...
❝He was the poison I was dying to taste on my lips.❞
...
I was a coward.
The coward who wanted to leave behind the wreckage of her life for the man who had tormented her for as long as she could remember. The boy who had spit venom at me gro...
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september 2006 — age eleven
BY THE TIME lunch rolled around, I was sick and tired of River's taunting and muttered comments in my ear, since he somehow managed to find a seat right behind me or beside me in every single lesson we'd had so far. Granted, it had only been three lessons — excluding tutor time — but I was so tired already.
If there was a way to commit a crime against the son of one of the richest people in the country, I'd be the first one to find it and I could say that with complete confidence. Maybe not murder because I hadn't completely lost my heart and head but enough harm to make him stay away for the rest of time. That sounded absolutely beautiful, like a far-fetched dream and the complete opposite of my nightmare.
"Ishwarya!" Faye waved from her seat across the other end of the luxurious lunch hall. I nodded in recognition, making my way towards her and making the mistake of not looking down at the ground because the next thing I knew, I was face-planting onto the shiny floors with the tomato sauce of my pasta splattering all over my white shirt.
No, no, no. That was going to stain and it would mean that I only had one more shirt left.
I pushed myself up, arms quivering and palms slipping, but I forced my eyes to find the reason for my current situation. And there he sat on a leather chair, like a king looking down at commoners.
My jaw clenched painfully and I stood, not wanting to sit at his feet like a dog. I would bend down before no one, let alone River Vanderbildt.
He turned his nose up at me. "You've gotten my shoe all dirty. Like you. Can't you watch where you're going or are your parents too poor to afford glasses for you?"
"My vision is perfectly fine," I seethed. "Unless you're having a stroke, I don't see why your legs should be sticking out so oddly. You better get that checked."
I stormed away, feeling the eyes of the entire school on my tomato-stained self.
Ugh. I was glad that the school had a vegetarian option since we rarely ate meat at home, but now I regretted not choosing the roast potatoes and chicken since it seemed like a less messy option if I were to still fall.
It was completely ruined now and I winced at the thought of spending the rest of the day in this uniform. I knew of the trouble my parents had gone through and the extra work they'd had to do to save money up to purchase my uniform and school equipment, and I hated the thought of going home with a ruined shirt.
It wasn't as if we didn't eat meat; it was just rare at home because first of all, we couldn't afford it often and secondly because my mother was Hindu and she'd grown up eating very little meat. Traditionally, in Hindu families particularly from the southern states of India, it was common for them to mostly eat vegetarian and only eat meat around once a week, often Sundays. My mother had carried it over and our family mostly ate meat-free food and it felt good to my conscience to choose the vegetarian option for lunch today.
