Dealing With It (Two Short Stories) (3 page)

The sound of the door opening then closing
caused me to look up sullenly. Four faces peered down at me. I
wasn’t surprised to see Bethany, Henry and the sweet brown-eyed boy
who I had been ignoring for weeks.

My boyfriend, Nathan.

I was surprised, though, to see Ms.
Sinclair.

None of them said anything as they continued
to look down at me.

I sighed and blinked up at them a few times,
wiping my tears away before I glanced away. Then I said the three
little words that I have been too scared to speak for so long, ever
so softly.

“I was raped.”

As soon as those words left my
lips, I felt an almost calmness that passed over me. I’d finally
admitted it. I was admitting to them—no, admitting to
myself
—all the torture that I had gone through those weeks
ago.

My eyes were closed and another tear escaped
and slowly rolled down my cheek. I waited for the reprimands that I
was sure would soon follow. That I should have been more careful.
That I should have fought harder. That I should have said
something.

But none of that happened.

Instead, Bethany dropped down to her knees
in front of me as her eyes teared up and she embraced me in the
tightest of holds. Henry did the same and enveloped both his arms
around us; I was swallowed up in a sea of arms.

And Nathan? The boy I loved but
had pushed away because his touch reminded me of that night
with
him
.

Nathan just silently stroked my hair as my
two friends embraced me, a silent tear falling down his face,
landing on my shoulder.

Grace stared down at me with knowing eyes
and nodded in understanding. I saw the determination in her eyes
and it made the pain around my heart soften.

I realized then that I had
people on my side. Not only the ones supporting me right now but
Robby, who always had my back.
Everything will be okay, Jenna.

Eventually.

THE END

A Mature YA/New Adult Contemporary Novella

Eighteen-year-old Jade Reamer is a tough girl with a
reputation to prove it. She loves three people and three people
only: her brother, her boyfriend, and her best friend. Everyone
else is irrelevant.

That is … until Reed enters the picture again.

Suddenly things start to spiral out of control and
things aren’t as they seem. Life is no longer simply black and
white, love versus hate. Suddenly, it’s hard to figure out which of
those four letter words is true.

Especially when she can’t look away from those devil
eyes.

I love you. I hate you. I love you. I hate you.
Which is it? I don’t even know anymore.

Well, let’s find out.

See sneak peek
→

I HAVE TO do this bullshit English
assignment on the topic of love and hate, and discuss the
similarities between the two. You know, considering they’re such
polar opposites. Life is just full of love-hate relationships,
isn’t it? Then there are those people that you just love to hate. I
believe you’d call that an oxymoron … although this assignment
seems rather moronic IMHO. Yes, Ms. Fields, I am calling this
assignment both bullshit and moronic, and if you don’t understand
my acronyms, you need to take a lesson in Slang 101 (insert
smirk).

This section right here is supposed to be
the blurb on what I’m going to be writing about in this paper, but
honestly I don’t feel the need to explain. You know what my life
has been like, Ms. Fields.

And apparently so does the rest of the
goddamn school.

Besides, I’m already passing this course due
to my incredibly gifted mind. And I know you secretly have a soft
spot for me, Ms. Fields. You know—that poor, misunderstood,
angst-driven student. I wouldn’t be doing myself justice if I did
this any other way.

So without further ado …

Reflecting is a powerful thing. It makes you
realize that not everything is as it seems, and that you should
have figured that out by now. The signs were blaringly obvious.

THE POWER OF three.

Three.

It was the number of people in my life that
I cared for more than life itself.

Yes, there was my mother and father but they
didn’t count. It was expected of me to love them, and occasionally
despise them for some of their less than perfect choices in life.
But you know, there was the whole unconditional love, providing
food and shelter, and a wonderful safe environment for their
offspring that sort of canceled out the hate.

Yup, that was my ma and pops.

But it always seemed as
if
three
was the amount of people I would give my heart to at any
given moment in time. The people might change now and again but the
number always seemed to stay the same.

That was deep … wasn’t it?

When I was five, it was Bryn, Reed and
Allison. But then Allison moved away so it became Bryn, Reed and
Melissa when I was ten. At fifteen, it turned into Bryn, Reed and
Nina.

Then it was Bryn, Nina and Connor.

