CrossRoads (AfterLife Book 1) by Desni Dantone

Author:Desni Dantone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Desni Dantone

Chapter 16

BEFORE

As bad as it was under the roof of my foster parents, it wasn’t much easier at school. Middle-schoolers were cruel about certain things, like visibly worn secondhand clothes that didn’t fit and generic backpacks held together by safety pins. The only good thing I had going for me was my looks.

There was something about me that the girls in my class liked, as evidenced by their furtive glances and whispers when I passed. I paid them no attention, but I still found myself in my first fight with a pissed off boyfriend of one of my admirers. Walking into a kid’s fist a few times earned me my first suspension. Of course, neither the drunk nor the addict was available to come get me, so I walked home from school to lick my wounds.

I found Brett in our room, packing a bag. He glanced up, did a double take. “Who did that to you?”

“Like you care,” I mumbled as I flopped onto my bed.

“Was it him?” The way he said “him” told me exactly who he meant.

“No. He mostly leaves me alone.” I touched the tender cut in my lip. “Some kid at school thought he needed to send me a message.”

Brett grumbled something I couldn’t hear. I didn’t care what he had to say, or what he thought. He was leaving—again. He would be back when the cops found him and dragged him back, like they did the last time he ran away.

“I’m staying with a friend for a few days,” he told me.

I shrugged, still not caring. In the silence that followed, I turned to see if he had already climbed out the window. He stood next to his bed, staring at me. “What?”

A second passed. Two. Three. Finally, he said, “Don’t let them break you.”

I shifted my gaze to the ceiling. Blinking back the traitorous tears in my eyes, I nodded stiffly.

“I want to show you something.” Brett’s footsteps stomped across the floor until he stood above me. “You see these?”

I glanced at his arms when he extended them to me. Both were covered in tattoos—something he called “sleeves” because the ink covered his skin like the sleeves of a shirt.

“You don’t see my scars, do you?” He bent and twisted his arms in every angle, giving me a good look at them. “They’re there, I know that. Underneath it all are knife marks and cigarette burns and one surgical scar from when I had my arm broken. I didn’t want to look at them anymore. I didn’t want the daily reminder of the things these assholes have done to me, so I covered them up.”

“With tattoos?”

“It worked for me.” He nodded once. “Find whatever works for you, and do it. Show them you’re strong enough to get through the shit they put you through.”

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