AllFreeNovel
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“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asks. “I can.”
“No,” I tell her. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for helping me…again.”
“I’m here if you need me,” she says. “It’s just hair, Ally. It’ll grow back.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I run my hands through my DIY bobbed hair, eventually working up the courage to get up and stand in front of a mirror.
I do look ugly. Iamugly…and it’s more obvious now.
But I can do this. I just have to get through this week. Then I’ll be gone, and Devon will still be free, and he can move on and be happy and pretend that none of this happened. And I’ll be safe somewhere, remembering it did, with that vice-grip feeling crushing my insides whenever I allow my mind to wander.
And it will be what I deserve.
Ally is late to art the next morning. It’s almost like it was a strategic move—like she knew if she was late, she could slide into her seat without looking at me or talking to me, and it would be normal because, well…class started already, and unfortunately, today is a quiet work day. So, that’s how it went. I sat behind her, and she didn’t turn around. I watched her work on her charcoal drawing—the people with the blurry faces, the ones who aren’t anyone, just a feeling.
When the bell rings, she bolts for the door without bothering to put any of her things away—she just tucks it all under her arm and makes a run for it.
“Hey!” I call after her, speed-walking to catch up. “Would you stop?”
“Stop what?”
“Moving. I want to talk to you.”
“I can’t talk to youhere, Devon.”
“Well, wherecanyou talk to me?” I ask, standing behind her as she digs through her locker.
“Nowhere,” she says. “We cannot do this.”
“Ally, what—”
“Ew,” Darci says, leaning against the locker next to Ally. “What are you doing? Why are you bothering one of my friends?”
“He’s not bothering me,” Ally says. “We have art together. He was just asking me about our assignment.”
“Oh…well, did you answer him?”
“Yes,” she says, closing her locker.
“Okay, then…bye, Devon.”
Darci puts her arm around Ally’s shoulders and leads her away from the lockers, and I’m left standing here like a fucking tool.
What the fuck?
I guess I’m not that surprised after the way she jumped out of the car last night. Still, I expected a little more than this. Ally likes me. Ally islikeme, not Darci, Trevor, or the rest of them.
I spend the next couple of classes convincing myself that if I could get her alone—if I could just get her to look at me—she’d tell me that I’m not crazy and she wants me again, too. Making that happen with my evil stepsister always at her side will be the complicated part.
I sit at the lunch table with Seth and Isaac but can’t focus on anything they say. I’m staring at Ally—sitting with Darci and the rest of her friends, laughing and not looking at me at all. Completely unphased.
“Devon!” Isaac says, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “What are you doing? Are you glaring at your sister or staring at Ally Hargrove again?”
“Darci is not my fucking sister.”
“Whatever, man. What the hell is up with you?”
