Hear Me Now

by Melyssa Winchester

  What no one knows and I’m never gonna admit to, is that near the end, before the dance, I wanted to back out. I’d been spending a lot of time getting close to Isabelle in an effort to make it look like I missed my best friend and as much as I hate admitting it, I liked her. She was as innocent as Kayden made her out to be and after seeing her in action, I had doubts about hurting her.

  Yeah, I know. It sounds insane. Having any sort of attachment to a person like Isabelle is laughable, but it’s true. Seeing her when she walked into the dance that night; man, there was another second where I wanted to back out of the stupid plan I put in motion. She looked like a Disney princess for fuck sakes. If I didn’t know she had shit wrong with her, she would’ve appeared like any other girl at the school.

  I didn’t back out and now I’m paying the price for all of it. Not only did Kayden beat on me that night so bad that I found it hard to breathe hours after, but he’s been by her side ever since, stronger than ever. I failed at ripping my best friend apart, but I’d also managed to screw up my position on the football team for a while after it. It’s a pretty big miracle that I’m still quarterback at all.

  Whatever it was I felt about Isabelle, it fell away after that. I went back to picking on people weaker than me and enjoying every second of it. Bruce is right. There’s no place in the world for people that are screwed up, different or weak. They need people like us to eradicate them.

  What happened with Cadence earlier, there’s nothing right about that. She’s not weak. The way she gave me back as good as I gave proves that. A weaker person wouldn’t have done it. People like to pretend that they’re stronger than I know them to be, but they always falter in the end and go right back to being weak. Cadence didn’t. She stood her ground, even knowing that in the end, there was three of us and only one of her because Eric had already backed down.

  If she would just look at my note, read it, maybe I could fix it. She didn’t deserve what happened to her and I’m sure that if I can just steal a couple minutes of her time, I can explain the way things are here and get her away from Eric and the others before things end up getting a whole lot worse.

  Wait. What the hell am I saying? She’s one of them. Sure, she might be stronger than the others, but it didn’t change the facts. No matter how hot she is, I need to keep my head in the game. I’m apologizing in order to get close to her so I can screw with her head. Nothing more than that.

  In the end she’ll learn the way things are here and prove herself to be as weak as the rest of them.

  The thing is, if that’s the truth and what I wrote to her is all an attempt to screw her over, why does what happened a few minutes ago, the way she looked crumpled on the floor bother me so bad?

  Cadence

  God, I want to look at that paper.

  It’s been sitting here for the last twenty minutes calling to me, begging me to reach out to grab it and read it, but I’ve forced myself not to. It’s getting harder to do, but after what happened at the end of lunch, the last thing I want is to see anything he’s got to say.

  You saw the look on his face in the hall. There’s more going on.

  Crap. I’m gonna end up looking at the paper if I keep thinking stuff like this. Yeah I saw the look when I fell and I saw the way his laughter at Eric earlier didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it means nothing. He’s an asshole and for Dillon Murphy, that’s a stain you can’t wash off no matter how hard you scrub at it.

  I’m just thankful that so far Eric hasn’t said a word about what happened. When I got back to class, I expected him to say something to my mom and for her to question me about it, but she hasn’t paid any attention to me at all. It seems like she’s going along with what I told her I wanted this morning. She wasn’t going to call attention to the fact that I’m her daughter and I’ve never been as thankful for that then I am right now.

  On the way up the stairs we met up with Kayden and Isabelle and while Eric and Kayden stopped to talk once we got to the top, I just stood and watched everyone moving around me. It’s only when I saw hands moving that I realized Isabelle was signing. Missing some but able to pick up on what she wanted to know, I wasn’t having any part of it. I know she only wanted to help, they both do, but where they might see me as weak because of my disability, that’s the last thing I am.

  I don’t need them worrying or trying to help me out with the hazing problem because they’ve been through it before. I just need the entire thing forgotten about.

  It’s only after I completely turned away from her, tired of watching her attempts at getting me to talk that she tried a different approach. I felt the buzzing against my side and pulling my phone out, saw the screen lit up with a text from my new friend.

  ~*~*~

  I didn’t want to talk about it either and that’s okay, but if you ever do wanna talk, you should do what I did with Kayden.

  It’s only when she shakes her phone at me that I get it. She’s telling me I can text her.

  If you’re ever in a situation that you can’t get out of, text me.

  I know she means well, but I’m gonna be here for two weeks, not the next two years, so odds are as long as I keep myself off the radar like I planned on doing from the beginning, I won’t find myself in a situation like the one she’s getting at. Even if I do, I’ll figure my own way out of it. No pity help needed.

  ~*~*~

  Okay, I’ve waited long enough. The lined paper has drilled a hole through me to the point where thinking about anything else is pointless. Sliding my hand across the desk, I bring the paper toward me slowly, until it’s directly in front of me and doing what I’ve spent at least the last thirty minutes dying to do, I open it up and read the words printed there.

  I know you don’t even want to look at me right now, but I just want to say I’m sorry for what happened at lunch. It wasn’t supposed to go down that way and I had no idea she was gonna do that to you. Forgive me?

