Hush.

4::Embers

The last place I wanted to go the next morning was school.

So I didn’t.

I took a day to recuperate, and be glad that the gash on the side of my head wouldn’t need stitches, despite the fact that I might have a mild concussion. Whatever. I didn’t exactly have the money for the doctor, so I would just have to be careful.

School awaited me the day after my glimpse of freedom. I forced myself to go, still completely pissed off at my mother—who hadn’t shown her face since the Charlie incident—in no mood to handle or deal with anybody.

I was plain burned out.

The landlord was coming in the evening, and if he so much as stepped a single toe out of line I would explode. I couldn’t handle any more arrogant men thinking they could get whatever they wanted because I looked like some ditzy incapable girl.

The morning I managed alright, but by the time lunch rolled around my head was pounding and my mood was sour, and I was liable to punch somebody in the face just for looking at me the wrong way.

“Annie!”

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, holding my head in both hands. I had already informed my swim coach I wouldn’t be able to make it to practice because of a possible concussion, and that for that matter I probably wouldn’t for the next couple weeks. She’d implored me to get it checked out. I told her I would. I lied. But she didn’t have to know that.

Carly and Amy sat down across from me at the table, both with their extravagant lunches, sushi and whatnot. I thought it ridiculous. What was so wrong with a ham sandwich?

“Where’s your lunch?” Amy questioned, retrieving a fork from her lunch bag.

“I don’t feel that great,” I said, which for once wasn’t a lie. The nausea was convenient, as there was virtually no more food in the house, and because I was the fucking greatest daughter in the world, I left what we did have for my mother. You could never say I didn’t care.

“Oh.”

That was all she said. Oh. Not, “What’s wrong”, or “You should go to the nurse”. Just oh.

Because she didn’t care. Not that much. My handicaps weren’t her problem.

“So, you totally missed the new kid yesterday,” Carly spoke up, digging her fork into her salad. “He’s, like, huge. And hot. But he never talks.”

I tried to keep my head from exploding. “Really?”

“Uh-huh. Courtney went up to him the other day, and not a word. Not a single one.”

Don’t exactly blame the poor guy. Just speaking to that dumb airhead would probably lose you a few IQ points. “I see.”

“I don’t know, I just . . . ooh, look, here he comes.”

To be frank, I was quite interested in this supposed new kid. I swiveled around on the bench, eyes drawn toward the door. People parted like the red sea for him, and I frowned. Something about that build, about that dark hair that curled at the ends, was so familiar . . .

I gasped. Laundromat guy! Wait, he was young enough to be a student?

He seemed so much . . . older.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he sauntered into the cafeteria, gaze circling penetratingly around him. He definitely had the unapproachable aura, which was strange, since he didn’t seem at all menacing when I saw him at the Laundromat. Of course, if you’re tired enough even a serial killer starts to look like a puppy.