I couldn't help but feel utterly miserable as I walked into my room. I set my bag down and wondered if I had succeeded in putting all my essential textbooks for homework into it. I'm living in fear in that school and I'm too much of a wimp to do anything about it. Harry's attitude is demeaning and possessive and I hate the way he treats everyone and everything around him.
I took off my clothes before entering my bathroom. I weigh myself as per routine and write my weight down into a notebook I keep beside my machine stand. Ignoring my mother's calls for dinner, I test the temperature of the water coming out of the shower head on my forearm. Finding it satisfactory, I step under the strong gush of water.
My mother's worried. Three years into high school and I still can't help subjecting myself to trouble every afternoon. I don't have a tongue that can lash out anytime I'm out of comfort and I never will have. Feeling misery tighten up in my chest, I get out of the shower and then the steamy room before the feeling suffocates me.
I go downstairs to my mother to let her know that I will eat the dinner she made later on, with no intentions of ever doing so.
She gives me the look that I have grown so accustomed to. The look she's given me ever since my father filmed himself cutting his abdomen open.
She turns away, adjusts her skirt from work, and then proceeds to climb the stairs stiffly, up to her bedroom where she habitually screams bloody murder in the middle of the night. These screams started the day she found my father's body bleeding into his office carpet and a filming video camera propped up on a few books, the day she had viewed the contents of that camera.
I carefully listened to her lock the door to her room and then threw away the dinner she made for me.
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I wake up to the sound of my automated alarm clock and then realize I had slept on my home work. I was able to finish all subjects but Chemistry because of my incapability to grab all my books yesterday. I cringed as I realized I had yet again let Harry and his group of animals taunt me and I had yet again realized the uselessness of my tongue.
I certainly did not want talk to Josie. No surprise there. I had set that as my default reaction to whenever someone tries to spike a conversation with me. She's also seen me just accepting whatever those boys were giving me and that's a pretty pathetic thing to see.
I put on my jeans from yesterday, a blue tee and threw my hair up in a ponytail. I didn't look into my mother's room as I passed it on my way downstairs. I knew she'd already left. I grabbed a small apple and a juice box before walking out of the house, locking the front door behind me.
I hate my school.
I hate everything about that place. I hate the fact that I'm always so afraid in there. I had very few friends before my father killed himself and even fewer afterwards. Walking into the building, I braced myself for the terrible day I was most likely to have.
I push my way through the many teenagers like me, trying to get my bag into my locker and get ready for the first period. As I neared my locker I spotted someone standing next to it. Someone with red hair called Josie.
I forced a half smile and wished her good morning.
She didn't smile as she pulled my hand to a corner of the hallway that wasn't ridden with kids.
"I have something to tell you but I don't know if I should." she whispered looking everywhere but me.
She's new here, I remembered. Which is why she doesn't know about my father yet. Which is also why she's still talking to me.
"Not that I'm going to be telling anyone." I tell her lightheartedly, gesturing towards the group of non-existent friends around me.
I instantly regretted saying what I said when she turned away and shifted on her feet in discomfort.
"What really happened?" I say in a more solemn tone this time.
"I don't think Mr. Thompson is a good man."
I look around once again, still holding my bag. The hallways were beginning to clear out signalling that the bell for first period was due to ring any time.
"I know he's not a good man. He doesn't teach very well does he?"
"He's not a good man or a teacher." She snapped, giving me a long look before rushing away.
I walk to my locker thinking about what she said. She's new here, she's been here barely two months. What did that man do for her to hate him so much. Ruling out many possibilities, I figured it was an extra detention hour.
I reached my locker, this time thankfully with no one else leaning onto it, and quickly stuffed in my bag and was taking out the books for my first period when I felt a slight tap on my shoulder. Thinking it was Josie I turned around to her but was met with eyes that I'd slowly grown to hate.
"Your mom is dating my dad." Harry stated simply before placing his palm flat out on the locker beside my head. I'd jumped when I'd seen him and was still recovering from that before I could even begin processing his words. There was no way my mother was going out with his dad. She hasn't dated since my father died and I don't think she has any plans to. She's way too busy with work.
Harry was eyeing me intently while I was coming up with an opposing opinion.
"You're just screwing around with me Harry. My mother would never date anyone." I spoke up boldly, thinking about my useless tongue.
The bell rang right above our heads and he didn't say anything for a while, his gaze never faltering. I suddenly realized how close he was to me and started squirming. The kids who were rushing off to their first periods were giving us weird glances and I wanted to scream out just like how my mother does in the middle of the night.
"How many nights has she not come home and used the excuse of workload? She was at our house and I feel even more sick telling you about the times I've heard them work up heat in the bedroom."
"Then why are you telling me all this?" I say trying my best not to tear up. That would the last thing I need. Cry in front of Harry Styles.
"Because your dad cut himself up for a reason and I'm taking it's either because of you, your mother or both. That is no way happening to my dad." He spat before abruptly turning away and walking briskly towards a class through the now empty hallway.
I was appalled at his choice of words. This was the first time anyone had ever spoken to me about my father after his death just last year. I sat down slowly under my locker and cried for the first time in months. I cried silently because the hallways were empty. I cried silently because I hated Harry. I cried silently because deep down I knew my father was depressed. And that my mother and I might be the reason he killed himself.
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Hi to whoever even reads this story. This chapter is the longest one yet on here therefore you'd probably find plenty of mistakes. Bear with me pls
Take care
shreya
