Page 21 of Tell Me Softly

Chapter Thirteen

Kami

It’s impossible to convey what it meant to me for Ms. Di Bianco to wave to me, even if it was from far away.

I felt so relieved, so welcomed again. But then I saw Thiago clench his fists.

At least she was capable of looking me in the face, of smiling at me as though nothing had happened.

And that lightened a bit of the weight I’d been carrying around since I was ten years old.

It took the sting out of the guilt—at least a little.

Thiago’s mother said something to him, he snapped at her, and then my heart resumed aching as he stormed off into his house.

He’d been a dick that afternoon at detention. He couldn’t just keep talking to me like that in front of everyone. It wasn’t fair, him showing how much he hated me in front of everyone at school. Rumors would circulate, and the last thing I needed was everything from the past coming up again.

I walked inside and heard the sound of my brother playing some video game at top volume.

My mother peeked out the kitchen door and motioned for me to go in there.

I wondered what she wanted. When I went in, I found her stirring a pot of tomato sauce.

Spaghetti was one of the only dishes she ever made.

She usually made it on Mondays, when Prue was away, and those were some of the only times I actually liked sitting with her and keeping her company.

She acted like a normal mother, and if Dad wasn’t around, she’d pour me a glass of red wine, which she did today.

I took a sip as I savored the aroma of ripe tomatoes.

I guess she shouldn’t have let me drink, but whatever, that’s how Anne Hamilton was.

“Don’t get mad at me,” I said, “but I got in trouble.” I flopped down on the bench across from her.

Sucking her teeth, she said, “Trouble? You too?”

“Me too?” I asked.

“Your brother got in a fight during recess,” she said, lowering the pasta into boiling water. “School called me, I had to go pick him up. His face is a disaster.”

“What are you saying? Cam’s never fought with anyone.”

“Now he has. I told him he’d have to skip dinner as a punishment and he can’t take Juana out of her cage.”

“Mom!” I shouted.

“Don’t Mom me,” she replied angrily. “I should do the same to you.”

“Make me skip dinner? Are you for real?”

“Worse. I’m taking away your phone.” She stretched out her hand. “Give it up.”

“You’re not even going to ask me what happened?”

“I don’t care,” she responded, opening and closing her hand to tell me to hand over my phone.

“Mom, this is dangerous. Imagine if something happened to me.”

“I don’t want to hear your fairy tales,” she said, interrupting me. “I can’t believe both my children were caught breaking the rules at school on the same day. What will people in town say?”

“You honestly think anyone cares?”

“I care!” she shouted, snatching my phone when I finally, reluctantly, handed it to her. “You’re a little old for this kind of nonsense, don’t you think?”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” I said. “I’m going to go talk to Cam. You have dinner by yourself. If he can’t eat, I won’t either.”

I walked out, furious that she hadn’t even bothered asking me what had happened.

She probably hadn’t asked Cam either. In the living room, I sat down on the couch, saying, “Hey, buddy.” I wrapped an arm around my little brother’s shoulders.

I was surprised when he grimaced and said, “Don’t touch me! ”

“Hey!” I couldn’t believe his attitude, and I sure as hell couldn’t believe his gigantic black eye. “What happened, buddy?”

“Nothing!” he shouted, throwing his controller against the table.

I hated seeing him like that. And something had to be up. He just wasn’t the kind of kid to go getting in random fights.

“You want to know a secret?” I said, almost in a whisper. “I got in trouble today too.”

“Really?” I’d piqued his curiosity.

I nodded and continued, “Don’t tell Mom, but three guys got in a fight over me.”

His eyes opened wide, and then he flinched from the pain.

“Yeah, I got in a fight too,” he murmured.

“That’s not good… Fighting never leads to anything good. Why’d you do it?” I asked softly.

I thought he was going to say something from the way he looked at me, but instead he shook his head and picked up the PlayStation controller

“It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I told Mom I wouldn’t do it again.”

He looked so sad. I wanted to come up with something to cheer him up, so I said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about we set an alarm for midnight, and when Mom and Dad are asleep, we can come downstairs and eat as much spaghetti as we want?”

