by Iris Taylor
It was strange that my role in Ella's life was now reversed. By some stroke of fate, I was now her protector twice, instead of the persecutor that I had envisioned myself to be.
I just hoped what I had told him about the difference in our natures was true.
Chapter 13
Ella
I knocked on his door, nervousness making my knocks too loud, too fast. It was some time before he answered, and I saw why. His hair was sticking up in all directions, his eyes bleary, and he was shirtless again. In his boxers this time. I willed my eyes to look only above his chin.
“Sorry...did I wake you up?”
He looked surprised to see me and nodded. “Uh, let me throw some clothes on.”
A moment later he reappeared in a gray t-shirt and shorts. Scratching the back of his head, he asked, “Did you want something?”
He looked so endearing at that moment, standing there half-awake with unkempt hair, that I couldn’t resist a smile. “Uh, you got some drool right there.” I pointed to the corner of his lip where a wet patch was. He swiped the spot quickly with the back of his hand.
“I...just wanted to thank you for what you did today. You were alone – you could have been hurt.” When he shrugged it off as if it didn’t matter to him, I pressed on. “Despite what it looks like, I don’t make a habit of going to quiet places alone. I had received a note in class to go to that particular lab to discuss getting back onto the cheerleading team.”
When he tensed, I knew I had been stupid to believe it. It was a hastily scribbled note, after all. “I now know it was just a trick to lure me there.”
His eyebrows knitted together and he asked the question that had bothered me all afternoon. “Hank wrote you a note?”
So I wasn’t the only one who thought it didn’t seem conceivable. I understood it was a premeditated attack but even though I didn’t know Hank at all, it just seemed off. “I was hoping you could take a look at it.”
I showed him the crumpled note in my hand. Concern etched his features as he examined it. “I don’t know his handwriting but I just don’t see that buffoon bothering with something like this. I wonder if someone put him up to it.”
He looked up at me briefly before pocketing the note. “I’ll keep this and ask around. In the meantime, do your best to stick around people at school. Hank may be suspended but his cronies are still at school.”
My pulse shot up at that. I had already begun to feel better knowing Hank was going to be absent for at least a week, as the principal had told me today. “Okay,” I replied shakily, feeling goosebumps dot my skin.
He surprised me by reaching over and touching my arm. His skin was warm and reassuring, and I was grateful for it. “Ella. It’ll be ok. Don’t worry.” His dark brown eyes were big and sincere, and I realized my fear must have shown.
“Thanks,” I whispered. He didn’t know how much his reassurance meant to me. Despite his contradictory actions, I wasn’t about to forget that he had already saved me twice now. The guy was an enigma, but for some reason, I trusted him. Something told me he was, deep down, one of the good guys. He just had a bone to pick.
He gave me a small smile before closing the door.
When I went back to my room, I opened up his Instagram account, which I hadn’t checked in a while. No new posts, but the one with the chessboard was gone.
***
The next day I did as Cole told me to. Jules was more than happy to walk around with me since I was now getting a lot of attention for being the girl who got Hank suspended. No one bothered to ask me how I was feeling or if he had managed to lay his hands on me – people were simply happy to believe all the rumors going around.
“I heard Cole came and kicked his ass when he saw Hank groping you!” Despite the sympathetic look Jules was going for, it was obvious she wanted to know my version of the story – and more likely than not so that she could put it in the school paper. I wondered if it had a gossip section the way my old school paper did. I could already see the headlines: “Unfortunate New Girl Gets A Handsy Welcome From The School Bully”.
I shook my head. “He didn’t get to touch me. Cole managed to stop him before he did.”
Her head tilted to the side. “How’d he know to find you? That lab is pretty out of the way, isn’t it?” I had asked the same question myself, but simply put it down to him being in the right place at the right time. Whatever it was, I felt lucky. Someone was watching over me, and that was a reassuring thing to know. I had kept the fact that I had received a note to myself, so that the only people who knew would be myself, Cole, and the sender. I didn’t want to add more fire to the rumors.
