19 Marigold Lane by R.M. Gilmore

Author:R.M. Gilmore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: R.M. Gilmore
Published: 2019-10-18T18:33:49+00:00

Marlin hadn’t let me off the hook from working on the set design in the weeks I was out, and I feared he’d hound me the second I stepped foot on campus. I’d been hoping I could get out on a medical excuse, but I hadn’t talked to anybody about what was going on with me, and I didn’t plan on it. Except Marlin. And Bonnie. I wasn’t obligated to tell anyone. It was none of their business. As it appeared they already knew.

“Oh my god, Penderhaus, I can’t believe it, are you okay?” said random girl number one.

“I can’t believe it. I’ve never met anyone who was dying before,” said random girl two.

Even in a small town like Flintlock, at a small school like Flintlock high, there were lots of people you didn’t actually speak to. I knew their faces; I probably knew their parents. Their parents probably knew my parents. Their grandparents probably knew my grandparents. They probably had gone to high school together too. But that didn’t mean they were my friends, and it definitely didn’t mean they needed to be in my business.

I ignored most of their inane remarks. What else could I do? I didn’t want to confront anyone. I didn’t have the strength for it. In fact, in that moment, I just wanted to go back home.

Heart booming in my chest, I stopped my sneakered boats at the threshold of Flintlock high. A single pencil clutched in my left hand and a new notebook in my right—my phone studiously on vibrate in my back pocket—I stood in awkward contrast to my peers, sans the typical weight-limit-restricted backpack.

Among the plethora of oddities that set me apart from my age group, I now also had a weight limit of ten pounds—pushing, pulling, and carrying—limited motor function of my arm, and a divot the size of a golf ball in my bicep beautifully sealed shut on the outside with glue so as to not leave a hideous scar. As if scar tissue was the tipping point of my existence.

Does it really matter if you show up or not? I mean… really? Does it matter? My thoughts went on like that for a long strange minute of me standing in the doorway staring at my shoes. My inner monologuing needed work.

A breath caught midway in, and white flashes popped in my vision. Morgan Pennington’s Neanderthal paw squeezed where it had landed hard against my shoulder. A nausea-inducing act of violence disguised as a friendly pat on the back.

“Penderhaus,” he jeered, false grin spread across his face. “We missed you around here.”

I didn’t acknowledge his existence. Mostly because I was trying not to vomit from the pain in my arm, but also because he was a douche canoe and I didn’t want to.

When I didn’t look down to meet his eyes, he stepped into my line of sight. “Hey, you hear me?” His brown eyes looked over my face while he sneered. It took a while to burrow through his thick skull that I was not only in pain but brimming over with hatred for him.

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