A More Deserving Blackness by Angela Wolbert Read Free Book Online

nose.
                  “What?” Dylan barks, his tone suddenly acidic.
                  “Leave her alone, Dylan,” the low voice says, unmistakably male and, for some reason, unmistakably pissed.  It’s instantly familiar to me, vaguely unsettling, even though I don’t recognize it.
                  “Or what?” Dylan bites back crudely.
                  I fight to control my panicked breathing, fight to control the fraught way I’m scraping my thumb over and over across my wrist, fight to control the deafening screams no one else can hear, but his hands are one me and his body is pressing against mine and my back is against the wall and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.
                  “What are you gonna do?” Dylan demands.
                  “Let.  Her.  Go.” 
                  Despite the obvious threat the voice holds, breaking through the dull roar of everything, Dylan only pulls me tighter, his breath in my ear.  I taste bile splash in the back of my throat.
                  “If she doesn’t want to she can say so on her own.”
                  A second goes by in silence and suddenly I realize I’m just standing there screaming myself hoarse even though no one can hear me and I elbow him, hard in the ribs, forcing his body a few inches from mine. 
                  It doesn’t help me breathe.  I thought it would help me breathe, but it doesn’t.
                  Dylan smiles like it’s all a game and his weight shifts like he’s going to crush down onto me again but that’s as far as he gets because a hand comes out of nowhere and smashes into his chest with enough force to rap his head back against the wall.
                  “Leave her alone, asshole.” 
                  “Fuck off, Brenner!”
                  Dylan must’ve made some other infinitesimal movement because once again he’s slammed back into the wall.  His head bounces and just that fast the other guy is up in his face, so close he all but blocks Dylan from my view with the back of his dark head but it doesn’t matter now.  I’m too far gone.
                  “She doesn’t talk and you fucking know it you fucking shit.”
              I hear this snarled as I stumble away from the hallway, pushing toward the door, desperate to breathe. 
                  My heart is still lodged somewhere in my throat, choking me, and I stumble and crash through the door, down the steps, the cold night air biting my arms and I keep going, away from the lights of the house, past the haphazardly parked cars in the grass out front.  I have no destination beyond away.  God, get me away.
                  I can’t hear anything but the screaming.
                  I stumble what feels like far enough, through a few neighboring yards and up toward the drainage ditch by the road before I stop, brace a shaking hand against the rough bark of a tree, and vomit up what little I had in my stomach.
                  It doesn’t make me feel any better.
                  The cold of the air is soothing, but only marginally.  My throat hurts.  My stomach twists and heaves again but nothing else emerges, just an awful gagging sound leaking from my lips.  My mouth is dry and horrible.  My wrist is screaming with sharp pain.
                  I spin around, scuttling back like some spineless thing when I hear footsteps behind me.
                  It takes me a second through my panic to recognize the guy standing a few steps back from me and my tree.  The guy from my health class that no one ever spoke to.  Dark hair, dark eyes, black jacket and jeans.  From the way he’d followed me out here, I realize he must also have been the owner of that