red | e.d

thirty seven

EDEN-JADE THURLOW

My hands gripped onto the edge of the car seat as my brother drove me to school, unaware of the reasoning for my silent treatment. He didn't know about all that had happened, over the smallest number of days. He didn't know that only the day before, I had seen through an abortion.

Of course, some of the side effects that I was told to expect, had hit me like a ton of bricks. Some lower abdominal pain, slight sickness and the guilt. Some people never get over it, some do.

But I was going to make sure I did.

And that, was why I was making my way into school. I slammed the car door shut and threw my bag over my shoulder, nearly shuddering at the building at which I hadn't entered ever since I got suspended. I thought that it was only going to be a three day suspension, but with my mother's death, and this, it ended up being much longer than that.

I felt eyes on me almost instantly and every time I made eye contact with one of their beholders, they turned away, too fearful or uncomfortable to look me dead in the eye. I had not missed that. But in a weird way, I had.

I ignored it as I usually did, although it felt a little different than normal. This time, their eyes followed me up the stairs, piercing holes into my back.

I entered the school building and instantly shivered, the sight of students flooding from every corner and doorway enough to make me mentally groan. However, when my eyes skimmed the crowd and landed on no other than Mackenzie, Katie and Luke, I felt a pit of nervousness grow in my stomach. All three of them looked at me, eyes filled with sorrow, whereas Luke's were also filled with guilt. He had no reason to feel guilty.

I contemplated joining them but my conscience told me otherwise, my body turning in the direction of my locker. As I did so, my orbs landed on the spray painted writing on the front of it, my heart dropping to my toes.

Ugly, murdering, slut.

Wow.

My eyes didn't even prickle, not one bit. All I heard was the sound of whispering and when I looked over my shoulder to see a large group of students forming around me, staring at the graffiti on my locker, I let out a large sigh.

I knew Grayson had caught us.

I glanced back down the hallway to see my friends, whom all watched me, shocked. They had just seen the writing on my locker, and it was safe to say that they were just as surprised as I was. But they were also confused. Nobody knew about my abortion besides Ethan and I. Well, until now.

And that's when I swallowed the lump of anger in my throat, opening up my locker. Everyone watched me as I did this, grabbing my textbooks and slamming the door shut afterwards, storming in the opposite direction.

I was done letting it define me.

RED

I closed my Biology textbook when the bell for lunch rang, and everyone flooded out of the classroom. I took my time, shoving the large book back into my bag, with only one other student still in the classroom.

I was about to go over to them when Mr Davidson arrived at my side, a small, rather forced smile on his face. In fact, even though it was small, I could tell that this must have been something good. He never smiled at me. He hated me.