His eyes lit up. He loved that dish, and it was so mean of my mother to take away dinner as a punishment. “Sure!” he said enthusiastically. We gave each other a high five, and I kissed him on the top of the head before going up to my room.

I looked out my window––I couldn’t stop myself.

My lights were off, so I didn’t think anyone could see me.

There he was. Repairing his motorcycle out in the driveway.

He was shirtless, his hair sticking out in all directions.

Without thinking, I grabbed my pad and started drawing, though I could barely see a thing.

In a sense, it didn’t matter; my hand did it effortlessly, while my mind was almost empty.

I was so distracted that I didn’t even notice at first when he put his tools aside and looked up at my window.

My hand froze; he had caught me. Only when he stepped away did I turn on the lights and look down at what I’d done.

It was perfect. His furrowed brow was there, his penetrating eyes, bright with anger.

How long had he watched me without my even noticing?

How long had he remained there for me to be able to reproduce his image so clearly?

I closed my notebook and ran off to the shower.

***

Life went on—tedious, normal. I got up the next morning, drove to school, and found Kate in the parking lot waiting for me. She wanted to apologize for calling me Lady Kamila. “No worries,” I told her, but I appreciated the apology.

“You know I tried calling you for like an hour!” she said as I tried to excuse myself for my own bad mood, telling her I’d had a rough day.

“My mom took away my phone,” I said. I let her take my arm and walk me into the building.

“Jeez, what a bitch.” A look of horror crossed her face.

“You’re telling me. My dad lost his shit this morning too. I’m so disappointed in you, I’m so ashamed of you, how could you do this, at your age , blah blah blah… It’s one of the only times I’ve ever seen the two of them agree about anything, which means no phone till Monday.”

“Try and treat it as a screen detox, I guess?”

I rolled my eyes and we walked off to our respective lockers.

I noticed as I took out my books that a sudden silence fell over the hall.

I looked to the right and saw him—Danny, walking out of the principal’s office with his parents.

They didn’t look angry, just deeply disappointed.

His mother, Lisa, whom I’d always gotten along with, looked like she’d been crying.

She caught sight of me and gave me a look that made me tremble.

Did she really blame me for her son’s bad behavior?

I looked away and back into my locker, praying for Danny to leave me alone.

I knew him too well, though. He’d come over and try to get me to talk in front of everyone.

I smelled him before I felt the heat coming off his body.

“Can we talk?”

I turned, wishing he would just give me my personal space. “We don’t have anything to talk about, Danny.”

“Kami, you owe me…”

“I don’t owe you anything. If you’re here because you want to apologize, then I’m all ears. If not, then I’d appreciate you just leaving me alone.”

“ You want me to apologize to you? ” His eyes were shooting sparks. “You know they kicked me off the team for the fall season, right?”

I turned and shut my locker, hugging my books to my chest.

“As they should have.”

I walked past him, not letting him say another word and certainly not letting him touch me.

Kicking him off the team––that was nothing, and it showed how unfair things at school were.

Danny had shown up at school drunk and tried to force himself on me.

I still didn’t know what I’d have done if Taylor and Julian hadn’t shown up to help me, and he wasn’t even getting detention! The whole fight was his fault!

I cursed myself for not being able to tell the truth when they asked me if he’d hurt me. The marks on my wrist were still visible. Someone needed to do something. When Danny was upset, he was completely unstable.

I walked to biology class and sat at the last desk by the window.

That way, at least people would need to turn to look at me if they wanted to point and talk about me.

Danny came in soon afterward and looked around, trying to find me.

Behind him was Taylor. This wasn’t going to end well.

When Danny moved to sit by me, Taylor grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Taylor asked, as everyone stared at us. Please, God, don’t let there be another fight, I prayed.

Danny pushed him, and they faced off against each other.

“Try putting another hand on me and see where it gets you, Di Bianco.”

“Try putting another hand on her and see if I don’t kill you.”

“What’s going on here?” Ms. Denell asked.

Danny turned and made himself smile. The shift in his attitude told me he’d been threatened with worse than getting kicked off the team.

I assumed he wasn’t stupid enough to start shit in class.

The other day, he’d cried about how his life was over, how he couldn’t imagine going off to college without me, but I could see he hadn’t totally lost his mind and that his future still mattered to him.