Chapter 10 - Winter Break

Some people wait the entire year for the two chances at breaks from a school, winter break and summer break. I find that stupid, by the time it's the middle of summer you have no idea what to do with your life. Maybe for most people winter break is exciting, though.

But Christmas is the day my mom left, and my dad does not like to remember that.

And today is the day when winter break starts.

I wake up to the light shining through the blinds of my windows, the dark sunrise in winter barely lighting up the dust in my dark room. My alarm lightly goes off next to my ear.

I get up quickly making me wait a second because of the fog in my head from the sudden movement. I feel a little nervous today, with Kingston's sudden outburst yesterday.

But he knows nothing. People think they do and that's why I'm labeled the No-Face girl or the nerd or the quiet girl. People don't know anything.

I put on a different pair of jeans today, with a black long sleeve shirt that I found in the abyss of my closet. I put all of my stuff in my bag and go to the bathroom.

I brush my teeth quickly with some water, toothpaste isn't very likely to find here. I redo the bandages around my wrists and brush my hair with my fingers before putting a hat on top.

Once I leave the bathroom the clouds have filled the sky as I open the blinds to my cracked window. Slowly snow falls next to the window, it lightly feathering the ground in the cold temperature.

I close my windows when I hear my dads mumbling from outside my door as he walks down the hall. "Summer make me breakfast." He grumbles and I scrunch up my nose in disgust, where did he get the hating of morning from.

I love the mornings.
The cold.
The not being beaten because my dad is too tired.
The cooking.

I love all of that.

I open my door and head down the stairs, the creaking signaling to my silent dad in his rocking chair that I'm here. "Eggs." He demands and I ring my hands together while I mumble out, "We don't have eggs, we have oatmeal and vanilla waffles, sir?" I ask him but he abruptly stands up and looks at me with red fuming eyes.

"I want EGGS. You just went to the store you useless piece of shit so go make me eggs or I'll beat the shit out of you." He says and stares me directly in the eyes.

He's more snappy during this time. Not having fresh eggs I find a carton of egg whites and cook those while adding some vegetables for him.

I would've chosen the waffles.

I serve them to him slowly, not sure if he'll throw something at me out of nowhere. He starts eating them slowly, until his eyes snap up to me. "You said we didn't have eggs." He growls and I nod.

I gulp before starting, "Well we didn't, those are egg whites-" but he stops me by getting up angrily and slamming fist against the table. "I wanted FUCKING eggs. Whole eggs." He says before throwing the entire plate at me and angrily.

The plate cashed against my head leaving a gash to bleed into my eyes, broken glass covering the ground around me. "Clean this up then leave." He growls before standing up harshly and stumbling up to his room like a toddler with anger issues.

He is a toddler with anger issues.

The blood flows down my forehead, pain flaring through my nerves as I scrunch up my nose and clean up the blood and glass on the ground, happy there is no glass in my eyes.

As I throw away the glass, the house being quiet and cold in the winter, a cold feeling runs through me as my head burns and hurts.

I walk over to the sink and put my head under it, the water washing the blood off my head before I go to the bathroom. The wound is a small gash in my forehead that I stop from bleeding quickly.

I put a bandaid over it and remove he bandaid I put on the bridge of my nose I put on about a week ago, it's been through a lot, but is now stained from the blood that was running down my face.

The cut on the bridge of my nose has healed, but leaves a tiny scar hat nobody will notice on my face. Nobody looks at me anyway.

I leave the bathroom and grab all of my stuff before leaving the house. That's another plate I'll have to replace, broken because of me.

I don't grab the skateboard on my porch because of the snow that has at this point lined the sidewalk, but denmore gets a lot of snow. I love it.

I walk through it, leaving footprints in the once perfect clean snow. The fast walk to school goes by faster with me paying attention to the dead trees and everything slowly being covered with snow. Including me.

I get to the school quickly, no jacket since I don't own one. People aren't outside except a couple freshmen that make snowmen outside of the school.

I walk by to the door until somebody stops me by grabbing my wrist. I turn to look behind me to find Kingston, Reid and River by his sides.

Reid gives me a pity smile while Kingston stares at me with a look... a look I can't explain, it looks... whole, like a heart that was finally okay, something like that. I nervously knit my eyebrows and look up at him pleading him with my eyes to leave me alone.

My eyes switch between Kingston and other people, which I only want to talk to Kingston. I've not been friends with him or close to him for that matter for long but just that one time I talked to him left me wanting more.

River and Reid don't care, and I don't need my business going around school when nobody cares.

But Kingston does. I think...

