Chapter 9

My bed was piled high with various blankets and pillows, concealing the pastel pink comforter I'd had since I was about ten. I crawled under them after school and pulled as many on top of me as I could, the weight comforting.

The wall next to my bed was plastered with old photos, my face squished between Margo's and Casey's. I'd added to the collage over the past year, and our faces peeked out from beneath the black-and-white postcards I'd collected from the local bookstore. There was no order, and I was still trying to figure out if it was artistic or certifiable. The jumbled mess set the tone for the rest of my room. Forgotten clothes concealed the carpet, while others spilled over the opened dresser drawers.

I tried to ignore the sharp one-inch square of metal tempting me from the top drawer of my dresser, but the more I thought of Hunter in possession of such an intimate secret, the more I needed it. I tormented myself by clicking between the three pictures on his social media pages, inspecting them for potential clues as if I might uncover details I'd overlooked the first hundred times I'd stared at them. But he didn't wink back or whisper that he'd noticed my preference for long sleeves exactly three weeks ago. The most recent picture was over two years old, and his scowl and middle finger were just plain mocking.

Struck by another idea, I padded over to my bookcase. I dumped my yearbook collection onto my bed before settling down, cross-legged, to start my search. I flipped through last year's, scanning the pages. Every face beamed up at me, causing Hunter to stick out like a sore thumb. There he was, smack dab in the middle of the page. He wore a black T-shirt and glared at the camera as though he was contemplating murder. His face was his normal pale white, not a trace of purple, green, or yellow. I stared at him for a long time, as if he might shoot me one of his small, secretive smirks if I concentrated hard enough. I combed through the rest of the yearbook, but he wasn't pictured anywhere else.

He wasn't in the next yearbook I leafed through. At first, I thought I'd missed him, but even after the third time I ran my finger over all the last names, he wasn't there. I flipped to the end of his class and finally found proof of his attendance. At the bottom of the page, his name was featured under a short list labeled "Not Pictured."

I thumbed through the rest of it, searching for glimpses of him. I squinted at a group picture toward the end featuring a clan of girls all clumped together, grinning. I recognized Hunter standing slightly behind them. His body faced someone he was talking to, but his face was turned toward the camera. It looked like the other person was a much younger and nonpink version of Melody. Hunter was scowling at the person taking the picture, his eyes narrowed, black eye clear as day.

My eyes caught on a picture across the page from him, and I stared at it for a long time. Longer, maybe, than I'd stared at Hunter's picture. In it, I stood between Margo and Casey, laughing. I slid my thumb over myself. My hair was long and straight, and I was wearing makeup that made my eyes bold and bright. We were at our first pep rally of high school, and instead of long sleeves, I was wearing a tank top with lace edges, my unlined arms on display for the entire world to see. I closed the yearbook with a snap, tossed it on the floor, and buried myself beneath my blankets again.

A second later, there was a loud knock on my door. "Alice!" Chris called. "Are you alive in there?"

I pulled the blankets even tighter. "Go away!"

"I'm coming in!" He twisted the handle and poked his head in. Once satisfied I wasn't in the middle of getting dressed or anything, he strolled inside. "Eugh. What kind of depressing shit is going on in here?" He glanced at the clothes on my floor in revulsion.

I shot him a dirty look over my shoulder. "What do I have to do to make you go away?"

He tapped his chin. "Brush snow off my car every morning for the next two months?"

I snorted. "Yeah, right."

He paused beside my desk and inspected three small figurines standing atop a layer of newspaper. "Is that another Han Solo?"

He was only halfway done, but it still should have been obvious. "Yes."

I'd started painting the figurines after Chris dragged me to The Hobby Shop two years ago. He had decided to enter the world of drone racing, and while he discussed models and parts with the sales associate, I inspected the little gray action figures and fancy paints. Since then, Chris's drone had been sitting in the garage, while I'd gone through so many punch cards from The Hobby Shop I was likely their most discounted customer. I wasn't particularly good at painting or anything. I just liked that it required me to concentrate on something specific, and if you had the time and precision, you really didn't need to be good at it at all.

He shifted over to my bookcase and squinted at the hundreds of other tiny statues. "Don't you get bored painting the same thing over and over?"

"None of them are the same."

He shrugged, pulling his gaze from my display as if he'd suddenly remembered why he busted into my room in the first place. "I need help with my lines."

"Can't you just practice your own parts?"

"You know it's not the same."

I exhaled a steady breath. Chris had been doing theater since forever. Between his college club and the local theater troop, he was always practicing for something. I'd followed in his footsteps for a while. In high school, he'd starred in all the musicals, and I'd turned out to be the biggest disappointment of all time when I quit at the end of ninth grade. The theater instructor was still trying to figure it out, and though I could have offered a decent explanation, I never bothered. I used to like the attention a stage demanded, but now the mere thought of bright spotlights made me want to scratch my skin off.

"Can't Mom do it?"

He pushed a hand through his hair. "She's not even close to as good as you. Come on. You like Waiting for Godot. It's not like I'm asking you to act out freaking Jersey Boys."

I sighed again. "Fine. But you have to help me carry my blankets." Chris did his acting as he paced the living room, but I preferred to read my lines from the comfort of the couch.

He bowed, one hand sweeping the air in front of him as he grinned. "It would be my pleasure, Vladimir."

* * *

I triedto skip school the following day for the sole purpose of avoiding Hunter, but it was pointless. My mom had grown immune to my stomachaches, headaches, and pretend fevers over the years. At this point, I would have had to be on my death bed for her to consider a sick day, and even then, she might still have rolled me into homeroom.