Bryn, or rather B as I liked to call him,
was my brother. He was my best friend even though he was five years
older. Usually brothers ignore their younger siblings but he was
different. He didn’t think of me as a nuisance, this pest that
followed him around wherever he went. No, he loved me and protected
me—always had since I was a little girl. And although eighteen and
perfectly capable of fighting my own battles, that definitely
hadn’t changed much. Though there were a lot of bumps in the road
along the way.

I guess you could say we took care of each
other.

Nina was my best friend outside of my
family. For some reason I didn’t have many friends. Okay, let’s be
honest: girls hated my guts because I tended not to play nice and
could be quite bitchy when provoked.

Emphasis on provoked.

Honestly, they were just
jealous because my overprotective big brother never paid them any
attention when he came to pick me up from school, jealous because
they were just not as pretty as me. Yeah, I said it. They were
jealous because I knew how to throw a mean punch and knew how to
take a hit, whether verbally or physically. But anyway, this was
not what the assignment was about. No, this was about love and
hate—not
jealousy
.

So Nina was the only girl to make an effort
to befriend me. She was this tall, blonde thing, and the total
opposite of me in every way. But she didn’t put up with my bullshit
and always told it like it was. She was new to the school so
perhaps she hadn’t heard about my reputation as Big Bitch as of
yet.

The day I met her I’d been sitting off in
the corner by myself in the cafeteria when this blonde-haired,
blue-eyed girl sat right in front of me and just started digging
into her meal as if I wasn’t even there. I just silently looked at
her until she glanced up and finally noticed me gawking at her.
“You know if you don’t shut your mouth, it’ll freeze like that,”
she’d said with a drawl. Then she’d lifted her right hand up and
crossed her index and middle finger together as she gave me a sly
look with a wink. “Honest.”

Since then we were joined at the hip—I liked
her spunk.

Connor was my boyfriend. I met him when we
were both sixteen, a year after I had met Nina. I was stuck in
detention after having been in a fight with a girl who had called
me a name. I think it was bitch or something along those lines.
Anyway, I didn’t take too kindly to that and punched her in the
nose.

I happened to break said nose.

As a result, when the girl was probably
getting her nose splinted at the hospital, I was sitting in
detention after school, sucking on a caramel hard candy, staring
blankly at the wall in front of me, when I felt a shiver run down
my spine. I frowned, knowing someone must have been staring at me
hard. I turned around to give the person a piece of my mind when I
happened to lock gazes with a brown-haired, brown-eyed guy. He just
… looked at me with this glint in his eyes … and my mouth suddenly
went dry, my heart hammering in my chest. Only one other person had
ever made me feel like he had at that very moment.

Like prey.

I quickly looked away from him and faced the
front, touching my chest as if to try and stop my rapidly beating
heart. But it was no good—the damage had already been done.

As soon as the bell rang I rushed out of the
room, but my attempt was futile. I felt a hand firmly wrap itself
around my wrist and tug me back. I smacked right into a warm body,
chest to chest, and looked up into almost illuminating brown eyes.
He quietly stared down at me then slowly started to grin. My knees
were suddenly putty and I felt that familiar flutter in the pit of
my stomach.

“Hey, baby girl,” he’d murmured.

And with those words, the rest (as they say)
was history.

If you were paying any
attention to what I was writing, you were probably wondering about
Reed.
What
happened to Reed?
you were asking. Reed was one of your three for so long and
then
poof
, he disappeared into thin air.

Well, I’d rather not talk about Reed.

Although this whole assignment is about love
and hate so perhaps I have to talk about Reed …

I find it rather depressing that the people
you love most in this world can also be the same exact people you
hate with fervor. But it can happen, trust me.

It was the fucking story of my life.

A dreamer, Christina Channelle holds two
degrees in health sciences but has always had a passion for
writing. You will find her reading other young adult novels, or
typing up a new story on her computer. When not writing, Christina
spends her free time at the movies, listening to music, or eating
sushi. She’s a reality TV junkie and has a close relationship with
many characters on TV that have been a topic of many heated
discussions among friends. She resides in Ontario, Canada.

Other Books by
Christina
Channelle:

Blood Crave Series:

Dahlia

Fallen Tears, A Blood Crave Novella

Rowan

Novellas

Those Four Letter Words

Reap
(Coming October 2013)

For more information, visit Christina at:

http://channellewrites.wordpress.com

http://facebook.com/ChristinaChannelle

http://twitter.com/channellewrites