  Damnit.

  I never should have opened the stupid paper. Dillon is a jerk. I need to remember that. He’s just doing this now to get to me; it’s how he operates. All bullies operate the same way. No matter how much I want to believe in the words on the paper, I need to remember exactly who it is that’s saying them. As long as I do that, his stupid words can’t get to me.

  Except they are getting to me.

  Crap. Crap. Crap.

  Pulling my hair down over my face so he won’t catch what I’m about to do, I lift my head slightly and attempt to get a look at him. It’s only when my eyes lock on his face that I realize my stupid little plan was a fail. He caught me because he’s looking right at me.

  Double crap.

  Before I can look away, he opens his mouth and zeroing in on his lips, I follow along with every word, dreaming in my head as I do that I’m actually able to hear him speak them and the husky way my brain imagines them sounding. After a couple of seconds pass and I notice he’s no longer speaking I realize what I’ve done. Getting so caught up watching his lips move and my now overactive imagination, I’ve missed everything.

  “Did you hear me?”

  I nod even though it’s not exactly the truth and the faintest smile appears on his face.

  “So?”

  He wants to know if now that I’ve read the note, I forgive him and am willing to talk to him again. He’s already forgiven for what happened, but I’m not about to tell him that. He might be a total jerk, but if I hold everything against him, it makes me like him and there’s no way I’m going to allow myself to be compared with him. Forgiving him is easy, talking to him isn’t.

  Taking the paper he used for his note and flipping it over, I write out my response. Passing it across, careful to keep my fingers far enough away from his so we don’t have any kind of physical contact, I watch as he takes it and reads what I’ve said.

  I don’t talk to complete jerks. You’re forgiven for earlier because I’m better than that, but I won’t forget it.

  Where I’m
expecting his lips to curl into a snarl or for him to call me a bitch or some other equally damning word under his breath, he does none of it. Instead, he focuses his attention on the paper, his eyes glued to it and then starts writing. Holding it up in front of him, not even attempting to pass it over, he waits for my eyes to lock on it and read what he’s written.

  You are better than that. You’re better than me.

  Looking up from the paper and catching his eyes, again I see they’re locked on me and where before it might have made me feel uncomfortable, it’s having the opposite effect now. Despite what happened earlier, what is sure to happen every single time I’m around him when we’re outside of this classroom; his words, the way he looks, they’re getting to me.

  No, no, no. This is not happening. He will not do this to me.

  He will not get me to talk to him.

  Dillon

  When you’re like me and have people doing whatever they can to get your attention, you pick up on a few things and it’s everything I’ve learned over the last couple of years dealing with girls that I use now with Cadence.

  There’s no denying the fact that she’s different than most girls I’ve come across since freshman year, but just because she’s different doesn’t mean there aren’t parts of her that are the same. Most girls are suckers for the right combination of words, whether you speak them or write them and that’s what I’m banking on when I take to the paper and write out what I do.

  The minute her eyes scan over and they soften from the hard shell they were, I know I’ve nailed it. She wants to hate me, believe everything she’s heard about me after spending time with Eric and the others, but I’m not letting her. I’m pretty damn sure that everything she’s been told is right and she’s better off staying as far away from me as she can get, but I’m not about to let her do it.

  Not when the very reason I’m gonna make it through this death sentence from Daniels depends so completely on her.

  Even sitting here groveling the way I am is better than it would have been if she hadn’t been here when I walked in this morning. I meant what I said. Her being here makes this, what I’m having to deal with because of what I did, easier to handle. If I’m going to be forced into staying in this class for the rest of the year in some misguided attempt to teach me some kind of lesson, having someone else to do it with is preferable to having to go it alone, even if I do have an ulterior motive.

  Other than the time spent with Kayden before we turned on each other, I’ve always been alone. My mother ignores me unless I do something horrendous enough to get her attention and she has to defend me. My father only wants me when he’s got a fight lined up that he’s sure to win and even my friends; they only want me because of who I am and what I mean to them in the social order.

  Cadence is the first person since Kayden that I don’t feel alone with and it only took a couple of hours with her to realize it. Now that I’ve hooked her though, I’ve got to keep it going and this is the part I’m not all that great at.

  Any girl I’ve ever been interested in has always come easily to me. I could point out into a crowd of girls during an assembly and whatever one my finger lands on, that’s how easy they could be mine. I’m not looking to make this girl mine; I mean I’ve already got a girlfriend and I don’t mess around with cheating, but it works the same way. If I want Cadence to keep me occupied while I’m stuck in this class, I’ve gotta work harder. She’s not someone I can just point my finger at and make her come running.

  Just as I’m about to speak, I notice her leaning across the desk toward me, another blue sticky note in her hand. Reaching and helping her out, I take it from her hand and lay it down on the desk in front of me.

  You ever get tired of pushing people around?

  “No. If it comes down to being weak or strong, I prefer to be the strong one.”

  Her eyes widen and I know what it means. She doesn’t like my answer. That’s just too damn bad. She asked me a question and I don’t see a reason to lie to her with my answer. It may have taken six years of fighting and going back and forth with my dad to learn it, but I believe in what I said with everything in me.

