Page 81 of Haven't Killed in Years
Suddenly Natalie was on the floor, gasping for air.
She peered up at Gwen, who glared down at her. “You can’t do that,” Gwen said, almost too calm. “I told you the day I met you not to mess with me. What is wrong with you?”
Natalie coughed. “I can’t breathe,” she strained.
“You got the wind knocked out of you,” said Gwen. “You’ll be fine. Now go to bed and don’t come back over here or you really won’t be able to breathe.” Gwen didn’t turn away, but she made a scene of averting her eyes. Natalie knew it was because she was afraid to roll over; Gwen was afraid of her.
Natalie crawled back to her own bed as she started to find more oxygen. She hadn’t meant to go over there; she definitely hadn’t meant to hurt her. Natalie loved Gwen. Natalie didn’t sleep at all that night. She didn’t think Gwen did either. She craved the sound of her little snores, but instead it was silence.
Natalie counted the blocks of the concrete wall over and over again, afraid of what she would do if she stopped.
- - - - -
In the morning Gwenwas quiet. Natalie was afraid to apologize again. She knew how much Gwen hated that she was always saying she was sorry, so both girls headed to breakfast without acknowledging what had transpired in the night.
When Natalie saw Declan sitting across the room, she was reminded of what she had done before everything went so wrong with Gwen. She didn’t see his water bottle. He seemed fine.
Natalie looked to Gwen for guidance, but she was walking away, not noticing that Natalie wasn’t following—maybe she didn’t care. Natalie was paralyzed. Should she warn Declan? Should she run after Gwen and beg for forgiveness?
A loud screech pierced the room. Declan had pushed his chair back, scraping it against the floor as he stood. It was almost slow motion, but when he keeled over and projectile vomited all over the floor, Natalie ran to him and helped him stay on his feet. The vomit was so red, shooting out of him onto her shoes.
Once he found a moment of relief and noticed it was Natalie holding him, he pushed her away, and something inside her broke.
Other kids were yelling for help, some gagging, threatening to throw up themselves, but Natalie couldn’t hear them. Her eyes clouded. She lunged at Declan. She pushed him down. He tried to squirm away but he was pale and weak from the poison. An older boy grabbed Natalie, but she bit him, and he hurled her away.
“What did you do to me?!” Declan screamed at her before more vomit exploded out of him.
The nearest attendant, a slight woman who’d been there less than a month, darted toward them.
Natalie grabbed the closest folding chair and swung it at Declan, whacking him from behind and sending him to the floor in a pool of his own barf. Then she was on top of him again, taking his hair in her clenched fist and slamming his head down onto the tile, blood from his nose starting to mix with the red bile splashing around them.
“Stop!” the attendant yelled. “Get off him!”
Natalie reached for the chair again and whipped it at her, capping her in the knees. The woman screamed, frightened and physically weaker than the hefty male staff members Natalie was used to. The helpless sound of the woman’s scream pierced the girl’s dark fog, freezing her rage. Natalie steadied on her feet only a second before collapsing. She had messed up again. Only this time, she didn’t think Gwen would care.
Forty-Four
Natalie
Wesley had uttered thetwo most important worlds in the whole world to her—Gwen Tanner—and now he needed to say a lot more.
He helped himself to one of Natalie’s chairs. “Where should I start?”
Natalie lowered her defenses enough to take a seat across from him.
“I want to be delicate about this,” he said. “How well do you know Gwen?”
“What do you mean?” asked Natalie, debating how oblivious she could play this. He knew something. He knew enough to come to her doorstep and say Gwen’s name.
“Do you know who she really is?” he asked.
Natalie wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“Her real name,” he clarified. “Gwen Tanner is not who she says she is, but my question is, do you already know that?”
“What?” Natalie asked. “Her name?”
Natalie didn’t know what he was trying to say, or if whatever he was trying to say even mattered to her. She watched Gwen every day. As children, for years, they’d slept in the same room. How could this random guy have anything to say that would alter her perception of Gwen?
