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I take a step back, then another.
It’s the phones I notice next, and I frown, wondering if they’re recording this…
A teacher yells out. Someone blows a whistle.
But it’s too late.
Mason grabs the phone Clay’s waving around, and looks at the screen.
And I remember.
So caught up in the pain rocketing through my face after being struck, and my desperate need to get the fuck out of here—and then dealing with Mason, and then Izzy…
I forgot about the picture.
A single panicked sweep around the full cafeteria shows multiple students looking at their phones, laughing, covering their mouths, eyes wide with shock…
I know exactly what it looks like.
My heart is thrashing, hammering against my chest. Bile fills my throat, flooding my mouth. It’s been years since I threw up in school, but I feel it coming now.
This sickness inside of me.
The ugly beast no amount of pills could ever hope to fully tame.
It’s coming for me now.
And all I can think is how fucking tired I am of trying to ward it off. Of trying to just get by. To just…exist.
Mason’s gaze snaps up to mine, and for a moment the world around us fades away. It’s just us. His face is pale, pulled tight with some unnamed emotion. Anger, yes, absolutely. But there’s something else. Something I’ve never seen before.
And it hits me, really hits me, him seeing that horrible picture of me. In that position…
Disgust. That’s what it has to be. He’s gotta be disgusted by me.
I stumble back a step at the same time he chucks the phone on the floor and stomps on it with his shoe, shattering it, sending pieces skittering across the floor. Just before I turn around, and run like hell, I see his whole body curve with the punch he aims right for Clay’s face.
More yelling. More whistles blaring. Cheering…
It was Ethan, I think stupidly, shoving open the doors, putting my back to the world.
But that’s not true…
It was both of them.
They both did this.
I run, and I don’t stop running. Not when a teacher calls out. Not when the alarm blares when I fly through an emergency exit. Not when I jog off grounds and cut through intersections. Not all through town, not even when I reach our driveway.
I don’t stop running until I’m upstairs in the safety of my bedroom, and the door’s locked, and I sink to the floor, bury my face in my hands, and let myself be pulled under.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Fighting violence with violence solves nothing, kids.”
“They made him sick, Mom!” I insist, fists balled up at my sides. Izzy and Waylon shuffle quietly behind me, letting me deal with this. “They’re mean bullies and deserve to pay!”
We just got home after Mom had to pick us up early from school for fighting. We’re suspended for three days. All three of us. I was hoping since we did it for a good reason, we wouldn’t get in trouble.
