CHAPTER 6: THE GOLDEN BOY

Just like the way my hand moved before I could control it, my legs do the same. Suddenly, I’m flagging down a taxi in front of the restaurant, I’m getting in and rambling off our home’s address to the driver. I’m trying to sit still in the backseat of the car, to calm my trembling lips and hands as the world blurs past.

In the midst of the chaos going on inside my head, I find my phone, dialing Cassidy’s number.

“Hey, how did it go?” She speaks as soon as she picks up her phone.

“Do you think I can stay with you for a while?” I don’t say how long it will be, because I don’t know, I haven’t thought it through. I just know that I need time away from my mother. I have had enough, I have endured enough.

“Of course, my parents would love to have you.” Cassidy responds in a heart beat, but ever so perceptive, she adds quietly, “Addie, are you okay? Did something happen?”

“I’ll be there soon.” Is all I say before I end the call and turn off my phone so that mum’s calls won’t go through even if she tries.

As soon as I’m home, I make a beeline for my room, snatching up my bags that are still very much unpacked after returning home from the dorm last night. I add a few more clothes and necessities, just enough to last me for the next three months of summer if need be.

As I continue to pack, I hear the faint sound of the front door opening, followed by heavy footsteps coming in the direction of my room.

She stops at the doorway. “What was that, Adeline?” Her voice carries across my room, the anger in it unmistakable. Not to mention that she also called me by my full name, something she hasn’t done in years. I don’t look at her, stuffing even more clothes into the bag.

“I’m going to stay at Cassidy's.” I drop the bomb.

Mum moves further into the room, standing above my crouched frame, hands on her hips. “No, you’re not.”

“I don’t want to do this with you. If you are sorry about what you just put me through, you will let me leave.”

“Sorry?” She scoffs, “if anyone should be apologizing, it is you. I didn’t raise you to put your hands on innocent people.”

I can’t immediately tell what causes the harsh buzz in my head at those words; my mother not seeing that I did that for her, or the fact that she put James and ‘innocent’ in the same sentence. I just know it causes me to spring up to face her.

“I can’t believe you right now. That ‘innocent’ boy called you a..a…God, I can’t even bring myself to say it out loud.” I’m trembling again. I tried so hard to stop it on my way home, but here I am again, shaking like a drenched puppy while my mother looks at me like I have committed a grave offense by rising to her defense.

“He doesn’t mean it. James is a fragile boy, and I understand why he feels protective of his father. You won’t get it.”

I feel dizzy instantly, the feeling hitting me smack in the head. I don’t recognize the woman standing in front of me. She doesn’t feel like my mother. This woman standing here, defending the boy I hate with every fiber of my being, speaking as if she knows him, doesn’t feel like the mother I know.

And for what? For a place in their lives? It makes me sick. It makes my chest expand with more hatred for James than any human heart should possibly contain.

“But you don’t understand me?” I ask; it’s quiet, it’s tormented. “You don’t understand why I feel protective of you but you understand him, a mere stranger?”

Her brown eyes, a very replica of mine, bores into me with a mix of emotions that are suddenly too complicated for me to decipher. Perhaps I don’t know my mother as much as I thought I did.

“Addie, it’s not like that. What I’m saying is that it was wrong to hit him.” She says, sighing softly.

The more she speaks, the more my anger flares.“Are you not angry? Are you not embarrassed? Why would you want to be with a family that talks about you like that?”

Why is she fighting me for being the only sensible one here? She doesn’t say anything. I realize then that I don’t need to hear her answer. The silence is enough to tell me what I need to know.

“If you want to fight for your right to be called degrading names like that, go on, but don’t drag me into it.”

“Addie—”

“I will not live under the same roof as the three of you, pretending to be one happy family. So go ahead, it’s your funeral.”

I stuff my remaining clothes in the boxes, zip them up and drag them out of the room. She doesn’t stop me, doesn’t say a word and even that causes a devastating ache in my heart.

Because it’s clear now more than ever, that my mother chose them over me.

*****

“YOU SLAPPED WHO?!” Cassidy’s yell almost splinters my eardrums. I roll my eyes, feeling yet another tinge of anger because why is everyone so fixated on the fact that I slapped that jerk and not my own feelings?

“He had it coming.” Oh, he has had it coming for a very long time. Boy, did it feel good to slap that stupidly handsome face. I regret nothing. The only regret I feel is that I didn’t wait to see his reaction before bolting out of there.

