Hear Me Now (6 page)

So I gotta ask. Why are u in this class? You don’t seem retarded.

I’m not letting him get away with this. It’s one thing to roll his eyes at my mom and for me to reach over and flick him repeatedly, but there’s no way I’m gonna let him refer to the kids in this class as retards. By all rights, with my disability, I’m one of the so called retards he’s talking about. I’ve never been a fan of that word and that’s not going to change now.

I’m not in a retard class. There’s no such thing. I’m in this class. If you wanna know why I’m here, I’ll tell you as soon as you tell me what truck did that to your face.

His response is immediate and as I read it over, I can easily see its bullshit. I saw Kayden this morning, I know he had nothing to do with what’s going on here. Even if Dillon had taken the brunt of an attack, there would still be some kind of marks on Kayden and there just wasn’t.

Got into it with someone I used to be friends with. No biggie. So why are you here?

I think you’re lying, but I’m here because my school got closed down for a couple weeks.

His eyes raise at my admission
or me calling him out on his lying. I can’t be sure which one he’s doing it to, but it’s obvious that he hadn’t been expecting that to be my response.

Is this you thinking you know me again?

I don’t think I know you; I do know you. I’ve met a lot of guys just like you and you’re all the same.

He attempts to hide it but I catch the eye roll the minute it happens and it’s at that point I make up my mind. I’ve had enough of this back and forth with him. I’m done. When he’s ready to stop acting like a brat, I might think about responding again, but for now, I’m just done.

Turning back to my book, I flip back to the page I left off on and go back to ignoring him. When no note comes, either with him reaching painfully across my desk to deliver it or holding it out for me to take, I know I’ve made the right decision.

Dillon

Jesus Christ; this girl just doesn’t let up.

There’s a second there where she calls me out for being a liar that I almost tell her what really happened to me, but just as quickly as it comes, I push it down. It doesn’t matter how hot this girl is, or how much I enjoy our conversation, there is no way in hell I’m telling her the truth.

When I got to school this morning and people started staring at my face, I thought for sure that shit was about to come falling down around me. People would find out that I hadn’t gotten into a fight the way I’d spread around the night before through texting with Amy and my secret would be exposed.

So far, it hasn’t happened but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna go out of my way to make it reality. Telling this girl would be exposing myself in a way that I’m just not willing to do. So I attempt to flip it around on her, my ability to be a total jerk coming as easily as it always does and within a couple of minutes, she’s got her nose back in her book and I’m back to being left alone.

I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I managed to get through all three fights last night. Sure, I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck the way Cadence said but it’s been happening for so long now that I’m used to it. In a few days, the cuts and bruises will fade and I’ll be back to normal. I just hope that he doesn’t schedule another fight before that happens. This time I definitely need time to heal.

Kicking Rodney’s ass had been easier than I expected. I let him wail away on me for a while, watching as he became winded quickly due to his size and the amount of liquor and drugs in his system. When that happened, it was easy to take him down. It’s only when I got to Mark and Alex that I lost steam and ended up looking the way I do now.

Bruce had not been happy, but considering what he told me while he drove me home, he should have seen it coming. According to him, Mark and Alex are training to become professional fighters, which means they know what the hell they’re doing and going up against a kid like me is easy as shit for them. Hearing what he told me, I’d been pretty pissed. It’s one thing to throw me against someone my own age or maybe even a few years older like Rodney, but professional fighters?

What dear old dad doesn’t know is that by the time I got to Alex, I was prepared to lie down and let him get the win. I actually did lie down at one point, praying for it to end. I had sucked all the blood I could stand off my lips and I could barely see out of my right eye with the blood that was
pouring out of the cut Mark left me with. By the time I got home and looked in the mirror, my eyes were completely bloodshot and it had nothing to do with me not sleeping. It was the blood that managed to hole up there.

Most kids, if they went through what I did, would be
freaked out going home, afraid their mom would see it and lose her shit on them, but I’m not like that. Between all the fighting I get into at school and then all the shit that went down at Homecoming with Kayden, my mom is used to seeing me like this. She didn’t even bat an eyelash when I walked through the door.

She also didn’t ask what happened.

That’s Rebecca for you. She’s so out of it, I’m shocked that she even gets up for work in the morning or knows enough to leave me money for lunch. She’s always been a space cadet, but the last couple of years since she kicked my dad out, she’s gotten worse. It’s the pills. She drowns herself in them so much that the world is completely lost to her. I’m thankful for her being this way though. It means I don’t have to answer any questions about what Dad really does with me during our time together.