  Though I gotta admit, seeing the scowl on her face, it kind of sucks. At least it sucks until I see the next note she’s written for me.

  I don’t believe that.

  “Oh yeah? Well since you know me so well, why don’t you tell me what you believe?”

  I know I sound like a dick, but there’s something about what she’s written, so sure about her answer that gets under my skin. She’s known me what, a total of five hours? How can she believe or not believe anything about me?

  Watching her, bent over the little sticky pad, her focus completely on the small piece of blue paper, whatever she’s writing longer than anything she’s said to me so far; I can’t help wondering what she thinks of me that’s taking this long and this much effort to write. Could she have formed an opinion on me this soon? She pulls the one paper off and hands it over to me, going back to writing the minute I’ve taken it out of her hand.

  Well, whatever it is, it’s sure to be winded.

  I could easily find out what she thinks by reading over the one she handed me, but I’m determined to wait until she’s done. I don’t normally give two shits what people think about me, but this girl right now, I wanna know every damn thing in her head, even if it ends up being bullshit.

  Ripping off the note and handing it to me, I look down at the two slips of paper in front of me, her messy scrawl covering practically every inch of both and that’s when I get her full opinion.

  I think the way you act when you’re here, that’s not the real you. I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think that deep inside, you’re really a decent guy but something’s happened to you or someone’s done something that’s changed you. You hate on the weak because they’re stronger then you and you’re jealous of them. I also think that the reason you’re in this class right now instead of screwing off with those friends of yours is because that so called strength you think you have came back around and bit you in the ass.

  “Well, you’re wrong.”

  Two pieces of blue paper full of her opinion and in order to throw her off, I lie to her face. There’s no way in hell I’m telling this girl just how right she is.

  No way in hell.

  Chapter Five

  Dillon

  This is the grossest place he’s ever chosen for a fight.

  When Bruce told me we’d be doing this in a farm house, I had a different view of what that would be. I expected to see machinery, most of it old and rusted from lack of use but we weren’t at a farm at all. It’s a broken down barn and the smell alone is enough to make me wanna turn around and head back out the way I came.

  There are bales of hay strewn throughout the place, rakes and even a tractor, rusty and old in the far back corner looking like it hasn’t seen action in years. I’m not sure how long it’s been since animals have been here but the smell of piss and shit is so strong it’s a miracle I can even breathe right now.

  No matter what way you look at it, when these fights are over, I’m gonna be covered in manure and living in my shower for at least a week.

  The guys he’s got lined up for me, they’re all in their late twenties and just like he warned me in the car, pretty built up on performance enhancers. Yeah, my father chose some real winners this time. I’m gonna have to go head to head with guys, not only older and stronger than me, but ones that are doped up.

  This is the way Bruce Murphy makes you into a man. Putting you in a situation there is no fucking way you can come out of, at least not alive anyway.

  “Remember what I said boy. Don’t let them go for the face. The minute one of them connects with you that way, it’s gonna be noticeable and I can’t have that.”

  Of course he can’t have that. No way someone can see the bruises and cuts on my face and put two and two together. That would ruin his entire operation. He’s been spouting
off the same warning for the last six years. It’s not like I can prevent it if it happens. If these guys take me down and get free reign at my body, they’re gonna go for the face. I might be able to explain it away after a fight with Kayden or something, but now, with him coming nowhere near me, it’s gonna be a lot harder to talk my way out of.

  I want them to hit me in the face. I want to go to school and have someone notice that the way I looked the day before is not how I look now. Maybe then I can get the hell away from this once and for all. I can’t walk away on my own so someone stepping in would be a godsend.

  The guy he’s got me lined up to face first is missing his two front teeth and looks like he’s ten sheets to the wind. Drinking before a fight would give me a bit of an advantage, unless for some reason, being drunk makes him stronger. If that happened I’m screwed. If anything, being drunk makes you stupid, which means I might be able to steal a win here just thinking smart and moving fast.

  Rodney Morris, that’s his name. I’ve seen him around town before. He drinks with Kayden’s brother Dean a lot. Shit. I hope this doesn’t get back to Dean. If it does, and Kayden finds out, he’ll have something to use against me and I can’t risk that happening.

  Feeling his hand on my shoulder, I tense from the touch but keep all emotion off my face. If my father sees even the slightest look of fear, Rodney is going to be the least of my worries. Bruce will think nothing of dragging me out of here by my hair and beating on me himself until the fear is gone and all that remains is emptiness.

  “Do me proud boy. The more damage you do to these three will determine where and who you fight next.”

  “More like how much money you make next.”

  My smart mouth as he calls it, is gonna earn me a beating worse than any of these ‘roided up losers can give me, but I don’t care. I’m only telling the truth. My dad has a top position with a software development company, makes a shitload on a weekly basis, but cares more about the money he makes from my fighting than he does his job. Making a couple of grand watching as his son gets his ass beat on so hard he can barely walk the next day is a real turn on for the sick son of a bitch.