Hello. Welcome. I usually reserve author notes for the end of each chapter so that they can be easily ignored by people who don't care about my rambling.
However, this particular note is a trigger warning:
Triggers abound. Your media consumption is your responsibility. If you feel that discussion of suicide from a suicidal character's point of view and bullying, abuse, and assault from a bullied, abused, and assaulted character's point of view will negatively affect your own mental or physical well-being, do not read past this point.
For everyone else, sorry about the spoilers. Please let me know what you think about how I've handled such sensitive topics. This work isn't quite as humorous as my usual fare, but I hope that it's a realistic but not too dark take on the often overly romanticized concept of imprinting.
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Chapter 1 – Five out of Seven
Five out of seven mornings each week, Ruby Kayad woke up and immediately weighed the prospect of going to school against the prospect of killing herself. Most of those mornings, the former won out solely because she had yet to settle on a suitable method for accomplishing the latter. She didn't have or know anyone who would loan or sell her a gun. Pills failed more often than they succeeded and would probably involve vomiting, which she despised. Wrecking her mom's car seemed like a total dick move. Hanging seemed painful. Opening a vein seemed… messy. Ditto for lying down on the train tracks and walking into traffic. Throwing herself from a high cliff and letting the ocean deal with her earthly remains probably would've been the best option, but Ruby was so averse to heights that she couldn't get anywhere near the edge without collapsing from terror and vertigo. She'd sure as fuck tried enough times to know that for sure.
After wallowing in such thoughts for three to four snooze cycles, Ruby always eventually gave up on suicide and reluctantly surrendered to the torture of life and high school.
"HEY, FREAK!"
When she first started getting picked on, way back in second grade, Ruby went to her mother for help. Her mother's genius advice had been to ignore the bullies: if they didn't manage to provoke a reaction, they'd get bored and go away. For a short time, that worked on some bullies, even most bullies. However, the strategy did not work on Paul Lahote. And because Paul refused to quit, the rest of the mouth-breathers, knuckle-draggers, and assorted plebs jumped right back on the Ruby-is-a-freak-and-deserves-to-be-tortured bandwagon.
"I'M TALKING TO YOU, FREAK!"
During the years since, most of her peers and even some of her teachers had apparently assumed that she was deaf, mute, or both. The girl understood how people had arrived at the false conclusion: the only time Ruby drew any notice was when she was utterly ignoring asinine harassment from pathetic A-holes who had nothing better to do than persecute and brutalize another human being, driving her closer and closer to her breaking point.
Five out of seven mornings each week, someone—usually Paul—did his or her best to stand between Ruby and her state-mandated education; "brave" individuals and jeering troops of glorified howler monkeys did their best to hurt her, to make her feel scared and miserable and all-around worthless while she stubbornly refused to show even a hint of the fact that they were succeeding and thereby causing her to sincerely doubt whether such an existence was worth living.
Paul was always the worst—the one idiot out of the sea of idiots who could really get under her skin and make her battered heart hurt even deep within the leathery callouses that had grown around it over the years. The reaction was absurd, of course. He was a nobody from nowhere—a fuckup, an underachiever, the bitter offspring of violence and hatred whose only purpose seemed to be spawning more of both in the world. His words shouldn't have had the power they did.
Ruby knew that. She told herself that all the time in internal pep talks, rants, and admonishments alike. Regardless, she felt every cruel, snide remark like a physical wound, none of which ever healed, all of which festered and left the rail-thin girl in intense spiritual, emotional, and psychological agony.
Right on cue, the tall boy shoved her into the mud. Shaking convulsively, he loomed over her. For some reason, he looked irate rather than smug. Usually, watching her suffer caused the obvious future serial killer to exude sick delight. However, on that particular morning, he instead radiated murderous intent. "ANSWER ME!" he shrieked, massive hands balled and vibrating at his sides, ready to lash out at a moment's notice. "Open your fat fucking mouth and answer me now!" the sweaty teen snarled, stomping closer, kicking Ruby hard in the thigh when she declined to speak or flinch or cower or even attempt to crawl away. "Who do you think you are to ignore me, you retarded fucking FREAK?!"
As usual, Ruby said nothing. Hell, she didn't even look up from the mud soaking into her jeans. She trusted that Paul would get his daily fix of sadism and then be on his merry way.
However, on that particular day, the boy had apparently decided to escalate his favorite pastime. He fell upon her like a whirlwind, slamming down with his full and not inconsiderable body weight and then with a barrage of heavy fists.
Ruby curled into a ball, instinctively using her arms to cover her vulnerable head—but not nearly fast enough to avoid a split lip and a black eye and a gnarly concussion. Various bones and tendons snapped in her shoulder and her side. While she struggled to breathe past the accompanying pain, she distantly realized that Paul might in fact be trying to kill her. Despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction, she decided to be ok with that. Actually, it was a tidy and convenient solution to her suicide dilemma. Suicide by bully: Was that a thing? Did it even apply? She hadn't provoked any confrontation but also couldn't be bothered to defend herself at all, so the distinction likely didn't matter.