“Ella! Girl, are you alright? I heard what had happened!” Shelly, one of the friendlier faces on the cheerleading team, squeezed my arm as she walked by. Monica stood next to her, looking at me with a neutral expression.
I was secretly pleased with her concern. “I’m fine, nothing happened. Cole was there to help me.”
“Funny, isn’t it, though?” Monica asked. “That he was there just at the right time?”
Shelly turned towards her and put a hand over her mouth. “What are you thinking, Monica? Do you think Cole has something to do with it?”
“Well,” Monica said, flipping her glossy chestnut hair, “it is too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?” She looked at me up and down and laughed. “Everyone knows he wants you out of here. What better way than to scare you?” She turned on her heel, triumphant, and Jules stared at her sashaying form, looking thoughtful. I couldn’t say I didn’t do the same.
Her words followed me throughout the day. I had to admit – Cole would benefit from the incident. But so would Monica. Now that she had pointed it out to me, it made me see that she probably didn’t like all the attention I was getting. Getting rid of me once and for all would help. Maybe it was her who had sent the note. I had found it under my thick Biology textbook as I was packing my stuff up after Biology, which the handful of people at school I knew also attended, i.e. most of the cheerleading team, the jocks including Cole and Hans, Hank and one of his cronies whose face I recognized but whose name I didn’t know. It could’ve been any of them.
“Hey, did you see anybody get close to my stuff yesterday in Biology?” I asked Sarah after the last of our classes.
“Hmm?” She took out the headphones she was wearing. “What’d you say?” I repeated my question. Sarah sat next to me in Biology, so if anyone were to see anything, it would be her. “No, I went to the washroom, remember? Thank god my period’s slowed down today.” She peered at me. “Why are you asking?”
“Oh, just thinking about something. It’s okay.” I squinted my eyes to look around the parking lot. My mom’s station wagon sat parked near the gym, and I turned to bid Sarah goodbye. “Alright. My mom’s here. See you tomorrow.”
Chapter 14
Ella
“So old-fashioned.”
My head turned to find a blonde I didn’t know – a sophomore, maybe? – look at me slyly as she covered her mouth and whispered loudly to her friend, who giggled as she looked at my outfit. I had thrown on a white cable knit sweater over my school shirt because the weather had become too chilly. “She looks like someone’s grandma!”
“Excuse me?”
The girls skittered away when I looked at them both in the eye. Seriously, what was wrong with people nowadays? Didn’t they have better things to do?
But as I navigated across school that day, it was evident to me that something was wrong. Other than being called grandma several times, I was also labeled “whiny” and an “attention seeker”, and the most original one: “a seventies cow”. If I wasn’t as thick-skinned as I was, I would’ve fallen apart by lunch. Instead, I was left to wonder what had happened to make people – mostly girls – vicious today compared to yesterday.
I got my answer at lunch. Whilst searching for Sarah in the cafeteria, I found myself the center of attention of a group of cheerleaders, with Monica sitting i
n the center, as if presiding over them.
“Ella!” One of them called, waving me over to their table. I smiled hesitantly, seeing how their eager faces didn’t appear to be the same as the unsmiling ones that greeted me yesterday. Nonetheless, I strode over to them, tray in hand. I was looking forward to enjoying the extra cheesy vegetable lasagna, and the tub of vanilla yogurt to wash it down after.
“So.” They glanced at each other. “How’s living with Cole and Hans? You getting used to being the butt of their practical jokes?”
I stared at them, unsure of how to respond. Did they know how badly Cole had been treating me initially?
“Oh, come on,” Monica butted in. “Surely you figured out that it was Hans who wrote you that note?” Her nose wrinkled. “As if we would allow you back on the team after seeing that picture of you pole dancing. So distasteful. Hank’s been eyeing you for some time and Hans thought it would be funny to let him think he could have you for that short while.”
