Hear Me Now by Melyssa Winchester

what I wrote to her is all an attempt to screw her over, why does what happened a few minutes ago, the way she looked crumpled on the floor bother me so bad?
     
    Cadence
     
    God, I wa nt to look at that paper.
    It’s been sitting here for the last twenty minutes calling to me, begging m e to reach out to grab it and read it, but I’ve forced myself not to. It’s getting harder to do, but after what happened at the end of lunch, the last thing I want is to see anything he’s got to say.
    You saw the look on his face in the hall. There’s more going on.
    Crap. I’m gonna end up looking at the paper if I keep thinking stuff like this. Yeah I saw the look when I fell and I saw the way his laughter at Eric earlier didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it means nothing. He’s an asshole and for Dillon Murphy, that’s a stain you can’t wash off no matter how hard you scrub at it.
    I’m just thankful that so far Eric hasn’t said a word about what happened. When I got back to class, I expected him to say something to my mom and for her to question me about it, but she hasn’t paid any attention to me at all. It seems like she’s going along with what I told her I wanted this morning. She wasn’t going to call attention to the fact that I’m her daughter and I’ve never been as thankful for that then I am right now.
    On the way up the stairs we met up with Kayden and Isabelle and while Eric and Kayden stopped to talk once we got to the top, I just stood and watched everyone moving around me. It’s only when I saw hands moving that I realized Isabelle was signing. Missing some but able to pick up on what she wanted to know, I wasn’t having any part of it. I know she only wanted to help, they both do, but where they might see me as weak because of my disability, that’s the last thing I am.
    I don’t n eed them worrying or trying to help me out with the hazing problem because they’ve been through it before. I just need the entire thing forgotten about.
    It’s only after I completely turned away from her, tired of watching her attempts at getting me to talk that she tried a different approach. I felt the buzzing against my side and pulling my phone out, saw the screen lit up with a text from my new friend.
     
    ~*~*~
     
    I didn’t want to talk about it either and that’s okay, but if you ever do wanna talk, you should do what I did with Kayden.
    It’s only when she shakes her phone at me that I get it. She’s telling me I can text her.
    If you’re ever in a situation that you can’t get out of , text me.
    I know she means well, but I’m gonna be here for two weeks, not the next two years, so odds are as long as I keep myself off the radar like I planned on doing from the beginning, I won’t find myself in a situation like the one she’s getting at. Even if I do, I’ll figure my own way out of it. No pity help needed.
     
    ~*~*~
     
    Okay, I’ve waited long enough. The lined paper has drilled a hole through me to the point where thinking about anything else is pointless. Sliding my hand across the desk, I bring the paper toward me slowly, until it’s directly in front of me and doing what I’ve spent at least the last thirty minutes dying to do, I open it up and read the words printed there.
    I know you don’t even want to look at me right now, but I just want to say I’m sorry for what happened at lunch. It wasn’t supposed to go down that way and I had no idea she was gonna do that to you. Forgive me?
    Damnit.
    I never should have opened the stupid paper. Dillon is a jerk. I need to remember that. He’s just doing this now to get to me; it’s how he operates. All bullies operate the same way. No matter how much I want to believe in the words on the paper, I need to remember exactly who it is that’s saying them. As long as I do that, his stupid words can’t get to me.
    Except they are getting to me.
    Crap. Crap. Crap.
    Pulling my hair down over my face so he won’t catch what I’m about to