Maybe the whole scenario was even slightly poetic: the boy who'd made her life not worth living was finally doing her the favor of ending it, and a murder conviction would destroy his own life as well.
Unfortunately, people (later revealed to be Sam Uley and Jared Cameron) intervened to yank Paul off her and drag him into the trees—even as the hysterical jerk flailed and cursed and spat and kept trying to return to his determined attempt at homicide.
With the spectacle over, the small crowd that had stopped to watch dispersed. No one offered Ruby any help or even checked to see if she was conscious or alive. At least twenty minutes passed before she managed to get herself standing, vertical but hunched over as she chose to shamble home and hole herself up in her dark bedroom.
Ruby's mom wasn't the most attentive parent, but when she got home from work that night to find her daughter beaten to hell, Miriam Kayad became absolutely livid. She dragged Ruby to the hospital, and after managing to pry out of the girl the story of who assaulted her and who did fuck-all to help her, Ruby's mom filed a police report and a restraining order.
Although she tried not to, Ruby felt immensely bitter at the fact that the three most prominent elders—Old Quil Ateara, Chief Billy Black, and Harry Clearwater—were all waiting at her house when she returned from the emergency room the following evening. She wasn't surprised but was surprisingly heartbroken to hear that they weren't there to check up on or comfort her.
They were there to convince her and her mom to drop the charges against Paul.
"If that waste of carbon comes near my daughter again," Mom hissed as she stared down their guests, "I will kill him." She then spat a few Quileute words that translated to something along the lines of You have shamed your ancestors. I hope you get eaten by a vampire.
For some reason, Quileutes were really obsessed with vampires.
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A month later, after many threats of violence and lawsuits, Ruby's mom and the elders arrived at an agreement.
(1) Miriam Kayad would drop the charges against Paul and stop trying to murder him. (She'd actually come close a few times, nearly mowing him down with her janky little Buick and then complaining for several days after about the behemoth's surprisingly quick reflexes.)
(2) Ruby Kayad would withdraw from the local high school and finish her diploma online; the tribe would pay all fees and tuition involved, including transportation to test centers if needed. The elders would also cover the girl's medical bills and even throw in a nice little scholarship to help her through the first year of a community college education. From a tribe that wasn't particularly well-off, the funds were substantial and would ensure that the next four graduating classes would have no field trips, sports teams, or dances.
(3) Paul Lahote would stay at least one hundred yards away from all Kayads at all times. He would complete anger management classes and serve one thousand hours of community service under the supervision of Old Quil and Sam Uley, respectively. In addition, Paul would apologize to Ruby.
"I don't want an apology," the girl mumbled as the adults began to wrap up the last of many long meetings and sign the appropriate contracts. Her arm was still in a sling. Every breath still hurt. Bright lights still made her head throb. But she was starting to look somewhat normal again—or at least less like a person who'd been pummeled nearly to death. She'd never been much to look at—too short, too skinny, too sad, too strange—but it would be nice to no longer see a battered victim in the mirror every morning.
"What was that, hon?" Chief Black inquired. Although generally kind and fair, he'd repeatedly demonstrated that he was on Paul's side—not hers.
Ruby couldn't see herself forgiving him or any of the other elders for that. "I said," she declared, as forcefully as possible despite her generally apathetic demeanor, "I don't want an apology. I don't want him near me, especially not for the purpose of parroting whatever empty bullshit you've crammed into his empty skull." Not wanting to stick around any longer, the girl stood and told her mother, "I'll be in the car." Within two strides, Ruby was at the door of the small conference room in the small tribal center. She had just touched her fingers to the knob when the heavy slab of wood began to swing toward her. She moved out of the way barely in time to avoid getting hit, hating herself for flinching harshly when she saw who was on the other side.
During the month since their last encounter, Paul had packed on an absurd amount of height and muscle; his hair was shorter, too, but he was still the same cocky jerk who strutted around like some deity's gift to the universe. The sight of him still made her cringe, made her want to crawl away into a small dark hole and stay there until she ceased to exist, until everything stopped hurting.
However, Paul's reaction to her in return was anything but typical. In fact, the second they made eye contact—an oddity attributable to the abruptness of the surprise encounter—he seemed to startle and freeze and then go wide-eyed and slack-jawed. His expression held no anger and was strangely… soft. Slowly, almost in a daze, he started to reach for her…
Ruby ducked beneath his arm and then scurried around the other shiftless, shirtless giants crowding the hallway. Even as she heard Paul shout out a strangled "Wait!" the girl continued to flee and, despite the ruckus that followed, certainly didn't bother glancing back.
She was done with Paul and people in general.
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So, thoughts? Ruby's journey is mostly up from this point, but as you might guess, dark moments, obstacles, and complications will arise.