Part of Me

20

20

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"Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education."
-Stephen Covey

I woke up with one thought in my head: I shouldn't be awake right now, which begged the question why was I?

I was dreaming of a blissful nothingness when I could've sworn I heard a squeaking sound. Shooting up, I blinked a few times to adjust to the darkness and looked around the room. "Mar?" I said to the lump on her bed. "Mar, did you hear that?"

When I got no response, my eyebrows scrunched together. Mary was an extremely light sleeper. The smallest noise woke her up, so the fact that she wasn't even making a sound struck me as odd. "Mar?" I threw my sheets off and crept over to her bed, which was really just a mattress without a headboard. I went to shake her, but my hand sank downward instead. "Son of a bitch," I muttered to myself as I tore her sheets away to reveal a mess of pillows staged to look like she was sleeping.

The squeaking sound must've been her leaving again.

Paranoia and panic coiled tightly in my gut, and I groaned before grabbing my shoes and a jacket, and crawling out the window, too.

I landed softly on the grass, though I doubted I would even be capable of waking Jason up. He'd gotten heavily drinking again—no surprise there—so he was out for the night.

I could see her in the distance as I slipped my shoes on and ran after her. I opened my mouth to yell after her, but the words fizzled out when a thought occurred to me: Where was she going every other night?

Curiosity beat rationality to the punch and before I could even think about it, I was creeping behind her, hiding behind stuff so that she wouldn't see me. A voice in my head told me to just grab her and drag her kicking and screaming back to the house, but the silence of the night quickly smothered it.

My eyes narrowed as we came upon the high school. I flattened myself against a wall and peered around it to see her sitting on the steps, waiting.

Healthy behavior, I know.

We both just sat there waiting for fifteen minutes before I heard her squeal and saw her jump up from the step she was residing on. My eyes widened when they landed on her wrapping her arms around Shawn Fahely. The same Shawn Fahely that I told her to stay away from. The same Shawn Fahely that I told to stay away from her.

He was grinning from ear to ear as he bent down to kiss her.

Fuming with anger, I marched over to them and ripped Mary away from him, standing between the two of them. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Shawn? I told you to stay away from her!"

"Devyn—" Mary began, but I whipped around and cut her off with a glare.

"What's your problem, Rico? So I like her. Is that really so hard to believe?" Shawn questioned.

"Yes, actually it is. Also, I have a problem with the fact that you're four years older than her, have a terrible reputation and history when it comes to girls, and I don't trust you at all."

He looked from me to Mary, anger and surprise filling his gaze. "You're fourteen years old?!" I stepped closer to Mary to shield her from him. "You lying little slut. I'll make sure everyone knows it for next year. Don't worry, I'll make damn sure you'll regret lying to me." He tried to shove me aside, but I stood firmly where I was, so he just settled with spitting over my shoulder toward Mary who leapt away with a loud squeal. "No one gets away with lying to me, bitch. No one will want to even go near you once I'm finished."

A loud sob escaped Mary as he turned around and I saw her fall to the ground out of the corner of my eye as if he'd physically hurt her.

My blood was boiling.

I scoffed. "Big talk for someone who wants to make it to the NFL."

Shawn stopped walking away and looked over his shoulder at me. "What's that supposed to mean, Rico?"

"Wouldn't it just be a shame if colleges caught wind of this? They might think that, oh I don't know, maybe that you've been taking advantage of a fourteen year old. Colleges wouldn't want you anymore and then where does that leave you? Kind of hard to buy your way into the NFL, don't you think? But, hey, what do I know? Want to test my theory out for me?"

His eyes narrowed to slits, but I didn't budge. Not when Mary was crumpled on the ground behind me. I couldn't just let him get away with trying to ruin her reputation.

"Don't mess with me," I seethed. "I'll make you regret ever laying eyes on her. When I'm done with you, no college, no football team, no girl will ever want to get close to you. Keep your mouth shut, Shawn. Unless you want your entire future ruined."

"You little—"

"If you think for even a second that threatening me is going to work, you're wrong. I don't care what people say about me, so you can't really hurt me. Hurt Mary and I ruin you. Silence is a virtue, Shawn."

His jaw clenched and he took three deep breaths through his nose, though they didn't seem to help that much. "Fine. But don't come near me."

"That won't be an issue, I can guarantee you. Bye now."

I watched him walk away before turning toward Mary, ready to scream at her until I couldn't speak anymore, but she beat me to it.

"You ruin everything, Devyn! I finally had something good in my shitty life and you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? Your life is so pathetic and horrible that you had to destroy the only good thing in mine."

"Are you insane?" I roared before she could continue. "Before you continue your pity-party, let me just remind you that he has a history of habitually using girls and throwing them away. What makes you think you're any different? What, do you think that he needs your companionship as much as you need his? I hate to break this to you, Mar, but he doesn't. As wonderful of a person as you are, he would just get bored of you after a while because that's who he is. He's incapable of being in a long-term relationship. Not to mention that it's kind of illegal considering you're a minor and he's eighteen. God, Mary, don't you even think? Didn't you think for one second of how stupid you were being? Forget about Shawn for a moment. Do I really need to remind you that there is a murderer on the loose that has an affinity for pretty young girls? What if he had followed you one night?"

"Oh, yeah, you're one to talk. You've snuck out plenty of times before. I never followed you."

"Yes, because I was going to the river to feel closer to my dead father! I wasn't trying to fuck some asshole. It was so easy for me to follow you here, what if I'd been the killer? What if you didn't get to meet Shawn here because the serial killer saw you and decided that you would be his next victim? Did you ever once stop to think that you could get killed?"

"I don't care anymore!" Mary shouted.

I stumbled back a step, a malicious familiarity rushing over me. The same hopelessness inhabited her eyes that were in my father's the weeks leading up to his death. It was something I would never be able to get out of my head.

"I don't! Let him kill me! It's better than having to endure the abuse and having to live with you." She got so close that I could feel the anger radiating off of her. "I'd rather die than have to keep living with you, Jason, and Diane."

My heart sank. My throat went dry. My hands began shaking. My eyes welled up with tears.

"You don't mean that," I said quietly.

"Oh, but I do," she growled. Not knowing what to say, I just stood there and watched while she stormed off, purposely ramming her shoulder into mine as she passed me.