Kingston looks me deep into my eyes, his nose a rosy pink and lips red and plump. He breathes out slowly, making a cold fog in the air drift off as he stares at me.

As if what he was going to say slips him he grabs the side of my face gently, knowing what happened last time he grabbed me, and runs his thumb gently over my cheek.

Kingston inspects me with a sad face, his hands rough and soft at the same time. River just watches and Reid is on his phone.

"I told you to be careful, what happened to your head?" Kingston asks and I close my eyes and shake my head. My face leaves his hand as I look at the frozen ground.

"Nothing. I'm just going to go-" I get cut off from leaving by River holding onto my wrist painfully again. "That hurts." I mumble making him let go.

People walk past and into the school but when I try to go he stops me again. "Stop trying to escape me." River says as his scary eyes dig deeply into me, he can see all of me with those. Like X-ray eyes.

Kingston growls, turning towards me with a scared look, fear across his expression at my pain.

He grabs River's arm lightly, "Let go of her dude!" He says and River shakes him off, loosening his grip on me. He turns between me and Kingston a few times before finally letting go of me.

Kingston takes Rover's place in front of me.

"I am not going to hurt you. Just.. you have to tell me what is going on." He says and he puts his and on the small of my back.

I throw his hand off of me and look at him directly, hoping this will make him leave. He doesn't want to be involved, "Nothing is going on. You never cared before so just go back to that." I say before finally escaping from them and quickly walking into the school.

Kingston catches up to me though.

As I walk in I walk through the sides of the halls that everybody walks through.

"Why won't you tell us?" He asks and I shrug, "Would you tell everybody if your mother died, even if they didn't know you?" I ask and he growls, "I guess I didn't." He says and my face drops, as his stares blankly at me, For the first time his expression was blank.

"I- it's- I'm so sorry- I didn't mean to really!" I say and he shakes his head as I reach my locker, grabbing some books and leaving others.

Fuck he probably hates me again now.

"Tell me. Why won't you tell me?" He asks and I look towards him slowly, "You didn't even talk to me until a few days ago! I'm trying to make it so nobody notices me, Kingston. I don't need this." I say and he slowly turns my face towards him, closing my locker and pinning me up against it.

"What if I need you?" He asks and I roll my eyes.

"Nice one, Hamlet." I say, walking away from him.

One of the many perks of being short, you can duck under peoples arms with no trouble.

"What if I tell you something about me for everything you tell me about yourself?!" He asks, his back against some lockers as he's mesmerized. I guess he's never been denied before.

"We will see." I say with a wink as I turn around.

God I'm gonna say it again, Kingston is hot.

And he's fun to mess with. And he's cute. And he's perfect. And he's the most popular guy in school so he probably actually hates me.

I make it to Mrs Carezlan's room and sit down, the room empty and a little bit more warm as I sit down. I put my feet up on the chair and put my knees to my chest before resting my head on them.

Before I can stop it somebody sits down next to me, listening to music. She has died white hair with purple tips and a nose piercing. Her eyes are a very dark brown almost black and her makeup is beautiful and dark.

"I'm not as scary as I seem." She says before handing me one of her earbuds. She kicks her feet up with black laced boots on and listens to the music.

"I'm new. I chose to approach you because you seem broken and lonely, just my thing." She says giving me a smile and looking forward. "Well you're not wrong on that one." I chuckle and she nods smugly.

"My names Lilah, I'm from east downstate." She says and I nod, "My names Summer , I'm from here, west downstate. Welcome." I smile as the bell rings making her sigh as she lifts her feet off the table and pulls the earbuds out of our ears.

As she puts her stuff away people shuffle through the room, River, Reid, and Kingston coming through the door with Kingston eyeing me and Lilah.

Lilah turns before staring at some girls in the corner, I recognize them as Rain and Jerimiah, who goes by Miah.

Rain has beautiful blue hair and a dark complexion with green eyes matching the faded tips of her hair while Miah has light brown hair with strong features and brown eyes like Lilahs.

I look back at Kingston, seeing River with Madeline, which is to be expected. I knew he didn't really care. He moves to the back of the room and sits next to the popular kids. Which is really just a bunch of guys and girls surrounding Kingston.

Kingston sits, staring at me with no shame, his feet up in his desk.

I chuckle, knowing he didn't care and would get over it soon. Lilah looks back at me and looks at Kingston and River. "What's their problem?" She asks and I shrug, "A lot." I laugh and look up at Mrs Carezlan as she walks through the room.

This day is gonna go faster than normal, because somebody noticed me other than the people that hate me.

I look back once more, and while Kingston talks and flirts with girls, he's staring at me.

It's feels nice to be noticed.