I bandaged up the wounds as best I could and here I am, back at school, earning some looks but nothing I can’t handle. My secret is still intact, my friends doing what they’re good for and spreading the perfect amount of lies in order to make it seem as though all I did was get into a fight after school. The only risk to all of that being one of my own making in wanting to tell Cadence the truth.

As long as I can keep my mouth shut with this girl that seems to know more about me than I do, I’ll be just fine.

Thing is, I can’t do that. She’s sitting there reading her book, the pages all bent and worn, like she’s read it multiple times and I’m kind of interested in exactly what it’s about.  I’m so pathetic right now that I’m willing to listen to her tell me about some stupid book I’ll never read just so she’ll give me the time of day again.

“Can I see what you’re reading?” I ask and when she doesn’t look up or even acknowledge that she’s heard me, I try again.

“Cadence. Can I see your book?”

What the hell is with this girl? Is she still pissed about what happened Monday so she’s purposely ignoring me? Considering I got her to talk to me a couple seconds ago, there’s no way she can be all that upset. I gotta figure if she hated me she wouldn’t have said a word to me this morning, but she did, so what the hell is with her now?

Reaching across and tapping her on the shoulder even though it causes my ribs an enormous amount of pain, I watch as she jumps back in the seat. She must have been more into the book than I thought. It looks like I freaked the hell out of her.

When she settles and her shoulders go from rigid to relaxed, her eyes catch mine and I try one more time to get her to talk to me. Now that she’s looking at me, there’s no way she can ignore me the way she just did.

“Can I see what you’re reading?”

Her eyebrows raise and she smiles weakly, closing the book after bending the top of the page down, marking her location and passing it over to me. Reaching out to take it, my hands brushing softly over hers and my body tenses with the shock that takes place. Shaking it off, believing it to be something related to the amount of times she’s run her fingers through her hair since she got here, I look down at the cover of the book and I’m surprised.

I expected to see some kind of romance, since that seems to be what most girls read when I do pay them enough attention to notice, but what’s in front of me now is as far from romance as you can get. It’s a fantasy novel, science fiction I think, and the very last thing I expected to see someone like her reading.

Shit; I know absolutely nothing about this girl.

I feel her eyes staring a hole into the side of my face as I’m looking at the book so I turn back to her and hold it back out for her to take.

“You like this kind of stuff?

She nods as she takes the book back and I press forward the minute I feel her eyes back on me.

“Didn’t think many girls read science fiction.”

She pulls the paper out and as much as I don’t wanna do it, I fe
el the frustration growing watching her write on it. I figured she was like Isabelle with the way she always writes everything out, but I’d been hoping I was wrong and she would open her mouth and speak to me. I know I haven’t exactly earned it, but she’s gotta know by now that anything she did say wouldn’t be a waste of breath like she said the first day.

As she reaches up to hand the paper out to me, I decide to go for broke and ask her why she won’t speak.

“Are you planning on speaking to me or are we just gonna do this forever?”

Bringing the paper back to the desk, she starts writing on it again, obviously answering my question and after a few minutes of her scribbling away on the paper, I’m getting anxious with how badly I want her to finish so I can read it.

I have no idea what the hell is going on with me lately. I haven’t had any contact with this girl for two days, yet she’s the first thing that comes to mind before I go into the fight from hell and now I’m sitting here practically dying inside to read what she’s writing to me. I shouldn’t give two shits but it seems to be all I care about.

Getting to know her, it’s supposed to be a game. A way to keep me occupied, but n
ow there’s nothing about it that feels like a game. I want her attention because I actually like the way it feels when I have it.

You obviously don’t know the right kind of girls.

We can just not talk at all if you prefer. You’re the one that talked to me. Truth is, I don’t talk much because I don’t like the way my voice sounds.

Well, if I didn’t already know I was an asshole, her words in response to my question slam the point home. I feel like a dick now. Asking the ques
tion was a risk but her answer—damn. She’s telling me the truth, I can tell it by the way her eyes look as she watches me reading. She’s not aware I can see it and right now, I’m thankful. Let her think that her concern over my reaction is her secret.

I want her to speak even more now. People are always more critical of themselves than they are of other people, so I think in order to know the truth, I need to be the one to hear her. She’s probably just being too hard on herself.

