Unseen by Her Tormentor

CHAPTER 002

CHAPTER 002

Ariel slipped out of her room into an empty house. The light in the morning was shining through the blinds and drawing light lines on the walls. She stood still, making her way down the hall in the hope that she could get out before Michael awoke. Her twin would have something to say, he always had—had she seen him. About her clothes. Her hair. Her weight. Anything.

Too late.

Michael's door opened at the moment she came to the end of the hall. He was more than half-awake against the doorframe with a smirk on his face. His unkempt hair stood up in every direction, and his football shirt clung to his chest.

Morning, Ariel," he said, with a voice near choking. "Nice outfit. Is that a shirt or a tent?"

Ariel's shoulders tensed. She sidestepped him and did not even bother to look at him, hoping he would drop it.

"Come on," he called. "Don't be so touchy."

She didn't answer. She could say something that she would regret saying.

The air in the kitchen faintly smelled of coffee. Their mother had already vanished, as usual. She had a lot of work hours at the hospital and put sticky notes on the fridge stating things such as left early. Breakfast is on the counter. Be good. Ariel had not been sure whether she was more relieved or disappointed not to see her.

She put a toast of butter and made an attempt to sneak behind the door of the fridge.

Then the front door opened and her heart started to leap.

Jonathan Carter.

He walked into the kitchen as though he were at home. One hand held his football helmet loosely, his wet hair curling at the ends, and that unpleasant, irritating smile always flashed across his face. The odor of soap and fresh cologne was in the air.

He smiled and said, "Morning, sunshine," his hazel eyes fixed upon her.

Ariel rolled her eyes. "Don't call me that."

"What? It's cute. Thought you'd like it."

Michael laughed and hit him on the fist. "Ignore her, man. She's in one of her moods."

Guess that's why she was dressed like that, Jonathan said, nodding at her shirt. "What's the theme today? Big comfort or escaping the world?

With a flash of clink, she dropped the butter knife. "You done?"

Jonathan chuckled. "Just getting started."

Michael scowled, taking his protein shake. "Don't mind him, Ariel."

But she did. Everything that Jonathan said hurt her more than she would like to admit.

They went away a few minutes after, still laughing. Ariel was looking into the door, which remained open, the toast cold in her hand. Jonathan was not the only one who had harmed her; it was Michael whose laughter twisted the knife.

He used to be her best friend. Her other half. And now he was the one who made fun of her suffering.

Crestwood High was show business, and Ariel was the clown nobody wanted to watch.

She walked along the hallway with her head low, holding the books tight to her chest. Laughter was flying round all corners, like glass. She did not have to look to know that some of it was directed at her.

"Did you see her jeans?"

On the team she is bigger than the guys.

Wonder who she is and if she has snacks in that pack.

The remarks were like small stabbing cuts, all hidden, and yet all bleeding. She kept walking. Pretending not to hear. Pretending not to care.

She struggled to get the combination on her locker and hoped she could disappear. Michael walked by with his fellow players, who are full of swagger and effortless charisma. Jonathan was walking next to him, laughing at something one of the guys had said. His eyes went over her as though she were a wall.

A part of her wanted him to leave it that way. There was another, more sadistic, part that would have approved him to look—once, not mockingly, but a look of some other kind.

It was the part of her that she despised.

"Hey, there you are." Mariah came in her usual radiant fashion, and her curls of blond hair were swinging. You are as if you wanted to light something on fire.

Ariel shut her locker. "Jonathan."

Mariah's expression soured. "What'd he say this time?"

"Nothing new. Just the usual." Ariel shrugged. "I should be used to it by now."

"You know you do not have to get used to it," Mariah said. "He's a jerk. Always has been."

Ariel smiled weakly. "At least he's consistent."

Mariah nudged her shoulder. "Ignore him. We're almost done with this place, right? And in a few more months, we will be so.

"Yeah." Ariel wanted to believe that. But it nearly felt as though it were forever.

By lunch, the burden of the morning had settled heavily at the very bottom of her chest.

She was sitting with Mariah at their table, one table away in the far corner of the cafeteria. On the opposite side of the room, she could clearly hear the sound of the football table. Michael's laugh was clearly recognized. So was the voice of Jonathan—vast, assertive, and inaudible.

Ariel was attending to her sandwich. She made little bites, which she hoped, when taken slowly enough, no one would see her.

"Hey, Michael!" The voice of Jonathan penetrated the cafeteria. You had better hide your lunch before Ariel snatches it!

The table burst out into laughter. Ariel halted in mid-bite with her stomach turned. None of the laughs was louder than that of Michael.

Mariah put down her drink with a bang. "Ignore them. They're not worth it."

But Ariel couldn't. Nothing when she could hear the laughter in her ears, nothing when it was the voice of her own brother who sang in with it.

She had to swallow, though she was sore in her throat.

On the other side of the room, Jonathan was leaning back in his chair with his grin. Well, take care, man; she could eat. You know she is not training with us, right?

The laughter grew. She caught bits: mascot, linebacker, and snack queen. Every word burned like fire.

Ariel rejoined her feet on her chair and scraped it across the floor. There was a moment of silence in the entire cafeteria. She had wished to scream at them, to fling her sandwich full in the insincere countenance of Jonathan. But she didn't.

She couldn't.

