Hateful by Eden Beck

Chapter Twelve

I lace up my shoes,throw on my hoodie layers, tug my beanie down over my ears, and head outside toward the hiking trails with a spring in my step. I’ve really started liking my afternoon runs, to the point where if I’m not able to do them—because of snow or whatever—I feel listless and slightly irritated, like a caffeine addict without their morning coffee.

Which is just great, because the last thing I need in my life right now is another addiction.

Today, however, I’m greeted with a surprise. As soon as I round the first bend outside the school on my way to the hiking trails, Heath is there, his phone in his gloved hands. He grins and tucks his phone in his pocket when he sees me.

“Heath?” I say uncertainly, my footsteps faltering as I approach. I take a hasty glance around the forest to make sure Beck isn’t leering behind one of the trees.

“Hey, Alex.” He grins, once I’m pretty sure he’s actually here alone. “Thought I’d join you. Like that one time we ran together.”

“You mean that one time you followed me?”

He shrugs. “You say tomato, I say to-mah-to.”

I stare at him a moment before letting out a long, exasperated sigh. “As long as you can keep up.”

He nods and I pick up the pace and he falls in next to me. I keep my lips pursed for the first leg of our journey. When I slow for my first break beneath an old, gnarled tree, Heath slows with me and eyes the snow around the base of it suspiciously.

“Wolf tracks,” he says, pointing. “That’s why I wanted to come, y’know. Make sure you’re not attacked.”

I roll my eyes as I open my water bottle. “Sure.”

They’re probably just coyotes or wild dogs. Even if they are wolves, they’ll rarely venture this close to town, not with the two schools right up here on either side of the valley.

“They’re a real threat!” Heath still insists. He leans against the tree and looks up into its branches. “These trails are nice, though. I can see why you’d want to come here.”

I watch him carefully. Jasper claims he didn’t tell Heath anything, not about me being a girl anyway … but what has he told Heath? Does he know Jasper kissed me, that Jasper has feelings for me?

My stomach twists. Does Jasper have feelings for me? Or is he just … confused?

Or lonely, with Olive out of the picture.

If Heath knows anything, he doesn’t indicate it in any way. He just drinks out of his own water bottle and waits for me to be ready to move again.

We keep running. Thankfully, Heath doesn’t have the breath to carry on a conversation once we’re really moving. I like to use these runs to think and focus, and him jabbering away at me would disrupt that. I kind of wish he’d talk a little, though.

Just … something. The silence with him beside me is unsettling.

My mind keeps wandering to Beck. He’s been upping the ante, and I feel like it’s only a matter of time before he does something really stupid.

Yesterday he followed me into the bathroom, grinning like a maniac, and only left when he realized some other boys were in the stalls; and that’s on top of the usual things like tripping me, knocking my books onto the floor, shoving me against walls as he passes by.

A few days ago he knocked my books into the snow, completely soaking an essay I’d already written and making me have to rewrite it. And I can’t keep re-doing assignments. Schoolwork has already begun to pile up. I’m already almost a week behind.

I’d forgotten how much The Brotherhood messing with me really affects everything. I’d forgotten what it was like to no longer be invisible.

“Time to head back,” I finally tell Heath, slowing to turn around once we’ve reached the furthest part of the trail I’ve taken to running. The path gets narrower here, and with the freezing air and snow, I don’t dare see where it leads from here.

“Sure,” he replies cheerfully. He follows my lead.

We run back together, but Heath drops his speed drastically at the first bend where I met him at the beginning of the run. I pause and look back at him, confused.

“Go on,” he says, stopping to bend down. “My shoe’s untied.”

I feel my foot bouncing anxiously. I glance back over my shoulder towards the school. It isn’t far.

“I can wait. We’re almost back to the school.”

But Heath just shakes his head again. I try to get a look at what he’s doing with his shoe, but it kind of just looks like he’s tying and untying the same laces.

“It’s really fine. Go on ahead.”

I stare at him for a few moments while he continues to fumble with his shoelaces. After the moment stretches on uncomfortably, with Heath glancing up at me and then down the trail awkwardly several times, I do as he asks.

I turn and jog back to the school alone. I look up as I get closer to the school, and I immediately understand.

The windows up there are at a weird angle to the hiking trails. I’d never thought of it before, but someone looking through them wouldn’t be able to see past the first bend.

It’s obvious now. Heath doesn’t want to be seen with me.

Fine,I think, increasing my speed as I reach the courtyard. Maybe I don’t want to be seen with him, either. Maybe it’s better this way.

But a pit forms in my stomach and stays there for days.

I keep wondering when these games are going to end, but in my heart, I know the answer.

The games end when I leave Bleakwood … one way or another.

* * *

History class looms again.I’m more than a little behind on my coursework, but the professor surprisingly gives me a little slack. I guess he’s seen a couple of times Beck has ruined my papers, and he’s actually being merciful about it.

The professor is nowhere to be seen when I walk into the room today. I’ve grown to dread this class since the professor is so often late. The Brotherhood is here, of course, and Beck’s eyes immediately snap to me. I try to scoot past his desk before he can do anything, but he rockets to his feet and grabs hold of the collar of my school jacket. I fidget, trying to pull away, but he’s got a good fistful of material.

“Going so soon?” he asks, maliciousness so thick in his voice that it makes me do a double take.