Have me? Sometime during her speech, my vision had started to dim. It took me a while to claw my way through the incessant buzzing in my ears, and only then did I recognize that I had tears in my eyes. Hans wrote that note? He thought being attacked by Hank would be funny?
“Are you gonna cry? God, this is so lame. The bathroom’s that way. Don’t think that just because your hussy of a mom is marrying their dad – and that’s a matter of if, not when – that they’re gonna leave you alone. They’re not going to just welcome you with open arms, you know.” Monica looked down to examine her painted nails, appearing bored with me already.
I couldn’t stop the shaking. My eyes landed on the jocks’ table – but I wish they hadn’t. One twin was looking at me, a wide, vicious smile gracing his full lips, and he raised his hand in a mock salute. Hans just saluted me. The mocking action made my eyes water, and I fought to keep the tears at bay, unwilling to give them the joy of seeing me cry. The other twin had his lips set in a grim line, jaw clenched, eyes as full of hatred as on that first day we had met, when I had devoured his food. It was then that my faith in humanity began to break, a fissure that began to bleed downwards so that I no longer believed in the power of being good and kind. God, I was so stupid. So naïve. People weren’t going to be nice to you just because you were nice to them. You couldn’t thank someone who hated you and expect them to do a one-eighty.
“Go away, you parasite. Go dig your claws into someone else’s family.” Monica looked down her nose at me, prodding my shaking chest with her index finger. I watched as she sauntered over to Cole, who slung his arm around her shoulders before parting his lips for her eager kiss.
***
Cole
I glanced around the room. My bed with its black Egyptian cotton sheets, walls lined with posters of various football legends, a shelf showcasing my numerous trophies in various sports. What I didn’t have were photos. That was my father’s area. He was the only one who insisted on remembering the past, who was able to see our young, happy faces without any apparent regret, who kept trying to merge the past with the future. As if it were even possible. It wasn’t as if we could erase what had happened merely because new chapters of his life were starting. He had stopped his correspondence with Mom ever since that he met that bitch. I knew, because I had asked Mom. She hadn’t shown me how hurt she was, but I knew. She may have been the one to walk out on us, but she was more invested in us from afar than Dad was, and he was living under the same roof. She was the only one who still mentioned Nathan. The last time Dad had tried, it sounded like he was forcing a bad word through his lips.
My jaw clenched, remembering the incident in the cafeteria yesterday. Ella hadn’t spoken to me since. And it was better that way. The girl was too innocent for her own good, and this would teach her a lesson. I had recognized Hans’ handwriting the moment she handed me the note. It was one of his usual tricks, so it didn’t surprise me. What I wanted to figure out was the motive behind it. Was it simply some silly prank – and he had a tendency to blur the boundaries between fun and danger – or did he mean to harm Ella? He couldn’t have known that I would be in that hallway in time to see Hank follow Ella. What if I hadn’t followed them? Hank was known to prey on new girls or the meeker freshmen. His threats stopped them from bringing it to the school’s attention – they were simply too scared. I knew this because one of Sean’s little playthings - as he called them - had asked me to keep an eye out for her, saying Hank had groped her and told her if she told anyone about it, he would make sure he would do worse the next time around. Hans knew about this too and knew I had kept my promise to her until she decided to move to another school. It wasn’t out of any particular sense of loyalty to Sean that I had helped her or anything – it was simply that I loathed Hank and what he did to the girls at school. And Hans knew that, too.
The thought that he had now set his sights on hurting Ella disturbed me. She was better off far, far away from him, which was why I had gone along with their bullying in the cafeteria yesterday. I had seen the hurt in her eyes when she learned that Hans had orchestrated Hank’s attack, and how pained she had looked when she thought I had been a part of it. I shuddered, remembering Hank’s hungry gaze when he had her cornered in that quiet lab. Ella had to leave well before Hans’ games escalated, which I was certain they would, now that she had escaped him unscathed. Hans loved a challenge. As kids, he would chase after everything and everyone I liked, believing that as twins, sharing was always better.
