Page 5 of Apathy
I loved the stories people tried to spin, going from bored teenagers to satanic cults hiding in our town. Not that I could blame them. Winworth was famous for its foggy days, that eerie feeling wrapping around your bones like a vine around a pillar, making you see things that weren’t really there. If you typed ‘creepy towns in the United States’, Winworth would pop up as one of the first ones. With the population of a little bit over ten thousand, you most definitely knew your neighbors. And just like every other town, people here were wary of outsiders. Tourists still loved visiting us during the summer, investigating the caves up in the mountains, and trying to find a good story for their blogs.
I always wanted to laugh at them, because while they chased the ghosts of the past, they were missing the real monsters lurking around the corner—watching, stalking, waiting for their prey to fall into their hands. If I were them, I would have never set foot in this town. If I were them, I would avoid this whole area, because nothing good could come from a town with a history as violent as Winworth.
Lost in thought, I shivered as a hand landed on my shoulder, halting me in my steps. Long, strong fingers were the first thing I saw as I looked to the side. “Watch where you’re going,” a deep voice boomed, eliciting chills all over my body. The hair at the nape of my neck stood up as my heart thundered in my chest. Before I could lift my head to see the owner of the voice, he walked away, showing me his back. An oversized black hoodie covered his body, and I hated that I couldn’t see more than his back.
It took me a moment to realize that he actually stopped me from walking into a sign for the wet floor, because my brain decided to focus on other things. Dylan hated my blatant dismissal for my surroundings, while I secretly loved the ability to disconnect from the rest of the world and just exist, even if it was only for a minute.
The tall stranger disappeared into the sea of other students, and instead of gawking after him, I started walking again, going around the puddle on the floor. The last thing I wanted today was to end up face-first on the floor. Knowing my track record, gravity and I were not best friends. I wrapped my hand around the strap of my bag, pushing through the freshman gathered around the classroom for English lit, looking excited about the new year, new possibilities, new friendships.
I was once like them. I was full of life, wanting to experience everything high school had to offer, but somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about it. Somewhere along the way, I lost the will to care.
I filtered inside the classroom with two other girls from my grade, ignoring the stares and pitiful looks from both of them. People had questions about the end of the last school year, but I didn’t have answers. I just wanted to forget that May twenty-fifth ever happened and move on. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done when everything in this town reminded me of that fucking night, and every single person apart from Lauren and Dylan kept reminding me about things I wanted to forget.
The inferno that blazed through that night was just a cherry on top of a very fucked-up year.
I lowered my head and scurried past them, heading toward the back of the classroom, where I knew that another reminder was going to wait for me. But instead of seeing Kane in his usual seat, right next to mine, it was a person I had never seen before. But wait…
It was the guy in the hoodie.
My breath caught in my throat as I stood in the middle of the classroom, gawking at the high cheekbones, and eyes the color of midnight blue as they connected with mine. Every living being had an energy they showed to the rest of the world, but this guy… If I had to describe it, it would be with one word—violence.
He wore violence like an expensive cologne, and I wanted to drown in it. I wanted to drag my hands through his thick, black hair, to get lost in the dark abyss of his eyes, and let the darkness take over. My hands trembled, and I gripped the strap of my bag as if it could center me. As if it could help me with these thoughts coursing through my mind.
He dragged his eyes over my body, going from my head to my toes, and I could see a tattoo on his neck, peeking from the collar of his hoodie, a stark contrast on the pale skin. Somebody cleared their throat behind me, and I moved my eyes from him, refusing to see the reaction after his perusal. My cheeks were burning, and I knew they were already colored red, which probably made me look like a tomato.
I had never had this kind of reaction to another person. This visceral feeling in my gut was not something I was used to. A few years back, I accidentally touched an open wire in Lauren’s house, earning a small electroshock, but this thing I felt when I looked at him, this overwhelming need to come closer, to touch, to feel—this was far worse than those electroshocks.
My ribs started closing around my heart, pressing, cutting off air, the closer I came to him. I dared to look again, to see if he was still looking at me, but his eyes were plastered on a window on the other side of the classroom, completely ignoring me.
Well, okay then.
I dropped my bag to the floor and pulled a chair, slowly settling next to him. Goddammit, I wasn’t going to be able to focus if I had to sit next to him for the whole year.
How the fuck was I supposed to concentrate on Mr. Morales, when the guy next to me smelled like cedar pine, cigarettes, and danger?
Lauren was going to love this shit. Not that there was anything specific going on, considering that the tall, dark, and dangerous stranger ignored my entire existence. Annoyed at my entire reaction to him, I bent down to take out the books from my bag when a voice I knew all too well boomed around us.
“What the fuck are you doing in my seat?” I looked up, seeing Kane with his eyes narrowed at the new guy. Truth be told, I was hoping that he wouldn’t try to sit here this year.
I dropped one of the books on the table with a thud, trying to draw Kane’s attention to me, but his gaze stayed firmly placed on my new desk buddy, who kept quiet the whole time. Mr. Broody—as I decided to call him—started checking out the desk, going so far as to bend down and check beneath it.
“Are you fucking deaf, or just plain stupid?” Kane roared again. This would’ve been amusing if it wasn’t eight in the morning, and if I had managed to get that coffee before I got to school. But I was exhausted, pissed off, and my cheek still throbbed from that hit I got a couple of days ago.
“No,” my new neighbor finally spoke as he straightened up. “I’m just trying to find your name written on the desk, but I can’t see it anywhere.”
I wanted to laugh at the nonchalant way he said that, but one look at Kane and I knew that my laughter would cause more harm than good. Kane’s eyes held a promise of cruelty, and as I looked at the rest of the classroom, I noticed all eyes were directed at us. I fucking hated this kind of attention, and Kane knew it.
I also knew why he started this whole scene. He sat with me during those last couple of weeks of school after everything happened, and he got it in his head that I belonged to him somehow, now that the… now that things were different.
“Listen, buddy,” Kane placed his hands on the desk, leaning toward Mr. Broody. “You’re new, so let me explain a few things for you.”Here we go.“This school, this fucking desk, they don’t have to have my name written anywhere for them to belong to me. Trust me, every single person will tell you that what Kane St. Clare wants, Kane St. Clare gets.”
The new guy leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, smirking at Kane. “Is talking about yourself in third person a medical condition, or is that just your ugly persona?” he asked. “You might want to check that out.”
I swallowed the snort threatening to erupt from me, and turned away, taking another notebook from my bag.
“You are a motherfucking—”
“Asshole? Idiot? Jackass? Cretin? Would you like me to go on? I’m not sure if your peanut-sized brain can come up with all the terms.”