Cassidy stands in the middle of her room, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“I don’t think you understand how crazy this is. You slapped the school's golden boy!”

“I’m sorry, what part of James Sullivan, my royal pain in the ass, is going to be my stepbrother isn’t crazy? That is what you should be freaking out about.”

Cassidy sucks in an exhausted breath, tilting her frames up her eyes in a force of habit as she comes closer to where I was perched on her bed. “Addie, I love you, but you can’t be this self-destructive. Did you forget what he’s capable of? How many students have been forced to transfer schools because of him?”

Ten. That’s the number of people James has forced out of Nexus High. The actual reason is never explicitly stated by anyone, but it is whispered in the classes, in the hallways and in the dorms. Every single one of them had crossed him in one way or the other.

He is one grudge-holding, unforgiving demon who controls even the school authorities.

“And I bet those people didn’t even touch a single hair on his head.” Cassidy adds. My friend looks more afraid for me than I am for myself.

“Well, I’ve come this far without getting expelled or transferred, haven’t I?” I say, crossing my arms. If James wanted to have me sent out of school, he would have done right after that incident that turned me to his plaything since the 9th grade.

“Because he let you. Because he probably sees you as a toy he can mess with when he’s bored. That’s how bullies think. With this new development, I don’t think he’ll care that much anymore.”

Her words sink in, settling deep in the pit of my stomach. Cassidy’s fear is real, it seeps into me and spreads its icy seeds. Can he really do that? Surely not. I can’t afford to have my last year in school derailed by a spoilt, ‘fragile’ brat. I need to graduate, I need to attend the best art college, I need to be far away from my mum.

“Oh my god.” Cassidy’s gasps tears through my thoughts. She’s looking down at her phone, fingers aggressively swiping.

“What? What is it?” I jerk upright on the bed. Cassidy hands me her phone. My eyes go as wide as saucers when I finally see what has her so panicked.

I’m staring down at a series of messages posted on the student webpage. Nexus arts and sciences dedicated a whole page for students to communicate their feelings—mostly anonymously—or to ask important questions.

James is currently using it to hunt me down. And he doesn’t give two shits about being anonymous as he goes out of his way to seek me out.

JAMES SULLIVAN—Does anyone have Adeline Caldwell’s number?

He has never used the page. Never. And the first time he does, it’s to look for me. The post has gathered quite a reaction, surprised emojis flying in every second I hold the phone. Anonymous people from all grades, arts and sciences alike, shamelessly fawning, dropping one shocked comment after the other like it’s the second coming of Christ.

Nexus Beaver—: Whoa, why is he looking for a girl’s number when school’s over?

Flygirl 24—: That’s new.

School is a scam—: oh my God, this is insane

James-Sullivan’s-no1-fangirl—:I’m so jealous. WHO IS SHE?

JS Wifey—Ughhh, he sounds soooooo hottttt.

I scroll away from that post and find another one right under it, posted within a few seconds after the first one.

JAMES SULLIVAN—Blonde. boring. nerd. a pain to look at. Ring a bell?

JAMES SULLIVAN—Her number or an address too. Anyone would do just fine.

This post gets even more reactions. The comments underneath it are too cringy for me to even go through so I simply scroll again.

JAMES SULLIVAN—I just want to pay a visit to a good friend.

Friend. I can hear the smirk behind it. I can see those full lips curling up at my misery. When he says that, I know it’s trouble.

I know it’s hell. His final post doesn’t only get more reactions than the last three combined, it also gives him exactly what he’s looking for. A rando I do not know actually drops my phone number under the comments.

I don’t have enough time to freak out before my phone rings beside me on the bed, startling me into a frozen state. An unknown number. James.

Cassidy has already snatched her phone from me and she is having a meltdown as she goes through the rest of the posts. “No no no. Is that him? Don’t tell me that’s him.”

I just sit there and let the phone ring. I sit there until the ringing finally stops and just when I think it’s over, a message pops up on the screen.

UNKNOWN NUMBER—Answer the phone, Caldwell. We have unfinished business.

When I don’t reply, another one comes in, even more jarring than the first.

UNKNOWN NUMBER—Don’t let me come find you, Caldwell. It’s not going to be pretty. Come to me while I’m playing nice.

My breathing is on hold as my eyes scan the message over and over until another one drops. The final one.

UNKNOWN NUMBER—Then I guess I’ll come find you. I hope you play hide and seek well.

And not even a second later, Cassidy’s mother’s voice rings through the house. “Cass, someone’s at the door!”