That’s not what I write back to her though. It should have been what I said because that’s the topic we were on, but with the way she chose to be honest with me even though it was none of my business, I feel the need to do the same.

I’m sorry. You were right earlier. I got hit by three pretty big trucks.

Does it hurt?

Like hell. Maybe worse than hell, IDK.

Why did you throw yourself in front of them then?

I can’t help it. When I see her response and the way she’s still pretending I mean actual trucks and not being pummeled by three very big people, I laugh and it comes out a lot louder than I
expect it to.

“Is there something you find funny, Mr. Murphy?”

Shit. I knew the minute the laugh came out it was going to end up causing something like this to happen, but I’d been hoping that Ms. Taylor would be so absorbed in grading papers or whatever that I would go unnoticed. I’m obviously not that lucky.

“No, Ms. T.”

“Well alright. Please refrain from outbursts like that in the future.”

Nodding my head in acknowledgement, I lower my head back down to the desk again, but not before catching the tiny blue square of paper out of the corner of my eye.

BUSTED.

Chapter Six

Cadence

I don’t know what I was thinking agreeing to this, but now that I’m here there’s nothing I can do to change it even though I probably should.

After Dillon got busted for laughing and I held up the sticky note in an attempt to be funny, we went back to relative silence with each other again. He kept his head down on his desk, not looking over at me once and believe me, I was watching for it. Accepting it even though I wanted to continue our conversation, I went back to my book until everyone moving around me signaled that the bell rang.

Before I get through the door, I felt a hand on my shoulder and freezing in place at the touch, one I don’t recognize, I turn around slowly to find out just who it is that’s stopping me. Coming face to face with Dillon, his familiar smirk in place like always, I allow the slight race in my heart to slow to a dull crawl before dipping my head to the side in confusion.

“Come to lunch with me? I know it’s probably the last place you want to be, but I think you’ll have a good time with us once they get to know you. So will you do it?”

Stuck with no alternative other than to grab the notepad from my bag and tell him no, I just nod my head in acceptance and now I’m stuck.

I’ve been here with them for almost twenty minutes and it’s painfully apparent that none of them, Dillon included, have figured out that I can’t hear a word they’re saying. I’m doing my best with reading lips, but with the girls, it’s hard since they talk so fast. I’m nodding at the right times or at least what I think to be the right times and I’m doing everything I can in order to appear normal, but it’s not easy.

It doesn’t help that the girl that knocked me to the floor has been shoot
ing looks at me since Dillon and I got here and he introduced me. It’s pretty obvious they’re together and she sees me as a threat. I’m the last person she needs to worry about. I know what Dillon is about and even though I agreed to be here when he asked me, I’m not going to forget it any time soon.

Watching everyone laughing at something I missed while lost in my own thoughts, my stomach turns over in knots. I should have ignored the touch on my arm earlier and run to meet Eric. Being outside with him, there’s no awkwardness. He knows all about me and my disability and I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not. I want that now more than anything because it’s obvious I just don’t fit in here at all. I’m nothing like these people and once they find out the truth, they’ll want to get as far away from me as they can get.

Once the laughing dies down, I watch as Amy starts to speak and this time, she goes slowly enough for me to catch every word she’s saying.

“So why did you bring one of them to lunch, Dill? It’s pretty obvious she’s mute.”

Preparing myself to stand and get the hell out of here, not wanting to read any more lips since it’s obvious it’s all going to be an attack, I pull my knees up, ready to push up and off the floor. It’s only when I read Dillon’s lips as he answers that I stop myself.

“She can talk, Ames. She just needs to feel comfortable. Considering what you did, can you blame her?”

It’s the nicest thing I’ve heard him say in the last four days and I’m pretty surprised by it. With the way he’s answering his girlfriend, I gotta figure I was right about him from the start. There’s more to him than just being an asshole. Maybe I’ll finally get a chance to see it.

“She earned that shit, attacking you the way she did. No one’s allowed to put their hands on you while I’m around, not even some stupid mute bitch that likes retards.”

I flinch from the hate in her words and again prepare myself to get the hell out of here. I don’t have to listen to this. No one is gonna sit here and disrespect me or my friends. Getting to my feet, I sling my bag back over my shoulder and turn to go, resisting the urge the entire time to turn around and give Amy the finger.  I might not want them to hear my voice, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find other ways to get my point across.

Starting off down the hallway, thankful again that I can’t hear any of them, I feel the knot in my stomach start to loosen. No matter what Dillon says, the people he hangs out with will never accept me and I was stupid for even believing for a second that anything he said about them was right.

