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Chapter 11 (iv)
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The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 11 (v)
Erin rolled her eyes at the childish retort. “Anyway,” Seth said, regaining the attention of the others, “it would be quite the inconvenience for Jayden if he decides to reconsider. He’s already told her no; if he changes his mind, he’ll have to go back to Kai, and she’ll make him beg.” Not…a wholly inaccurate deduction. “Furthermore, if she’s as wary of guys as Jonie’s tried to paint her out to be, he won’t be begging in private. She’ll want an audience to feel safe and that’s the sort of damage he could do without.” Yet another…fair deduction. “I never thought of that,” Jayden said, now mulling over all his friend had laid out. “You’re a dirty rat, Seth Robinson,” Sydney said, moving beyond the level of patience she possessed for the matter. “The only reason you’re so hell bent on Jayden not changing his mind is so you can ask Kai yourself.” The boy straightened in his seat, looking positively scandalised by her accusation. “Me? I wanna ask Kai?” “It’s what you were plucking u
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 12 (i)
The front halls were eerily empty. I looked down at my watch, both verifying I hadn’t shown up on a weekend and that I’d arrived at a normal hour. My eyes blurred, distorting my vision, and making it impossible to view the analogue face I glanced at nearly obsessively throughout the school day.A few steps inside, I could see that something was…very wrong. The halls belonged to my old school. The trophy case by the fountain, the verdant, earthy colours along the wall…they had no place in my new school.Figures appeared at the other end of the hall, too indistinct for me to make out. Despite their distance, I could hear their whispers filling my ears.Slut.Whore.Lying bitch.The ceiling started falling, inching lower and lower until I feared it would crush me. Terrified, I turned to make for the exit but the figure before me prevented further movement. Indistinguishable at first, it took shape. Those eyes, the towering figure…those hands that handled me so roughly.I began pinching a
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 12 (ii)
Multiple footsteps barrelled up the stairs and I could hear the nonsensical chattering of the newly minted teenage boys. It was as I’d thought, only my brother’s germy friends. They would lock themselves away in Matt’s room trying to uncover the mystery of girls and comparing their facial hair—or lack thereof. The puny one with the lanky limbs and pronounced Adam’s apple had one hair long enough it could be plucked. It made him the winner by default.I lay listening to the music on my iPod for what could’ve been an hour before I heard the faint approach of too many feet. I stashed my prized possession beneath my pillow then trained my gaze to the ceiling.As far as either my mother or brother knew, it was all I did when there was no schoolwork left to be done. Without a phone, I couldn’t text anyone. Mother never bought me either a computer or a laptop—Matt had already broken three. The only books I could read were those taken from the library, but Mom refused to take me there and I h
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 12 (iii)
Ten minutes flew by without my notice, but the ringing of the doorbell was harder to ignore. On his way down to get it, Matt stopped by my door to threaten me again. One could never instill too much fear, after all. He warned of dire consequences should I make any attempt to hog or otherwise so much as speak to Jayden for any period of time he deemed excessive. Should he feel slighted, he would tell our mother that I’d hit him—the most grievous of transgressions in our house.The regulations were too arbitrary for my liking and left a great deal of room for error. Not wanting to end up on the wrong side of a 13-year-old’s temper tantrum, I opted to shut the door and be done with it. I would return to my earlier plans for the day; out of sight, out of mind.
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 12 (iv)
A chorus of laughter erupted before a sudden and suspicious silence enveloped the second floor. Matt’s door creaked open but never closed. Soft footsteps made their way to my door, pulling my attention from the ceiling and the thoughts that held me captive there. My bedroom door began a slow creep open, alluding to a mission of stealth. My heart dared hope Jayden had managed to sneak away but it was only Kaden, the boy with one whole strand of facial hair.He stuck his head inside, nearly jumping out of his skin when our eyes met. The boy paled, losing the courage had seen him down the hall.“What?” his presence was disappointment enough without any attempts at lingering.
