AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jayson was several years older than me. He was nineteen and I was just sixteen. Since he went to school locally, he still lived at home, and he managed to make this place more of a hell than it should’ve been.
My mother loved her only brother, and she often did what she could for him and his family. My uncle was hurting too, and I kept reminding myself of that each time I would have to spend any time around Jayson.
This new home wasn’t the only place I struggled. School was even worse. Back at Rushton Academy, I was homecoming queen, head cheerleader, and dance captain in the spring when football season was over.
It was a Catholic school and worlds apart from the inner city public school I had been thrown into. The students here had far less than I had in Chicago, and they never let a day go by without reminding that I was no longer a princess, not that I had ever considered myself one to start with.
It was just so hard, and I wanted to crawl into a hole and emerge when I turned eighteen. It seemed as if I had my entire life figured out, only to realize it was a pipe dream. Thanks to social media, I was able to keep in touch with Gabriel, but it wasn’t the same. I missed him so much.
At school, I would often be reminded of the distance between us. Where I once had him waiting to walk me from one class to another, holding my books in one arm and my hand with his other, now I had nothing. I only had the taunting jabs, insults, and hollow emptiness which followed me.
Gabe had realized pretty quickly that something was bothering me, and while I tried to chalk it up to lack of acclimation, I knew in my heart it was more. I was damaged, even more so than I ever thought I could be. I was not only in a prison of sorts, but I had various boogeymen, and none was scarier than the one that plagued me night after night.
I couldn’t tell anyone, though. If I did, no one would believe me anyway. Some horrors were meant to remain as secrets, so I would have to take this one to my grave. The way things were going for me, it likely wouldn’t be long until I met that fate.
Why so morbid, is what I used to ask myself.
Only, I didn’t have to answer myself because I knew anywhere would be better than this place. I had the spring to go before this year would be over, then one more before I could try to gain some semblance of freedom, if I even knew what it meant by then.
“Why did you take them from me?” I asked aloud to God, wondering if he was even real because if he heard me, I couldn’t tell. “Why do you keep me here?” Again, it was just another question that would remain unanswered.
My phone rang. I stared at the screen and debated on whether to answer Gabriel or not. Lately, I had been letting him go to voicemail and I knew he was getting worried. I could detect it in his voice when I would lay in the dark listening to his once calming words.
Finally, I snatched my phone off the bed. “Hello.”
“Thank fuck, Harper. It’s been almost a week since we’ve last talked. How are you doing?”
I closed my eyes as if doing so would stop me from seeing the disappointment in his as it set in. “I’ve been busy.”
By busy, I meant holing myself up in this room and praying for anything that would save me from this hell, and I was completely booked up. There had once been a time when nothing would’ve stopped me from taking his call.
When I’d first arrived here, it had been the same. The last month or so had changed everything. Christmas had come and gone, and other than this being the first one without my parents, something much worse rang in the new year. Since then, I had been sinking deeper into despair.
“So things are working out for you at school now?”
I knew why he assumed so, and it had been because I told him that I was struggling to fit in. Chicago high society was much different than inner city Portland.
I picked up my phone and saw the dark shadow under one eye. I had gotten drilled by a ball during gym class the day before, but if it hadn’t been that, it would’ve been something else.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied, then realized how blasé I sounded, and I quickly cleared my throat. “I mean, yes, I have a lot of school work to catch up on so I don’t end up in summer school.”
Just the very idea of summer arriving and there being no excitement gutted me. The Blakes and Grimes often vacationed together, and it meant a lot of one-on-one time with Gabriel. Now mine would be spent here with my new family, and there would be no holiday fireworks, beach trips, or parties to partake in.
“I’ve talked to my parents. They said you could come back to Chicago for a few weeks and stay with—”
“No,” I immediately responded.
“No?” he asked, his voice registering his confusion from across the line. “Maybe my parents would let me go out there for a bit instead then.”
That would be the worst thing that could happen. I couldn’t allow him to see what my life had become, and what it included. I had been trying to figure out how to end things with Gabriel. The very idea pierced my chest, the actual thought alone enough to twist the broken organ tightly.
“I haven’t visited Oregon yet, and I still hold a scholarship offer from them. Noah does too,” he told me, and I knew he meant well, but I needed to stop thinking about myself for once.
“I don’t want you to come here,” I finally said.
“What? Then how in the hell are we going to see each other? I love you, Harper. I need to see—”
I opened up a file of photographs sent to me a few nights before. I had been warned about running my fucking trap as he had put it, and I’d been warned that there were more where these came from.
