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The school itself is pretty empty since nothing is going on inside at this time aside from a few clubs, but still, I feel like the few people I do encounter are staring at me…and not necessarily in a nice way. It’s more of a questioning way.
“Hey,” Devon says when I turn the corner. “I was looking for you. Where’d you….what’s going on? What’s up with the makeup?”
“Um…Laurel Lindley did it,” I tell him.
“Why?”
My heart drops into my stomach.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I just wanted to look pretty, but I guess I got that wrong, too.”
“You do,” he says. “You do look pretty. But you always look pretty, Ally.”
I shake my head. “Not like Riley.”
He pinchesthe bridge of his nose. “Oh my god, Ally. You’re kidding, right? On top of all the other shit, now you’re going to do this, too? I didn’t do anything. I don’t like Riley.”
I scoff. “All of the other shit, huh? That’s telling.”
I walk past him toward the door that will lead me to the parking lot and then back out to the field.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I just mean—”
“What?”
“I just hate that I can’t talk to you at school; Ihatethat I can’t see you over the weekend, and I spend those days waiting for Monday to come so I can sit behind you in art and not talk to you there, either. Maybe we should tell people, Ally. Iwantto. Maybe if people like Riley knew I had a girlfriend, they’d back off.”
“I knew you’d get sick of me,” I tell him. “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to do this.”
“If Darci really is your friend, she won’t care.”
“You know she will. And you know this isn’t just about her.”
“Allyson—”
“Leave me alone,” I tell him. “Or go do…whatever you want. I don’t care.”
I rush out the doors and down to the track with that feeling in my chest again—the one where it feels like there’s a vice grip around my ribcage, crushing my insides.
I think I’m starting to realize that feeling is regret.
After the meet, I head back to the school and into the locker room to get my stuff. Devon’s car is gone.
I wash my face before I meet Grace in the parking lot and head home for another family dinner. Mark compliments how strong my thighs look when I walk into the house, causing bile to rise in my throat. I say nothing in response and head straight to my room to change into sweatpants.
Just as I pull them up over my hips, Grace pushes the knobless door to my room open.
She storms across the room and backhands me hard enough to knock me off balance. I fall onto the hardwood floor, curling in the fetal position to protect my stomach from what I know will come next.
She kicks me in the back twice instead before lowering her body onto the ground next to me. She grabs my hair and pulls my head back so we’re face to face, close enough for me to feel her breath hot against my cheek. I smell the wine on her before she speaks.
“Don’t come into this house looking like a whore again,” she says. “Or you’re done with track—DONE. Do you understand?”
I nod as much as I can with her fist still holding my hair.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
“Change,” I tell her. “I’ll change my clothes before I come home.”