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 13 (i)
The door to my room creaked open slowly. It was turning out to be the most action the bloody thing had seen in ages, and I was beginning to think that wasn’t a good thing. “Go away, I said I’m not giving you my underwear,” I said without ever turning to look another pimpled-faced try-hard in the eyes. The embarrassment was sufficient without that unnecessary bit of intimate connection. It was just like them. Seeing the others head next door, I suppose I was meant to lower my guard, fall asleep as they’d hoped. Then, they would make their move again. I wasn’t an idiot, and I wasn’t amused. “Fine, I’ll just get Jonie to take a pic and send it to me.” I whirled around so quickly that it caused my eyes to prolong their motion. I ignored the moving room, more concerned with the entitled boy who’d let himself into my room. “Don’t you dare.” With anyone else, in any other situation, I may have been able to laugh it off as a cheek
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 13 (ii)
“…Jayden.”“We can start with the small stuff,” he encouraged.“I can’t.”“Why not?”I shook my head, wanting desperately to dispel the thoughts that crept in from the corners in the wake of this change in topic. “I can’t,” I repeated, as much a reminder for myself as it was a response to his request. Jayden said all the right things and knew the right expressions to melt my heart, but it was too much of a risk. I didn’t know—didn’t remember what lay dormant beneath the mask and couldn’t risk such a reveal. “You won’t like what you see…”
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 13 (iii)
“Her father taught her well. The trick is getting to them before their fathers have a chance to give them the talk about the horror of boys and their raging hormones.” “Oh. How old are we talking? Seven?” Jayden sputtered, realising only after my brother’s response that perhaps he needed to be more careful with the reckless advice he’d been slinging since he first got there. “NO! Absolutely not—you trying to get arrested? They lock ‘em up as young as you, you know.” Matt paused, giving it a moment’s thought before shrugging mildly. “You’re right. I’ll go back to older girls—lots of ‘em don’t have fathers, so I’ve still got wiggle room.” “We…are gonna need another talk,” Jayden said, appalled at how his message had been so far distorted. I watched the two engage in causal conversation, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Matt to start making his demands. It wouldn’t be a happy ending. My brother had struck gold when he walked in
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The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 37 (ii)
“There’s…there’s something I need to tell you.” I only needed the courage to find the words.Jayden’s brows creased as he took me in. “What is it…?”“You’ll be angry.”“I won’t.”“You can’t promise that; you don’t even know what it is…”“And you can’t be sure I will be until you’ve told me and given me a chance to react.”We sat at a silent stalemate as several minutes trickled by. I knew he was patiently waiting for whatever bad news I would spring, and I knew it would hurt him. The fear I harboured had nothing to do with ending the new fairytale I’d taken on and everything to do with the hesitation I felt following everything he’d done for me and now my brother.He didn’t deserve what I’d done, and it had been all for naught. I never got pregnant and didn’t h
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 37 (i)
Three weeks later, my brother and I dutifully attended our mother’s funeral. There were only a handful of people in attendance and even then, they were mostly family. The genuine friends my mother had made were no more than a handful and only one of them shed any tears.Aunt Rebecca was the only immediate family member to cry with even Nana maintaining a wall of stoicism while the pastor carried on with his final sermon. I didn’t hear most of his words. My eyes locked on the casket waiting to be lowered with a detached sense of disbelief. At any moment, it would open, and my mother would come out barking her laughter at all the fools who’d thought a single bullet would be enough to keep her from her children. She would hug Matt and promise she would never leave him then offer me a plastic smile as she assured me we would talk about it all when we got home.I’d spent the better part of the earlier service with my eyes fixed on the woman while the
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 36 (v)
It was another seven minutes before the paramedics arrived and when they did, there was a race against time to get me stable. I’d already lost too much blood and kept slipping in and out of consciousness. I learned later that the police had also been called but in the haze I’d fallen into, I couldn’t say when they arrived on our usually quiet street.I was loaded into the ambulance with my brother and an officer accompanying us. It was Detective Charles, the man who’d promised my mother he would find out the truth about her ex-husband’s sudden, tragic death. He didn’t know what to make of the scene he’d come onto but knew there was a deep well that buried secrets so dark that two children had no business holding onto them.Conversations carried on around me, but they were too muffled by my fading consciousness for me to hear. The next time I awoke, I was on a hospital bed with my brother asleep on the chair that sat in the corn
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 36 (iv)
