Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,77
tried to say something but spat crimson droplets into the air, like a fountain. I pressed my forearm against his throat. “Stop laughing. You’re rotting from the inside,” I snarled, in a voice foreign even to me. “You hear me?”
His eyes had widened for a second, but now they narrowed. His mouth parted, revealing a black window in his once perfect set of pearly whites.
“Nick, stop it!” someone called down the hall. Taryn. I turned to see her running toward me, two teachers and a security guard on her heels.
I released him. “Freak,” he sputtered, clamping his hand over his bloody nose. “You broke my nose. My tooth.”
“You’re rotting. Go to the doctor. He’ll tell you,” I muttered as the security guard grabbed me from behind. The bell screamed overhead as I turned to follow.
Sphincter’s arm candy, the other students in the hall, Taryn … Everyone was looking at me in the same way as the guard led me away. Like I was, just as Sphincter had said, Crazy Cross. It wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. Strangely, it was a relief to stop pretending and finally own up to what I really was.
“Suspended on the first day of school,” Nan said under her breath as we pulled up the driveway. We were both sitting in the back of Bill Runyon’s Land Rover, being chauffeured like celebrities. She’d had to call around to get someone to drive her, and Bill was the lucky winner. I could tell the second she came to pick me up that she was pissed, because she didn’t bother to say hello to the ladies in the principal’s office and her face looked like she’d sucked on lemons. Bill was cordial when I’d first gotten into the car, but eventually he fell under Nan’s spell and just drove, though I caught him inspecting me a few times in the rearview mirror. After fifteen minutes of icy silence, I was kind of relieved when words finally erupted from her mouth.
I didn’t answer. I was busy staring at my knuckles. They were red and ached. Maybe my hand was broken.
“For an entire week, no less,” she said when Bill threw the car into park in front of the house. She pulled open the door and thanked Bill.
As I got out of the car, Bill whispered to me, “You know, kid. Take it easy. You’re going to be the death of her.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I mumbled, slamming the door with unnatural force. I rolled my eyes and they caught on the sky. The clouds were perfectly round and white in the shockingly blue sky, like stepping stones to heaven. I pulled open the front door and trudged into the house. The floorboard at the doorway to my mom’s room creaked. I knew she was standing there, waiting to give me crap. I climbed the stairs quickly, but she’d already begun her assault: “Suspension? Nick! You will mess up your life!”
“You already took care of that,” I muttered, slamming the door behind me. It was about a thousand degrees in my room. I opened a window and stripped off my T-shirt and jeans, then lay in bed in my boxers, clenching and unclenching my fist, massaging my knuckles. Okay, maybe my hand wasn’t broken. But that still didn’t stop the rest of me from feeling like crap.
About ten minutes later, someone knocked on the door. “Go away,” I muttered, figuring it was Nan bringing me crackers or a cool washcloth or whatever it was she felt I needed at this time. I tried to convince myself I didn’t need anything from anyone, that all I wanted was to be left alone. But the thought of being alone felt like stumbling down a long dark hole with no idea what was at the bottom.
The door opened a crack. Leave it to Nan to never listen to my pleas for privacy. I looked up, about to yell at her, and instead of Nan’s wizened face, I saw platinum blond curls. “Can I come in?” Taryn asked softly.
“What? No.” I stumbled over my words, then realized I was practically naked and did a visual check for my jeans. All the way on the other side of the room. Great. Luckily my T-shirt was within arm’s distance, mingling with some dirty socks and underwear on the floor. I grabbed the shirt and threw it over my head. “Why—why are you here? You should be in school.”
She opened the door wider. Her hair looked as if