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Arriving at school, I drop my books off at my locker and watch every girl turn their head and follow Nyx as he walks along the corridor. He doesn't react to their attention, either he doesn’t notice them, or he’s the most arrogant prick on the planet. I look down at the grey shaded rose he’s got inked on his hand, and thoughts of him touching me like he did in my dream causes a shameful flutter between my legs and burning in my cheeks. He’s wearing sunglasses so I can’t see where his eyes are looking, and I quickly remember that the shades are sheltering his eyes and not mine.Whipping my head around quickly I yelp out loud when I accidentally clip my temple on the corner of my locker.
“Shit,” I curse, pressing the heel of my palm against where it hurts. When I pull it away again, I see blood.
This can’t get any worse and I’m just thankful there’s no sign of Nyx when I make an embarrassed check back over my shoulder.
I keep my fingers over the cut, attempting to stop any more bleeding while taking out my English book with my free hand. When I slam my locker door shut, he’s standing right behind it and I jump in shock, making another pathetic noise. His arms are crossed over his chest, his back resting against the locker beside mine and I swallow back hard trying not to stare at his huge biceps.
He doesn’t speak, his mouth is set straight, and his eyes are still hidden behind his shades. And when he raises that rose inked hand, the same one that owned my dreams the night before, I realize he’s clutching a bunch of tissues inside his fist.
I stare at him for far too long. Mostly at his lips, they look edibly soft, and I swear I can almost taste them pressing against mine the way they had in my fantasy.
With a nervous giggle I reach out and take the tissues, subtly brushing over his knuckles with my fingertips at the same time because I have to know if they feel as rough as they look.
“Thanks,” I smile, focusing hard on the tissues in my hand. Too afraid to look up now that he’s pushed the glasses on top of his head and his eyes are exposed to me.
“They’re for your head.” His voice is low and raspy, and his forehead scrunches slightly as he looks to where our hand's touch. Probably wondering why I’m still staring at the bunch of tissues he’s grabbed for me instead of putting them to use.
“How hard ya hit it?” he smirks, and as beautiful as it looks on him, I can’t pinpoint if he’s genuinely concerned or mocking me with sarcasm.
“Oh, this… It's nothing. I’m fine… and thank you.” I pull away quickly, holding up the tissues to awkwardly wave them at him before pressing them against my graze.
He must think I’m batshit crazy.
Nyx tips his head at me before casually walking off in the direction of our English class. I hear Luke and his posse coming down the corridor, so quickly scurry after Nyx, entering the room just a beat after he does.He doesn’t look up from his seat at the back of the room, and I’m not at all surprised that he’s taken the desk Luke usually occupies.
I keep the tissue tight to my head. Already hating the fact I won’t be able to look at him without turning around, he proved his point in math, why did he have to move desks in English?Where he’d sat yesterday had given me the perfect view.
Luke stares over me and straight at Nyx when he walks into class, but he doesn’t challenge him. Instead, he takes a seat on a desk a few spaces away.
At least today I get some work done during lesson time, although I swear I feel Nyx’s eyes burning through the back of my head.
There’s something mysterious about him that has me desperate to know what he does with his time out of school. I wonder if he comes from a good family? He’s too young to have so many tattoos. His parents must be pretty cool. My father would have a coronary if I ever got one.
“My mom's started talking about the luncheon already, wants to go to the mall for coordinated outfits,” I tell Abby when we meet up in the canteen at lunchtime.
“Don’t… my mom’s been going on about it for weeks. At least we have each other to pull us through it.” She rolls her eyes before stabbing a plastic fork into her Caesar salad.
“True,” I shrug, as Nyx chooses the exact moment I look up to enter the canteen. Sitting in the corner alone, he pulls a pad out of his bag, props his foot up on one of the benches and slides down the pencil from behind his ear. Whatever it is in front of him has his full attention, and I watch his hand moving fast over the page as he sketches, stopping now and again to smudge his finger over the paper.
“I heard that his parents travel a lot, apparently he never settles in one place for too long,” one of the cheer girls’ comments to her friend as they move past us.
“Maybe that's why he’s not very friendly. I’ll bet his cock is huge,” the girl she walks with adds, and they both giggle.
Abby and I both smirk. My best friend is a lot like me, just a little more experienced in the fact she’s actually got to second base with a guy.
It’s obvious she likes Nyx too. Every girl in the school likes Nyx. He acts and looks so much older than anyone else, and doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by what anyone thinks of him. Since he came into my English class yesterday, he's owned every thought in my head. Which serves as a nice distraction from worrying about Mom.
My mom seems to have one purpose in her sad excuse for a life, and that’s to keep Father happy. Which is a tireless mission considering the man is never satisfied. She does her best to keep everything to his liking, attends all the dinner parties they get invited to, always makes sure she looks in prime condition. She encourages me to behave the way the daughter of a well-respected judge should, and forgives him countlessly for taking every hard day or bad mood out on her.
Joanne Jackson is the perfect wife, but I’ve long given up aspiring to be the model daughter. I have a rebellious streak inside me, one that I choose to keep secret. I do things subtly and solely for self-satisfaction. That way Mom doesn’t get in trouble.
Petty little actions that have no purpose other than to piss Father off. Like last week when I snuck into his office when he was at work and took his favorite crystal tumbler. I knew it would irritate him to think he’d misplaced it. Judge Jackson isn’t clumsy like that… Which is why three days later I returned it to his office, placing it somewhere I know he would have already looked.
I’ve had to watch for years as he’s slowly driven my mom to the brink of insanity, and gradually I intend to do the same to him.
Hating your own flesh and blood isn’t easy. Detesting the person who is half responsible for giving you life brings with it a disgruntled guilt
I’ve known from a young age that despite the image my father portrays to others, he’s a cruel man. There is nothing about him that hints at empathy for the way he hurts my mom, and so I struggle to find any in my actions towards him.