Instead, she turned and walked away. She felt her heart beat up and down the corridor.

Laughter was renewed behind her.

Ariel was lying in bed that night looking at the ceiling. The soft humming of the ceiling fan broke the silence. She was remembering the old days, the old days—the girl running around the backyard with her twin, her feet bare and in her laughter. The girl who thought that Michael would protect her at all times. The girl believed that Jonathan had the nicest smile she had ever seen.

That girl was gone.

It only remained a fatigued individual. Someone invisible.

This is it, she said to herself. "One more year. I can make it."

College was her escape plan. College offered her a new beginning. In some places, no one recognized her as the sister of Michael or the fat twin. There she would be able to breathe.

Her head just wouldn't cease re-experiencing that scene in the lunchroom: Jonathan smiling, Michael laughing, and her chest aching. It ought to have filled her with hate.

Rather, she caught the face of Jonathan once more, but different. This one glance, the glance that one time that he had gotten her staring that morning. No smirk. No insult. There was something in his eyes that was difficult to read.

It had felt real. Almost human.

And that scared her.

Morning came too fast.

Ariel forced herself out of bed and looked at herself. She had wild hair and weary eyes. She didn't bother with makeup. What was the point? Jonathan and like-minded people did not even see such girls.

She quickly dressed up in jeans, a tank top, and an oversized button-up and sneaked into the kitchen. The routine remained consistent. Same silence. The ache under her ribs never really went away.

Michael broke through the silence. Should I leave without having breakfast?

"I'm not hungry."

He frowned. "You need to eat something."

"Why? So that I may know I did eat too much afterwards? she snapped.

His mouth was opened and closed. She supposed that he could apologize, but then, for a moment, she thought he would. He didn't. He simply picked up his keys and turned his back.

Then Jonathan walked in.

He appeared infuriatingly beautiful, as always, clean and self-assured, a walking reproach to all her lack of security. His hazel eyes caught her eye, and they both said nothing for a moment.

Then that smile came over his face.

"Morning, sunshine," said he, dripping with teasing warmth. "Dream about me again?"

Ariel glared. "Continue to dream, Jonathan."

Michael grinned and threw his bag on his shoulder. You two ought to bring this show out on the road.

Jonathan winked. "She loves me, man. Just doesn't know it yet."

The pulse of Ariel spiked, and anger and embarrassment mingled in her breast. "In your dreams."

He chuckled. "Every night."

They walked away together, still laughing. Ariel lingered long before the doorway and stared. She would have screamed, cried, and fled away. Instead, she sat on a stool and gazed at her half-eaten toast, which she had made.

Her mind was going around in circles.

She hated Jonathan. She detested the fact that he did not allow her to breathe. She despised the manner in which he made a joke out of everything. The thing she despised the most, which she could not tell anyone, not even Mariah, was that she felt a fluttering sensation in her chest whenever he smiled.

And she couldn't explain why.

School was like those awful movies that she could not get rid of. Classes seemed to get progressively longer. Each laugh on the other side of the hall made her stomach go in circles.

However, in between moments, it occurred once more.

Ariel was standing at her locker changing books when she had a feeling of someone behind her. She turned—and froze.

Jonathan.

One of his brows came up against the wall. "What's up, Sunshine?"

"Don't call me that."

"Still mad about lunch?"

"Was I supposed to laugh?" asked she, and she banged her locker shut.

He tilted his head. "It was a joke."

"It wasn't funny."

He smirked. Perhaps you simply do not understand my sense of humor.

Her eyes were shrewd, and she stepped near. "No. Perhaps you do not understand things or how cruel you are.

His smile disappeared for a brief moment. And then, in no time, it was there again.

"Feisty," he said softly. "Didn't know you had that in you."

Her cheeks burned. You do not know anything about me.

"Maybe not." His glance lingered in hers a second longer than was necessary. Then he drew himself and walked off.

The heart of Ariel was yet racing when Mariah came up next to her.

"What did he want?" she asked.

"Nothing," Ariel said quickly. "He was just being... Jonathan."

However, her voice was not persuasive. Even to her.

Ariel was unable to sleep that night.

She reenacted the hallway scene again and again. He had glared at her as though he saw something new. Something that confused him. Something he did not know how to deal with.

It made no sense. Jonathan Carter did not regard girls like her.

Did he?

The thought was ridiculous. But it remained, murmuring in the deep background of her thoughts, even as the girl fell asleep.

The following morning Ariel stood on her bed staring at the sunrise through the window. The air was cool. The world was calm, suspended, as though a change was going to take place but had not taken place.

Her alarm buzzed. She switched it off and said to herself, just get through today.

By the time she entered the kitchen, Michael and Jonathan had already settled on the argument concerning practice. Michael said something, which Jonathan laughed over, and just as he raised his eyes, he saw Ariel coming in the door.

Their eyes met again.

There was a moment when all came to a standstill. The window light smoothed his features and warmed his eyes, and he appeared to her gentler than she had ever known him.

Then he looked away. Like it meant nothing.

The message did not penetrate the heart of Ariel.

She could still feel his eyes looking at her back like a ghost she was unable to get rid of as she picked up her bag and walked out of the door.

Despite her strong dislike for it, one question gnawed at her heart like a burrowing animal that she could not shake off.

What could happen to her life should the boy who had made her miserable turn out to be the person she was to never get out?