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I don't know what number I'm on, but crumbs stick to my chin and fall onto my lap as I eat the cubes, swallowing them faster and faster, desperate to get it over with until finally, the plate is clear. I'm done, but I think I might throw up. My stomach churns, and I bury the urge to vomit. If I throw them up, God only knows what she's going to do.
"Get out of my office." She waves her hand, dismissing me. "And remember, Avery, if I have to, I will shove the fucking food down your throat myself."
The thought makes me shiver as she says it.
Unlike Gabe, I know she doesn't give a damn about me. Maybe he doesn't either, but at least he's not trying to profit off me and take advantage of my disease.
"What do you say?" she snaps as I stand, trying to not be sick.
"Yes, ma'am," I manage before I leave the room.
Maybe this is for the best. Surely, my father wouldn't let them force-feed me, not again, not after the last incident when the prior school sent me to the hospital and the nurse shoved the tube down into my lungs instead of my stomach and almost killed me.
Do they even bother to make sure it's in the right place here?
Or are you counted as a success story if they kill you instead of you killing yourself?
As I walk away from her office, tears blurring my vision, I tell myself that this is for the best. I don't care if I have to think about it a thousand times before I believe it. I don't need the creep to save me. I don't belong here.
The plan has always been to move on when my father got sick of paying these people and sent me somewhere new.
What do I have, realistically? Two, maybe three, more transfers until I graduate high school, and by then I think my father will be sick of me. He'll give up on this quest to save me. He'll have no choice but to give up.
I walk down the hall, my lunch and the cubes sitting like a lead ball in my stomach. Bile scrapes at my esophagus, and I cough and choke down the desperate urge to throw up. I'm walking down the hall, trying to not be sick, when the creep arrives at my side like he threw off his invisibility cloak to show himself to me.
"Come with me," he says, looking at the guard up ahead of us. "I have a surprise for you, baby girl."
"No, thanks," I quip, sniffling.
A clean break is easier for what's to come. I should have run this morning instead of giving in to him.
"Why are you crying?" he asks, looking over at me with a frown.
"I'm not crying," I tell him, my words a lie and my tone flat. "It looks like I'm leaving this place, fire freak. I'm happy."
He stops walking, catching my arm and dragging me to a stop with him.
"What did you say?" he asks me.
"My father isn't happy with my lack of progress," I tell him. "He'll send me somewhere new in a couple of weeks."
"Unacceptable," he murmurs. "We were just getting started."
"Listen," I tell him, damming up the rest of my unshed tears, "I'd love to say it's been fun, but it really hasn't been. Better luck in the next life, but it's time to face the truth. I'll never be one of your groupies, Gabe."
I shouldn't have called him by his name. It's too personal, and I shouldn't have mentioned the girls who fawn over him, smiling at him in the halls and practically throwing themselves at his feet.
I shouldn't have admitted that I noticed it.
He doesn't call me out on any of it. He just grabs my wrist, reels me in close, and lets his words pepper my face with heat.
"No," he murmurs down to me, "you're worth more than any of them."
There it is again, that fire shooting through me at his touch.
"Let go of me," I say to him.
"No." With one hand, he pushes open the door to my left and drags me inside an empty classroom.
