AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s so loud and there are so many people. They just aren’t anywhere near me.
I blink slowly as Damon stands from his table, his walk confident yet lazy with his friends in tow behind him. There isn’t even a small inkling of me that bothers to pay them any mind.
Just in front of me, near enough I can see and hear most of the conversation but far enough away that they don’t have to be associated with me are the boys. Landon keeps sending me those sad puppy dog eyes over Knox’s shoulder. His face is still healing from the bruises inflicted by his friend.
Reed glances back too. Long dark glares and occasionally softer, more curious ones. As if he keeps forgetting he’s supposed to hate me. I wonder if he still sees my naked silhouette from when he found me in the locker room just like I occasionally get the image of him rolling his hips into some faceless girl.
Sometimes the faceless girl is me.
It’s those moments, recently, that I want to punish myself for.
Then there’s Knox. His shoulders straight, his body constantly tense. My God, somebody get this kid a massage or something because he needs to relax. He never relaxes. Not once does he turn his head to the side or give his peripheral the opportunity to see me. The way he acts like he might be burned alive if he even recognizes I exist, is borderline offensive.
No, it is offensive. I’m offended.
Knox is like a yo-yo pulling me near then pushing me away. He has moments where he’s all in and then there are times like right now where he’s completely shut down.
I hope he’s happy with what he and the other two have done to me. Happy with what they managed to turn this school into.
A small drumming of fingers against the table brings me out of my thoughts. Damon smiles at me as he passes the table. I wave hello but it’s a slow wave, a melancholy attempt at acknowledging that somebody, anybody, did something other than be cruel to me.
Then he speaks. Outrage and shame turning my face a vibrant red the moment he speaks.
“She’s a wild ride in bed,” he practically purrs to his friends. “Don’t let her innocent act fool you. She does all the nasty things the good girls won’t do. And she’ll beg you for more.”
The comment is tossed over his shoulder so casually, so loudly. Even students many tables away can easily hear what he said. The lies he’s telling for his own gain.
Landon is the first to stand, his chair falling to the floor behind him.
Rage that I rarely ever see snaps through his spine and shoulders as he strides right up to my table as if he needs to see Damon’s smug face up close.
“You want to say that one more time, Damon? I’m not sure I heard you correctly. In fact, I’m certain I didn’t.”
Damon stops, his friends falling silent behind him. The only thing between Landon and Damon is my table where I sit fighting the urge to curl into myself from how much attention they’re straining on me.
Again.
Interest compels me to watch the scene.
Behind Damon, his friends snicker and nudge their friend, begging for him to continue. He willingly does.
“Did whoever beat the fuck out of you also break your eardrums?” Damon spreads his arms out in front of him, pleading for an audience. The cafeteria obliges as students fall quiet. “I said, your girl. Likes to beg. To be fucked.”
Reed stands up too, his face points down, his eyes looking up with a heavy rage. That doesn’t stop Damon from continuing while his friends shuffle behind him. Landon against the small crowd isn’t much of a threat. But Landon and the captain of the football team who is built like a tree, that could make a few weaselly string bean boys uneasy.
Like Damon.
If he had the intelligence to shut the fuck up.
“She got down on her knees, ass in the air, crawling with all of her daddy issues shining bright in those pathetic eyes.”
Unshaking and unhurried, Knox rises from his seat. His movements alone silences Damon. Rigid muscles strain his shirt, his fingers digging into his palms like he’s preparing for something. He doesn’t spare me a glance. I’m not sure I want to see it when the rest of him looks so threatening.
“Then what happened?” Knox asks, his words eerily calm. Curious almost.
I want to die in this moment. I can’t tell if Knox is angry or attempting to only humiliate me more. Is he going to play into Damon’s lies more? I’m already leaving, he knows this. Why kick someone when they’re already down?
With Landon and Reed’s shaking anger, Damon would be an idiot to speak right now though.