I am never going near those people ever again.

Dillon

Shit. That didn’t go the way I wanted it to.

When I saw her leaving class earlier, another opportunity to ask her to hang out about to pass me by, I jumped out of my seat in an effort to reach her before she ducked out on me again. Despite knowing that she’s friends with Eric and she spends her time at lunch with him and the others, I wasn’t gonna let the chance to further my plan slip out of my hands.

What better way is there for this girl to warm up to me than having her hang with me and my friends instead of outside under that nasty tree with the others like her?

It’s about more than that. Even though I’m going back and forth about what I set out to do, I still wanted to be around her. I’ve never had this kind of conflict before. Things are usually so cut and dry with me. I either want to screw with this girls head or I genuinely want her to like me. There’s no in between.

With Cadence though, it’s all just in between and back and forth. Nothing is clear.

I get her to finally agree, bring her around my friends and of course it all has to get blown to shit because my girlfriend can’t tame the fucking jealousy. If Amy would just open her eyes, she’d see that this has nothing to do with Cadence having a thing for me. It’s about getting her away from the freaks and continuing on with the plan I told them all about the first day.

That’s not how it works though. Amy instantly goes on the defensive, not trusting the girl and now Cadence is walking down the hall and I’m doing everything I can not to jump up and go after her.

“Finally! Good riddance.” Amy mutters under her breath the minute Cadence is completely out of earshot and I resist the urge to smack her. I know that her attitude is half the reason I like her, but shit, even to me right now she’s taking it too far.

“Do you always have to be such a bitch?”

“What the hell did you expect? Bringing one of them to lunch? Was I just supposed to jump up and hug her or something?”

“I expected that you’d at least pretend to be nice.”

She laughs and again, I feel the urge to slap her rising to the surface. I hate when people laugh at me, absolutely despise it and even though it’s my girlfriend laughing and she’s not doing it at me but about what I said, I still wanna unload on her.

“Since when are we nice to retards? I know you got this whole plan thing mapped out about what you want to do to her and I agreed, but that doesn’t mean I have to act the same.”

“She’s not a retard, Ames.”

“Says you. She’s in that class with you and she didn’t say a fucking word the entire time she was here. If she’s not one of them, she’s trying awfully hard to look like she is.”

“Did she not try with all of you while she was here? That’s more than a so called retard would do. You didn’t have to be such a bitch to her. You running her off isn’t gonna make this shit work.”

“The only reason the girl came with you is because she’s got a thing for you. I saw it in her eyes.”

It always comes back to this. Every girl that looks at me has a thing for me. This is the part of being with Amy that I hate. Her jealousy is huge and it makes interacting with her absolutely impossible. I won’t get through to her no matter what I say. She’s got it in her head that Cadence has a thing for me and nothing will deter her. She’s completely lost her mind. If anything Cadence hates my guts and only tolerates me because I annoy her when we’re in class, but Amy won’t wanna hear that. She’ll just find a way to turn it around again.

Right when I go to respond, she starts up again and I feel whatever patience I had slipping away.

“Maybe you can’t see it because you’ve got a thing for the little retard too. Is that it, Dill? Maybe you don’t wanna play a game with her after all. Maybe you wanna get into the mute girls pants?”

Yeah, that’s it. I’m done with this bullshit. I knew I should have gotten up and walked away from her when she said that shit with Cadence sitting right here and I know it even more now. She’s full of nothing but venom and I want no part of it. Let her think whatever the fuck she wants. I’m done.

“You know what Ames? Come find
me when you pull the stick out of your ass. You’re delusional and I’m over it.”

I meant what I said. I think she’s being irrational, but there’s a part of me, despite what I believe that knows there’s a least a little truth in what she said even though it’s the last thing I’m going to admit to. Despite all of this starting out as a game, I do like her and I’m pretty damn pissed with the way everything just went down.

Shit. I’m obviously losing my mind too. I need to get my head on straight. Cadence is just another retard and I gotta remember that.

Getting up from the floor, flinching in pain as I stretch muscles that want no part of moving, I turn and start heading down the hall,
picking up speed the further I go, determined to get as far away as I can from Amy and her bullshit. As I round the corner that will take me to the stairs, determined to just head up and wait until class starts, I run into the last person I want to see with everything I just dealt with.

Kayden’s blocking my way and he looks pissed.