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Gritting my teeth, I turn to look out the window. My gaze catches on Izzy’s reflection in the rearview mirror where she sits in the passenger seat, right in front of me.
She gives me a small smile, like she senses what I’m thinking.
And I’m thrown back to our conversation outside the Principal’s office earlier, ice packs on both of our dominant hands as we waited for them to decide what to do with us.
“They need to let us go,” I rush out, bobbing my knee.
“I know, I know.”
“He ran out. You didn’t see his face. What if? What if—” I can’t even get the words out.
Izzy turns toward me and nods. “I know. Trust me. But he’s okay.” She lifts her hand—the one not currently being crushed by a bag of ice—and splays it over her chest. “I’d know if something was wrong.”
I frown, not sure I believe all that twin voodoo.
She rolls her eyes. “He wouldn’t do anything.”
You didn’t hear him in the hallway, I think. You didn’t see his face in the bathroom.
“He wouldn’t,” she repeats firmly, as if reading my mind. Her jaw tightens, eyes growing red, and I wonder if maybe that twin connection is as much a coping mechanism as it is bullshit.
“The picture… they sent it to….to everyone…”
“I know.”
“They made him do it.”
“I know,” she grits.
“I’m gonna kill them.”
She quickly hushes me, darting a paranoid look around. “Don’t say that. They know about the picture. Teachers saw his face in the cafeteria. We told them everything we know…” Her mouth thins and she stares hard down at the ice pack resting against the hand she used to bloody Ethan’s nose.
There’s some on her shirt.
At least one of us got a proper hit in. I stupidly went for the jaw instead—eye for an eye and all. It probably won’t even bruise.
I should probably feel some shame that my girlfriend can hit better than me, but all I feel is glad.
Glad at least one of those assholes bled for what they did.
Not enough. Not fucking enough.
A long moment passes, and I realize why she’s being so quiet.
She’s crying.
“Iz?” I whisper.
She lifts tear-filled eyes to mine and shakes her head. “I hate this,” she whispers near-soundlessly.
Throat tight, I nod. “Me too.”
“I thought it stopped.”
My eyes slide shut, and I nod. Me too.
She sniffs. A beat passes, then?—
