Forgive Me by Kateri Stanley (reading strategies book TXT) 📕

“Don’t worry about it. I was being a dick.”

“Sorry about your lip.”

Cameron smiled. “Like I said, don’t worry. I’ve had worse, believe me.”

I believe you.

The stone barrier of unease and tension seemed to dissolve and they began to chat as they worked. It was bizarre, but cathartic in a way. Stripe learned more about Cameron; she was also an only child with older parents. They discussed food, movies, they even debated which character from The Breakfast Club they’d fuck.

“Mine would be Brian,” Cameron said.

“The nerd?”

She shrugged to her reply. “I like clever people.” Her eyes narrowed. “I bet you thought I was gonna say Bender, didn’t you?”

“No…”

“Yeah, you did. The quiet ones are normally the most interesting. I reckon Brian would be great in the sack.”

The remark made Stripe laugh. Her brain went into over load when she started fretting about her reaction. Cameron Storms was not a funny person, she was a bitch by reputation. Stripe decided to distract her thoughts and changed the subject, shoving it over to a relevant question about her future plans.

“I might be an engineer or go into computers,” Cameron replied. “How about you? What do you wanna do?”

“I want to be a journalist or a news reporter.”

“Like Diane Sawyer?”

Stripe smiled. “Exactly. She’s awesome.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while. Why do your friends call you Stripe?”

“Oh, it’s a family thing. My dad used to say, ‘do this and earn your stripes’. He’d set me little tasks like running around the garden fifteen times and I’d get a reward. I completed them so - I earned my stripes. It became a nickname for me. Then, it just stuck.”

“It’s so strange.”

“True, but look at Frank Zappa. He called his daughters Diva and Moon Unit. I’ll take strange. Strange is intriguing.”

After a while, Coach Lucy came in and inspected the gym. She said they’d done a decent job and dismissed them.

“I can give you a ride home if you want,” Cameron said as they walked out into the parking lot.

“Thanks, but I don’t live far from here. I’ll walk,” Stripe said.

“No big deal.” Cameron got into her vehicle. It was a red Chevy truck. “Do you like it? My grandparents gave it to me.”

“Yeah, it’s nice. Are you…in a cult?”

Cameron smirked. “Nope. Like I could be bothered with it. Plus, I like animals.”

“Do you sniff cocaine?”

“God no! That stuff makes your heart race, apparently. It fucks your insides up.”

Stripe glanced at her arms, quietly choosing not to delve any deeper. She’d asked enough questions. “I’m sorry I called you a lesbian before.”

“You’ve gotta stop apologising. I get it. You're sorry. Quit it already. By the way, you’re not the first person to call me a lesbian.”

“Sorry, anyway.”

Cameron giggled. “You’re cute.”

Stripe felt her heart drop. That's exactly what I was thinking.

Her dinner was ready and steaming by the time she got home. Stripe’s mother and father were as silent as the grave, they were watching television when she walked into the hallway. She ate her fish and baked potatoes alone at the table but she kept an ear out for the television. There was a news flash and her heart sank when she heard the details. It was about another murder.

There had been a string of them over the country lately, two men and two women, all killed at home. It made her skin crawl especially when the news pointed out the dreadful manner of how they passed on. But this particular bulletin was brief, outlining that the victim was another middle-aged man killed while he was sleeping.

Stripe said goodnight and her parents muttered back, both wearing masks of discontent. Her father peered over his shoulder, closing the door slowly in her face when he caught her gazing at the television screen. She never saw him much; he was always working late and she hated the frosty atmosphere simmering in the house.

She climbed to her room and sat on her bed, staring out of the window. She’d had a strange day. She’d become a rebel from making a split-second decision. She watched the trees blow in the night breeze and thought about the boy back at the cabin with the red-stained hands. He was so aggressive. Why did he kiss her? Did it even happen? Was it really just a bad nightmare?

She was scared the boy would come back and finish what he started. She needed someone or something like The Lumberjack, the gas masked vigilante to protect her. It was a bedtime story her dad told her once, so she wouldn’t be frightened by the sounds in the dark.

“If you hear a creak while you’re in bed,” Peter said once, “don’t be scared. It’s just the lumberjack on his patrol. You see, at night, he protects families while they sleep to keep the bad things away.”

She remembered hearing noises a couple of times and imagined the vigilante walking the perimeter around the house, moving quietly up the stairs, peering around the corners. If only dark fairy tales existed…

She didn’t want to be hacked up like Paul Shannon, Victoria Faith, Sheila Martin and Gerald Blair. She’d memorised their names and pictured the ghastly sights of the crime scenes. Someone or something had ended their lives, but for what purpose? What would cause such brutality? Had they done something wrong?

After all, the boy did say there were monsters everywhere. What if they were living on her doorstep? Stripe thought about her own violence from today. What if they were living in her heart?

Chapter Seven

The next couple of evenings became an interesting head scratcher for Stripe. Instead of feeling daunted and irritated, she was quite eager for her detention sessions, especially since her relationship with the notorious Cameron Storms had curiously cooled down. It was Friday, the last session of her punishment. Stripe and Cameron talked like crazy and their topics delved from the Space Shuttle Challenger fiasco to the latest Smashing Pumpkins song. This typically triggered Stripe to begin talking on and