce on the balls of my feet, willing myself to go faster, and I end up scraping my gum with the plastic head of the toothbrush. Hurts like a bitch, but there’s no time for pain right now.
I kick my way into some jeans, wriggle my way into a clean Billy Joel t-shirt, and fly out of my bedroom, taking the stairs three at a time.
“Dad? Dad! I swear to god—”
I screech to a halt in the doorway of the kitchen, astonished by what I’m seeing. Dad’s leaning against the counter by the sink with his arms folded across his chest, looking a little bemused as Alex crouches down next to the kitchen island, scratching Nipper’s belly. The dog’s mouth is open, his tongue lolling all over the place as my boyfriend rubs his fingers into his wispy fur; it looks like the damned dog is smiling.
“Huh. Well, that’s just typical.”
Alex looks up, the vine tattoo wrapped around the base of his throat clearly displayed above the collar of his plain black vee-neck t-shirt, and he winks at me. “Morning,Dolcezza.” His voice is so deep. It resonates around the kitchen, reflecting off the tiled floor so that I feel the rasp of it through the soles of my bare feet. His thick, wavy hair is in his face again, falling into his eyes. It’s absolutely fucking criminal that he can make me feel so flustered, pinned to the spot, with nothing more than a second’s eye contact. And in front of my father no less.
Perfect.
I look up at Dad and nearly keel over from embarrassment when he arches a cool eyebrow at me. He knows me better than anyone. I’m sure he can tell what I’m feeling right now, and that thought is fucking mortifying. “Dolcezza?” he asks lightly. “My Italian’s a little rusty. What does that mean?”
Alex quickly lowers his head, hiding a smirk. He’s pretending to be absorbed in petting Nipper, but I know the truth. I can only see the crown of his head and muscles pulling tight against the back of his t-shirt but Alessandro Moretti’s a little embarrassed, too. “Ahhh, it’s just a term of endearment,” he tells my father.
