He hit us because we were picking on the girl two grades younger than us.

I don’t think so.

She’s already there by the time I get to our spot. The rat doll thing is perched next to her, holding half a cracker, while the other is between her teeth, nibbling away like a rabbit as she reads her book.

The same pathetic sandwich is on the same useless, ripped plastic bag. Her pigtails are messier than yesterday, with one sitting near the center of her head and one just above the ear, tied with mismatching hair ties.

Her shoes are holey. A church would be jealous.

Her top is ripped.

The second she sees me, she becomes the same scared mouse from yesterday, hunching her shoulders and staring at the ground as if she’s willing me to go away.

I drop beside her, and she flinches, even though I am a safe distance away.

That needs to stop.

I’m not going to hurt her. Other people can try to.

Besides a sideways glance of curiosity, she doesn’t acknowledge me as I pull out Ugly’s or Skinny’s lunch box, clicking the side open and revealing the type of lunch I thought she would have.

A banana and a decent slice of bread with chicken, mayo, and greens layered in the middle. I push a finger into the bread, checking that it wouldn’t pass as cardboard.

“Eat.” I shove the whole container in her direction and grab her untouched sandwich.

Her eyes grow wide as I take a bite of the awful thing—I’m not even going to call it food.

I bare my teeth out of reflex when she snatches the bread from my hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Her pigtails swing side to side as she shakes her head frantically, trembling as she rips her sandwich in half to push it back into my hand.

Is she serious right now? She’s going to hog a sandwich and a half all to her—

She also tears the other sandwich in half, leaving one on the container and bringing the other to her lips.

“We’ll each have a side,” she says.

I shove the sandwich she made into my mouth and swallow it down. The other one tastes better than anything I’ve eaten in a long time.

Her gaze is trained on me with keen interest. “I thought you shouldn’t share food.”

“Shut up. You don’t count.”

She looks up at me with her little button nose and ridiculous hair, and her eyes sparkle with something I can only call admiration. She’s looking at me like I’m her savior. Just because of a piece of bread?

If she doesn’t stop acting like this, she will get eaten alive by people far worse than the two boys, who are probably still crying over a bit of pain.

But she doesn’t look away; with each bite, the light in her eyes only grows brighter. That look… I’ve never seen that look before. At least not when I’m involved.

And I don’t know if I like it.

It’s weird.

I clear my throat to end the silence as I bounce my foot. “Roman.”

Her little forehead wrinkles. “Huh?”

“My name.”

She blinks. “Oh.” Does this girl ever say more than a few words? What is wrong with her? She clears her throat and frowns at the ground between us as she says, “Woah-man.”

“What? No. Roman.”

She sucks her bottom lip and hides part of her face behind a pigtail. “Woah-man.”

“No, it’s—" I snap my mouth shut.

What did Ugly and Skinny tell her to say yesterday? Raspberry…? The angry beast—the same one that Margaret is always telling me I need to learn to control—rears its head.

Those dickwads.

“It doesn’t matter.” I try to save her from feeling bad. “I don’t like the name anyway.”

She looks back up at me, almond-shaped eyes glossed over, and I want to yell at myself for making them that way.

In her sweet voice, she says, “I do.”

“Why?”

I’ve never liked my name. No one has ever said it with any sort of love or care. It’s thrown around like some kind of insult.

The book she was reading flips to the cover page, where there are twelve drawings of different men and women with golden leaves around their heads and what look like white sheets wrapped around their bodies.

A tiny finger points to one of the men whose eyes are narrowed, covered in armor with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. “He looks like a Woahman, just like you.”

“It says his name is Ares.”

She nods thoughtfully. “But he looks like a Roman.” The ‘R’ still comes out as a ‘W.’

“It says he’s the God of War.”

Brown eyes peer at the writing, and her mouth moves like she’s sounding out the word. I don’t think she knows what it means.

I shrug. “Still don’t like it.”

She twists her lips, looking around our nook like she might find a response somewhere. Her attention lands on her toy, and I practically see the lightbulb go off in her head.

“How about Mickey?”

My lips twist into a scowl. “Are you calling me a rat?”

The hold she has on me the second she laughs is immediate. I’ve never heard anything like it. There’s joy in there, but something more. It’s like the feeling I have when I finally have a meal or when the sounds in my head stop.

“No, silly. He’s a mouse. You can be Mickey, and I can be Minnie.” She sighs in wonder as she hugs the decrepit thing to her chest. “Mouses are my favorite.”

Mice, I think.

It’s fitting for her.

“What if I don’t want to call you Minnie? What can I call you then?”

The look that flushes her face is worse than getting kicked in the balls. I’ve disappointed her. I’m not sure why.

She chews her lip. “Isabella. But everyone calls me Isa.”

Her name triggers some distant memory. “I’ll call you Bella.” Because she’s the only person I’ve ever met who deserves to be called pretty. Even with her messed up hair and inside-out ripped t-shirt.

“But—"

I stop her before she tries to protest. “I like Bella.”

Her smile is bright enough to stop the sun, and with it, maybe even my plans of escaping this place.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 3

ISABELLA

Present

Roman pulls away once the bleary haze takes root in my bones, numbing me to my thoughts.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Where would I go? I wasn’t the one who left in the first place. I’m still caught in the web of our making, stuck under a roof where every breath feels like it could be used against me.

I barely register the feel of his lips pressed against my forehead before he leaves. I hardly hear the slap of boots hitting wood, leaving me to stare blankly at the line of scarlet splatter on the flyers stuck to the fridge.

It’s hard to think the fridge containing leftover dinner is in the same room as the man slaughtered by my childhood love. It doesn’t match the purge mask sitting in a pool of blood on the table, right next to yesterday’s newspaper, Millie’s cross-stitch supplies, and Greg’s severed fingers.

The dishes drying on the rack don't match the body hanging from the beam in the living room. Mundane things surrounded by broken parts, which are all out of place. It’s just like my hollow heart.

There was never any hope in this house. No one here saw a future beyond these walls, or the hardware store Greg and Millie own—owned.

Marcus was always meant to suffer because of his own sick desires. Greg was always meant to die facing the consequences of his actions, whether drinking or sitting idle. And me? I was always meant to be broken by the boy who put me together.

It’s funny how life turns out.

Roman could hurt me a thousand ways, and he wouldn’t need to lay a hand on me; a single word, and I would be done for. The sight of his back as he walks away would be enough, and nothing would put me back together.