“No!” I answered quickly. I hurried to hold the note I’d written up for her to see but she gave it only the shortest of cursory glances before pulling back then throwing her entire weight into the smack she landed on my cheek. The force sent me toppling to the ground faster than I could right myself and by then, she’d begun kicking.“I bet you think you’ve found something, huh? HUH? Think you’ve got the upper hand now; that you can blackmail me because of what you’ve seen? Do you know who I am, little girl? Don’t you know that I will kill you?”I shook my head frantically as I curled into a protective ball. “I didn’t—I didn’t see anything, I swear!”“Don’t fucking lie to me!” Her next kick landed in my face, causing blood to gush from my nose.“I won’t say anything; I won’t, I promise!”“I shoul
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 36 (iii)
I set to decline Adam's offer but, in a flash, he was on his feet pulling on his own pants. “The bus might be a while. I don’t want you standing out by the bus stop waiting for however long.” He pulled for his shirt and slipped it on. “You hungry? We can hit up a drive-thru on the way.”The rumbling of my stomach betrayed any answer I could’ve given. Adam nodded his understanding then led the way from the house. He got me my usual off the menu then dropped me off in front of my house.Adam had tried to fill the ride with small talk, in what appeared on the surface to be a sincere interest in catching up, but I’d already begun to shut down. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to feel, to see, to be.“Hey,” he said as I set to walk away from his car. “Remember what I said, alright? I’m here for you.”I nodded, seeing no need to argue and not wanting to prolong the conversat
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 36 (ii)
I swallowed my pride, understanding the role I would have to play. It wasn’t an unfamiliar one and would require no great effort for me to slip into. I dropped the pitch of my voice, forcing it into a sultry invitation I knew he wouldn’t refuse.“Your pay’s built into this favour.” I hated myself.Adam pulled away to look at me, his eyes glistening hungrily. “I’m listening.”I took a deep breath to steady myself. “Emily’s…dead.”“Who?”A surge of hot anger rose in me at his ignorance, but I was forced to swallow it. Adam’s lack of knowledge was in large part my fault. I’d never allowed him to meet her, nor had I ever told him anything about her. She may as well had been a stranger to him—as she truly was—and in that moment, I realised the small stake he had in the decision I’d made…how…insignificant my plight was been for
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 36 (i)
“Hey, Kai.” Madelyn stopped me on my way down the hall. “Wait up.”Reluctantly, I brought my feet to a halt then offered her a forced smile. “Hey.”She began rummaging through her bag as she drew closer before pulling out a pastel pink toddler shirt with a crown printed on the front. Madelyn extended it to me with a sheepish smile. “I saw this when my mom took me shopping and I thought…you know…it’d look really cute on your daughter. It’s probably a little big; we didn’t know her size, but she’ll grow into it, right?”I didn’t think I had any heart left until I felt another piece of it break off. She wasn’t wrong, Emily would have looked amazing in it, but she would never have a chance to grow into it, nor would she ever wear it.The strained smile I’d been forcing dissolved. A lump lodged itself into the back of my throat requiring me to take several m
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 35 (iii)
I considered writing him a note asking that he take care of them, but much like everything else, it didn’t matter. What would I care if he ripped through my room like the Tasmanian Devil after I was gone?The air inside my mother’s room was still. It was the first I’d been in there—the first I’d been in any of her rooms since my father left. Matt was welcome to cuddle and watch movies from time to time, but never me. There was an air of reverence that came with the subtle warning I shouldn’t have been there. I was walking on holy ground as a tainted sinner. Such a transgression would normally fill me with fear but that particular feeling couldn’t have been further away.I took the time to sweep my eyes across my mother’s room. How foreign it seemed, as if I’d been transported to another world. Nothing was out of place and the bed had been well-made. The blinds were half open, allowing light into the room while blott
The Girl with the Masks and The Student Body President Chapter 35 (ii)
Uncomfortable and uncertain, the nurse returned to her desk. Seeing her whisper about me with her colleagues brought the laughter to the next level. My insides hurt from how hard I laughed, and I could feel a pressure building inside my head, but even then…I couldn’t stop laughing.Those around me grew unsettled by the persistent nature of my unprovoked laughter. One by one, they rose from the chairs closest to me and made their way to stand at the wall at the opposite end of the waiting room or by the nurse’s desk.Their evasion tickled my insides until they screamed. Those people had nothing to fear; I wasn’t the murderer.By the time I was allowed to see Jayden, the laughter had died. It was replaced by a subdued silence that stood in stark contrast to the boisterous half-cackle half-wail I’d carried on with earlier.I didn’t have the energy for it…didn’t have the energy for anything. I’d been dra