What is this?Jasper used to be the one with the temper.

Is this all because of the kiss … or is it because of the way I blurted that little bit of news out at the winter dance?

I suppose I haven’t seen anything of his little girl, what was her name … Becky? Or was that just a name I gave her?

None of that matters, however. Not with Beck’s hand still tugging on the back of my jacket like he’s going to strangle me with it.

“I just want to sit down, Beck,” I reply quietly. I tug on my jacket to try and wrench it from his grasp.

“You’re The Brotherhood’s bitch, remember? You do what we want, not what you want.”

I look over at Heath and Jasper. Heath, at least, has earbuds blasting music so loudly I can hear the tinny sound of it from here, and he’s so focused on some magazine on his desk that he hasn’t noticed what’s unfolding before him. Jasper is just pretending not to notice.

Beck tugs me closer to his desk. He hasn’t called me The Brotherhood’s bitch in quite a long time. I’d almost forgotten about it.

Almost.

“That’s enough,” the professor says from the doorway, and I look at him in astonishment. He looks very uncomfortable, and he doesn’t relax until Beck releases his grip on me and I scurry off to my desk. Even then he still seems tense. Beck stares daggers at him. All three of them are used to getting their way, doing whatever they want with no consequences.

It’s extremely rare for them to be reprimanded.

So rare, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it.

Maybe Headmistress Robin isn’t the only one who’s grown tired of this. Maybe some of the professors—or this one, at least—are starting to question the whole tradition.

History class goes well for me after that. The professor even asks for me to stay after class, which means Beck is long gone by the time I exit.

“I just wanted to give you some extra copies of the worksheet,” he says sheepishly as I stand in front of his desk. “Since you keep … losing … them.”

“Right. Thank you.” Neither of us mention Beck.

I pause in the hallway to tuck the extra worksheet copies into my history folder, then turn toward the door that leads me to my little smoking spot. I don’t want to smoke anymore. It tears up my lungs and makes it hard to run, but my voice needs to remain believable as a boy.

I also can’t pretend that I don’t feel a sense of relief when I take that first drag and the nicotine floods into my system.

I set my backpack down at my feet and lean back against the wall. It’s cold. It’s February in Switzerland, after all—the dead of winter. The snow probably won’t start to melt until late March. But I’ve gotten a little acclimated to it, and I even enjoy it now. I love the way the grounds look under a blanket of crisp white snow. And, of course, the mountains in the distance sure are a sight to behold.

The door next to me opens and I try to hide my cigarette, but it’s just Jasper. Again. He holds up his hand with a smirk as he sees me scrambling.

“Calm down,” he laughs.

I stare at him in disbelief for a moment before turning my head away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him point at the pack of cigarettes in my hand, and before he can ask again, I toss him the entire pack.

“Brought my own lighter this time,” he says.

“Cool,” is my only response in the flattest tone I can manage.

I just keep my head trained straight ahead. If he thinks I’m just going to forget what he said last time, or how he’s just been letting Beck pick up the slack where he left off in the bullying department, he’s dead wrong.

I hear him slide a cigarette out and the clicking of the lighter as he lights it. The smoke he exhales makes its way around into my field of vision.

And then I feel him sidle up next to me, his arm sliding behind my back to pull me against him. I lean against him without thinking as his lips brush against my ear.

“Some class today, huh?” he asks quietly.

A white-hot rage flares up in my stomach, and I suddenly remember myself and step away from him, shoving him back. The pack of cigarettes falls to the ground. I scoop it up and shove it back into my pocket.

“Some class?” I repeat, flabbergasted. “Is that what you call it?

Jasper frowns as he takes another drag. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” I sputter. I have no clue what to say to him. How can he not see what’s wrong? “Beck’s been back to bullying me for weeks now. Today he called me The Brotherhood’s bitch. And you haven’t stepped in.”

He shrugs. “You are The Brotherhood’s bitch.”

I feel heat rise to my cheeks, and I turn away to blow an angry puff on my cigarette. When I turn back, Jasper still regards me with a calm, confused expression.

“So that’s not over, then? That’s not behind us?”

“It’s tradition.” He shrugs. “That’s just how it’s always been.”

“And you obviously haven’t told Heath and Beck about … about all this,” I add, because that’s been eating away at me, too.

He frowns and shakes his head. “No. I can’t. Not without telling them you’re a girl, and I can’t do that without—”

His lips purse together.

“So, it’s your image you’re worried about.”

“Hey—you signed up for this, not me,” Jasper snaps. “You came knowingly to an all-boys school and chose to dress up like a boy. What, you thought it’d be easy? You didn’t think it would be different from the public schools you’re used to?” His lip curls as he says “public schools”, as though he has so much disdain for them they make him want to retch. “You didn’t think this would be hard?”

This time it’s tears that I feel. “I didn’t think someone who liked me would be making it harder for me.”

Jasper scoffs, takes another drag, and throws his cigarette into the snow, where it fizzles out. “Well, you’re looking more and more like a girl every day.” His cheeks color. “I haven’t been able to keep my eyes off you. You’re getting … curvy.”

I’m speechless at that. So speechless that I can’t bring myself to protest when he throws open the door and disappears inside it.

But not before he utters something that sounds much too close to a threat to be ignored.

“If you’re not careful, soon I won’t be the only one struggling to keep my hands off you.”