Page 37

“I wish I’d done this,” I snarl. And it’s true. I’ve spent so much time feeling culpable, and in a way, I still do, but Luke’s reaction tells me…that maybe it really wasn’t my fault. “By the way, do you know the penalty for statutory rape if the victim was under sixteen? Four years. But that’s just for one count of statutory rape. How many counts would they bring against you, I wonder?”

“You lying bitch. That wasn’t rape and you can’t prove a thing.”

“Really? What would you call it when a really young girl says ‘No’ and you do it anyway? What would you call it when she says ‘No’ and you dislocate her shoulder trying to force her? I have witnesses, by the way. I told Hailey when it was happening and the Allens too.”

The last bit is a lie, but he won’t know that.

“Hailey’s a bigger whore than you are.” He tries to laugh but it comes out as a cough. “No one’s gonna believe her either.”

I shrug. “Maybe not.” I hold up my phone. “But I bet they believe you admitting to it all right here.”

He scowls, but his mouth stops running. He knows he’s screwed at this point.

“What do you want then?” he finally asks.

I hand him his cell phone. “Call the cops. Tell them you fucked up. Tell them you were hallucinating. Tell them it couldn’t possibly be Danny or his roommate because they’re eight hours south. Tell them you owe some guys money and it was probably them.”

He waves off the phone. “I’ll call later.”

“You think I’d trust you after all the shit you did? Call them, now.”

I don’t leave his room until I’ve heard him thoroughly recant his statement to two different officers, and then I hustle out of the hospital, hoping that if I make it to school by lunch, they won’t tell the pastor. I’m thirty yards from my bike when I see my mother walking up with a woman in her late twenties—Justin’s girlfriend, I assume.

I’m her only remaining child and I haven’t seen her in a year, but I know this will go badly. I’ve been a thorn in her side since I was small—the burden that sent her first husband running for the hills, and then the teenager her second husband enjoyed looking at too much. “Good riddance” was all she said when I told her I was moving out.

I glance around me, hoping to flee, but her gaze catches on me and she starts walking faster in my direction.

I guess this is happening.

“What are you doing here?” she demands. “You’ve already killed my son and now you’ve got the nerve to show up after you nearly killed my stepson too?”

“I wasn’t responsible for what happened to either of them.”

My voice doesn’t exactly ring with conviction, though, because I sort of agree with her. I’m the reason Justin’s in the hospital, and I’m probably the reason my brother is dead.

“You’re poisonous,” she hisses. “You came out of my womb poisonous. I better not see you around here again.”

The woman beside her, a woman who’s never even met me before, nods vigorously. “And keep your boyfriend away from Justin.”

“Ah, you must be the girlfriend?” I ask sweetly. “Surprising. You’re about fifteen years older than he likes.”

My mother’s hand comes at me so fast I can’t even prepare for it.

My left ear rings, my left cheek burns, and for a moment I’m simply stunned. You’d think a lifetime of being slapped in the face would have had me on guard already, but I’ve gotten soft over these two years with the Allens. I’d almost forgotten there are people like my mom who think giving birth to you means they can hit you whenever and wherever they want.

My hand itches to swing back at her, to give her a taste of her own medicine, but she’s still my legal guardian and I’ve got another few months until I’m eighteen, which she could make difficult if she so chose.

So, I hold my temper, but take one long step until I’m in her face. “I’m keeping count, Amy,” I reply, because I will never call her mom again, “and every time you hit me, I’m going to remember. And when the time comes, I’m going to fucking pay you back for every one of those slaps you love to dole out.” I walk past her, ramming into her shoulder so hard that she stumbles into Justin’s girlfriend.

“You fucking bitch!” she screams from behind me, and passersby turn to stare. “I should have aborted you!”

I keep walking to my bike as if I haven’t heard her. I unlock it, holding myself stiff, and it’s only once I’ve biked around the corner that I climb back off and crumple to the ground.

That sticks and stones saying is bullshit. Words are the worst kind of pain because they’re the kind that never fucking leave. It doesn’t matter what I claim to the world: the things my mother has said, the things Justin has said—I carry all those words like a stain, and I already know it’ll never wash away.

I seethe—at all of them and at everything that’s happened—but when my tears finally dry, I feel the start of something else, something quiet and hopeful. Because as terrible as it all is, it’s also beautiful.

Someone finally took my side. Someone knows what happened and took my side.