Ella had to leave, and I was going to have to break her and her stubbornness to make sure she left Gray Lake for good - an infinitely better plan than letting her see this game of Hans to its end.
Chapter 15
Ella
“Honey, do you wanna talk about it?”
I sat in the car, frozen, wishing we had arrived at the house already. I thought I had done a good job of pretending everything was alright, continuing with my daily routine, speaking as few words as I could to both Hans and Cole at dinner without giving anything away. I guess my mother knew me better than I gave her credit for.
“What’s there to talk about?” I tried one last time. My face wore the practiced expression I walked around with both at school and at home – the patient, pleasant smile, the one that hid the pain that blossomed inside me ever since that day at the cafeteria. I wasn’t sure who to trust anymore, and that complete shift from my ever-trusting, positive mindset left me shaken to the core. I couldn’t walk down a corridor after school without worrying about being ambushed, or having some stupid prank played on me. It made me depressed, and was beginning to affect my appetite.
“Well, the fact that you’re not your usual, smiling self for starters. Is something going on at school that I should know about?” She looked at me, really looked, worry etching her features.
Not just school, I thought miserably. Mom was unable to send me to school every single day, and she naturally expected I hitch a ride with the twins. It was painful, asking them, and then worrying the entire way whether something would happen to me. It was especially horrible with Hans, who pretended he hadn’t done anything wrong, and spoke to me as much or as little as he wanted to, but always with a pleasant smile on his face. The word sicko entered my mind more than once, but for once what sounded like a curse word to me felt justified.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” I replied vaguely, hoping not to get into the details. Please drop it, mom. I honestly can’t tell you very much, and you don’t want to know the kind of monster we live with currently.
“Do you have friends?” she prompted. Her question made my mind go straight to me and my new trust issues. Not that I thought any of the three people I hung out with were in cahoots with the monsters at school. But, my mom’s question did make me think. Jules was of no help – she was insensitive to my worries, and continued with her search of good gossip, fawning over Cole and his friends, and had even asked me about the party this Saturday night at the house – one I didn’t know abou
t. It was obvious she wanted to go and was hoping I would invite her – but who was I to do that when I wasn’t invited myself?
It made me avoid hanging out with her alone, and I was glad I had Sarah and Cameron as a buffer whenever she was around. Sarah, thankfully, understood what I was going through, being her receptive self, so that even though I didn’t tell her every little detail, she got it. More than once, she had bought me coffee, knowing how much it cheered me up.
“Yes,” I replied, fully aware of how clipped my voice sounded.
My mother glanced at me again. “Ella, honey. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
I let her concern wash over me like a gentle spray of water. And felt it wash off right away. Unable to fix me and my circumstances, unable to make a dent in the problem that was Hans and Cole. Whatever I said now, whatever outcome it would lead to, wouldn’t help, short of leaving Gray Lake for good. And I couldn’t do that to my mom, not when the wedding was mere weeks away, not when she had met the man who made her smile reach her eyes, who wore his heart on his sleeve for her. My mom deserved him and every good thing he could offer. She had worked hard to make a livelihood for the both of us, had played the role of both father and mother growing up, and now she deserved to be pampered. So I wasn’t going to cry over some stupid high school bullying. I was just going to have to keep my chin up, be on the alert and do my best to survive the year.
“I’ll be okay mom. I’ll be okay.”
***
It turned out that the twins had gotten wind of the fact that our parents were going to their house by the lake for the weekend. I could see my mother was reluctant to leave me behind, and I couldn’t say the feeling wasn’t mutual. But I didn’t want to be a third wheel to what I imagined Marcus would see as a weekend getaway for the both of them. I hadn’t known the Isaacs had a weekend home, but it came as no real surprise.