Anything but useless!
Feeling a warning hand squeeze my wrist, I’m unsure how much time has just passed. A second. A minute. I don’t know. My wrist suddenly aches within the band of someone’s palm, throwing me back to the now.
“Get. Out,” Perry hisses.
His tone should bother me, but his opinion doesn’t matter right now. I’m still. My ambitions are still, my need to prove myself to him and the world -still.Caught somewhere between reality and flashes of my past, I recognise Mandy escorting me from the theatre room.
The door shuts.
Pressing my back to it, I slide down until my bum hits the cold, hard floor. I press my palm against my stomach as a sinking feeling settles in.
I exhale his name. “Bronson Butcher.”
Shoshanna
Thirteen years old
“They shouldn’t be here,”Jessica whispers in my ear, her lips nearly touching me. I roll my shoulder up to encourage some space between us, but don’t tear my eyes away from the three Butcher boys that have just sauntered into the party as if they own the goddamn place and all the people in it.
“Youshouldn’t be here,” I mutter angrily as the girls to my side coo and giggle.
After having tried for nearly an hour to study in my room, I grumpily came down to lie by the poolside. If you can’t beat them, join them. . . and all that shit. I settled down on the lawn beside the only other thirteen-year-olds invited - my big sister’s little minions. Well, not the only thirteen-year-olds now that the young Butchers have made an appearance.
“They are going to get into a fight. I’m sure of it. They piss off the senior boys. They always do.”
“It’s because Clay is here. He’s seven years older than them.”
“Is Clay Butcher here?”
“I heard they are part of some kind of gang.”
I flip onto my stomach, returning my attention to the textbook in front of me. I lick my finger and flip the page. A new chapter title mocks me with its significance - The Respiratory System. Someone bellows beside me, and a few girls gasp, but I focus on the intricate graphic now haunting me - two apple slice-like shapes connected by a channel and entwined with red string-like lines.Fuck.It is the most important part of the body. Most people say that the heart is, but my father says the lungs are. Even a small amount of oxygen deficiency can cause insanity-like symptoms. When the heart stops beating, it is the lack of oxygen being carried around that ultimately causes organ failure. Oxygen to our cells is like -
“Someone just got nailed in the face, and you didn’t even look up.” A masculine voice cuts through my internal thought process, dragging me unwillingly back to the party and the boy now lying beside me. I don’t look over at him. Instead, I let out a slow sigh, lick the pad of my index finger, and use it to turn to the next page.
A rumble comes from his chest, but I try to ignore it.
“Do that again.”
I frown at the page, attempting to focus, not wanting to give him any reason to stick around. In my peripheral vision, I can see a cool smile and dark hair, and it is taking all my strength not to peer over and catch a better glimpse of him. Heat prickles my cheek from his piercing gaze; it scorches the side of my face with dominance and arrogance that is uncomfortable.
“You have great hair.”
As a few loose dark strands are suddenly swept from my cheek, I feel him move in close, hear him inhale deeply.
What the fuck!
When I twist on my elbows to glare at him, I’m instantly hit with the smirking, wide smile of Bronson Butcher. I’ve never seen him up close before. He has eyes like the sea, blues and greens shifting and sparkling as though his irises are adorned with their own mood gems. Strong chocolate-brown brows cut straight above thick black lashes.
I want to roll my eyes at how beautiful he is. My teeth lock together to stop myself from smiling nervously at him.
His mouth drops open in a ridiculous feigned expression of shock, his eyes still smiling with an annoying and endearing intent. “Woah, you have beautiful eyes.” He pokes his tongue out through his renewed grin and kicks his heels into his backside, mimicking me, making a show of being a cocky, teasing arsehole.
“And skin,” he confirms. “Great skin. Tanned, like mine. What ethnicity are you? Spanish or something?”
I still my legs, not having realised I was kicking them.
“Are you retarded?” I snap.