you can hear it in the silence

prologue

Prologue
Last day of first grade

Adare ༉‧₊˚✧.*

I hate Wes Graham.
I hate his snotty, stupid, perfect face.

He's always making my life miserable. I hate coming to school because of him.

Sitting down my sparkly purple pencil pouch, I slowly unpack a unicorn pencil and put my name on my coloring sheet.

I hear the sound of a crayon being used very aggressively, and then I hear a snap.

Looking over I see Wes. He can never do anything with any sort of care behind it- even coloring a Smurf.

He's got a mischievous grin on his face when I look how at the sad, broken crayon and see black market ink.

"Adare L. Wells"

My face immediately is turned into a frown and my mouth drops open.

He broke my crayon.

Scratch that.
He stole my crayon and then he broke it.

Wes makes no reaction to my surprise. Why am I even surprised?
Wes is the most agitating person I've ever laid my eyes on. He's bothered me every day this school year.

"Wes!" I say in a high-pitched voice, "you broke my crayon!"

"Oh did I? I didn't notice," he replies back with the slickest smile.
I hate him so much.

I start to raise my hand to tell Ms. Honey what he did to my crayon when I feel a sharp tug at one of my pigtails.

"Ouch!" I say reaching for the side of my head.

"Tattle on me, Wellsy, and I'll break all of your crayons," he says in a lower voice, obviously so Ms. Honey won't hear him.

My mouth drops open once again. 

I hate when he calls me Wellsy. And he knows it.
My last name is WELLS. Not wellsy. Whatever that is.

This is definitely something I saw in a book.

Blackjail?
Blackrail?
Something like that.
Where one person threatens the other person to do something and if they don't do what they said, then they do something bad to you. Very bad.

I love my crayons. It was a 62 pack with the sparkly edition crayons too.
The sparkly ones!

No way am I letting stupid Wes Graham break all of my crayons.

"My mom bought me these," I say back, trying to prove a point.
"And I'll break all of them, Wellsy" he quickly says back.

"Stop calling me that!" I snap back at him.
He just grins.
He's never, ever affected by anything I ever say.

I let out a huff and physically sink down into my chair.

I hate him.
I am so glad I won't have to see him all summer.

༉‧₊˚✧.*
thanks for reading!!
what's your favorite book trope? mine is absolutely anything sports related w shy/quiet girl or anything to do with anxiety or panic attacks because (when done right) i feel like it brings more understanding & breaks the stigma around anxiety disorders!

** also i'm trying to edit / correct any spelling or grammar errors as i upload but if you notice anything, pls lmk!