Turned out, Hunter seemed to be trying to avoid me as much as I was trying to avoid him. He went in the opposite direction whenever I stood at Margo's locker, and I could have been part of the wall mural in gym class for all the attention he paid me. It wasn't as if I wanted to continue our conversation about my self-mutilation habits anyway, but my chest still constricted whenever I saw him around school with Melody. Every time I caught sight of them whispering together or standing shoulder to shoulder chain-smoking cigarettes, I looked the other way, doing my best to ignore the sting. Even if she wasn't his girlfriend, I still wanted to be the recipient of his whispers and smirks. I wanted him to look in my direction just once.

Since he'd gotten beaten up, he constantly looked as though he was on the verge of an exploding bout of violence. Hunter had always been standoffish, but his everyday expression transformed from brooding to dangerous. Even his lazy movements were laced with quick spurts of white-hot anger. Hunter's danger flickered through the school hallways, sparking the air with a certain static electricity. Once, when a passing student glanced at him for a second too long, I waited, expecting an outbreak of emotions or an unprovoked attack, but it never came. No matter how enraged Hunter appeared, he never erupted. At least, not really.

By the middle of the week, our mutual avoidance had become so routine that I didn't bother going to Margo's locker anymore. I rounded the corner to my own locker and muttered a curse to myself when I spotted Scott at the end of the hallway. He lounged against a row of lockers, his hand tracing a line on the arm of a girl who wasn't Margo. A group of people crowded around him, posted up simply to be a nuisance to anyone who passed by. Brian stood on Scott's right-hand side, laughing at a comment the girl made. He had one dimple, and when he thought something was especially funny, he had two.

I glanced back at them as I fiddled with my lock, and when I did, Scott was watching me. His fingers still trailed absent circles on the girl's arm, and I jerked my gaze away.

When I closed my locker and headed in the direction of homeroom, I stiffened, but not because Scott was fixated on me. That, I could feel. Hunter sauntered down the hallway toward them, and Scott smirked, watching me watch Hunter.

"Hey, faggot!" Josh called. "What happened? You get hit by a bus or something?"

They all laughed, and though he was far away, I could see the awful glint in Scott's eyes, malicious and vile, as he commanded the group of them without saying a word.

I stopped breathing, expecting Hunter to lunge forward, but he shrugged, calm as ever. "I got my ass kicked by five pussies, all of them too afraid to fight me on their own."

Hunter kept walking, but Josh stepped forward. "What the fuck did you just say?"

Hunter was already past them, but he turned around to face Josh with a huff of exasperation. They stood toe to toe, and I moved forward, unsure how I could help but heading toward them anyway. I didn't know how I'd react if a fight broke out in the middle of the hallway. I liked to think I'd assist Hunter by kicking Scott right where it hurts. Hell, maybe I'd aim a kick at Josh for good measure and blame it on the frenzy, but in reality, I was sure I'd stand there useless and horrified.

Hunter's face was blank, inches from Josh's. He was taller than Josh, but Josh was bigger, his entire body thick with muscle. I pushed past people, and when I was less than ten feet from them, I stopped, unsure what to do as Josh leered at Hunter. "Not feeling so confident now, are you?"

When Hunter didn't answer, Josh tipped his head back and laughed, and the rest of them followed suit, slapping one another in amusement. Scott had a bright, carnivorous grin on his face as he eyed Hunter, but my gaze caught on Brian's smirk.

"What were you saying about us being pussies?" Josh asked.

Hunter stepped closer to Josh, their noses almost touching. "I said the bruises are from your mom. She's into some kinky shit ... hits harder than you do, you fucking oaf."

Josh surged at Hunter with a ferocious growl, but Hunter was prepared and shoved him backward, slamming the back of Josh's head into the metal lockers behind him. The girl next to Scott yelped, nearly jumping into his arms as Josh crashed into the space beside her. Scott pushed her aside as he started forward, furious.

Hunter's voice was low and dangerous, the words intended for Scott and Scott alone. "I've told you not to fuck with me."

"Gentlemen!" A teacher poked his head out of a classroom. He looked between Scott, Hunter, and the audience.

Scott raised his hands as he swiveled around to shoot the teacher a placating smile, but Hunter was already slipping away, pulling his hood over his head as he went.

Brian stood there, one dimple intact. I marched up to him, not considering much else besides the fact that my mom still asked about him, and though we'd dated for five seconds, she always felt the need to remind me what a nice kid he was.

"Can I talk to you?"

Brian blinked at me, then glanced sidelong at a new girl who had arrived beside him.

Before he could answer, Scott rolled his eyes. "What, Alice? Are you the martyr for faggots now?"

I gritted my teeth, ignoring him as best I could, but when I redirected all my efforts to Brian, his two dimples were deep craters on either side of his face as he laughed.

Scott was one thing, but I'd thought Brian Cullen had morals. Our school wasn't dealt a shitty hand of psychopathic jocks. For the most part, they were normal. And I didn't know how it had happened. How the hands that carried my books in eighth grade could be scattered with purple bruising that matched Hunter's face.

As I stormed away, I tried to remember what Hunter had been like in middle school. I could picture him, smaller and less intimidating, scurrying through the halls with his head lowered and eyes averted. But somewhere along the line, Hunter had turned vicious and wild, snapping at anything that came too close. He didn't cower anymore, and he didn't wait to be kicked. Adults warned us against things like him. Don't get too close. Stay away from the fence.

And while we all crossed the street to avoid him, no one stopped to wonder what had made him so ferocious in the first place. No one stopped to ask him if he was okay. And I wondered if anyone had even bothered to ask him why he'd tried to kill himself in the first place.