“If people are being mean to you, Frankie, you need to tell me,” Dalton says. “I’ll make it stop.”
“I don’t need you fighting my battles,” I mutter.
“So people are being mean to you?”
I can’t even look at my best friend. She’s wrapped in happiness and her life can’t get any better, and I’ll only drag her down with my drama. Even though I’m still a little mad about her not sharing with me the extent of the bullying from before, I can’t seem to open my mouth to my own struggles. Now I know where she was coming from by keeping those things to herself.
“I’m fine. Everything is fine.” I look toward my bathroom door, wondering if Zeke is a mere thirty feet away like he has been for the last two weeks. “I’m just tired. I don’t feel like going out tonight.”
And for the most part, that’s true. I’m weary down to my bones, unable most days to keep my head off my desk at school. I blame it on the stress of living with a guy that ignores me at every turn, waiting and wondering when he’s going to once again realize I’m around and shoot some vile words my direction.
That night was a mistake.
The words have played on repeat in my head since he spat them out. I was unhappy with him, angry that he used me and left me alone, but I didn’t regret what happened between us until he made it clear that he did. Now, I spend a lot of my time trying to push the memories from my mind, but it’s hard to forget the way he reached for me, the way he whispered my name when he was inside of me, or the way he let all of his emotions show that night. He was unguarded and open, and for a couple hours while he held me after it was over, I felt loved and wanted.
It killed me to watch my mom’s eyes light up when she saw him sitting in the kitchen with my dad, and it gutted me when she wrapped her arms around him like she’d waited all of her life to meet him. She hasn’t hugged me in years. So long in fact, I can’t even remember the last time we embraced.
What was it about me that makes me so unlovable?
“Frankie?” I snap my head in Piper’s direction. “Please go to the bonfire with us?”
“I just—”
The doorbell saves me from having to reject her once again, so I climb off my bed and head out into the hall. A peek in the living room shows no signs of Zeke, so I make my way to the front door. I’m not expecting anyone, but I’m wishing I stayed upstairs when I swing open the door to find Bronwyn on the front stoop.
“Frank?” Her head snaps back, her eyes darting to the numbers on the house. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I live here,” I answer blandly.
We’ve been going to the same school all of our lives, you’d think she’d know where I lived, but I guess I’m not even a blip on her radar. Fine with me.
Without an invitation, Bronwyn pushes past me and steps inside.
“I’m here for Zeke.”
“Of course you are,” I mutter before closing the door.
Before I can holler for him, Zeke comes out of the kitchen, a granola bar to his mouth. His eyes dart between the two of us, and if I want to read into his facial expression, which I don’t, I’d say that he looks a little guilty that this girl is standing in my house, but the emotion disappears as if it was never there in the blink of an eye.
“Hey, babe,” he says, turning his attention to the cheerleader beside me. “Let me grab my hoodie. I thought I was meeting you there.”
Zeke disappears around the corner, opening the coat closet.
“I figured we could ride together.”
“I’ll just follow you there so I have my truck,” he murmurs around the granola bar he’s shoved in his mouth as he tugs on his hoodie.
“Or I can ride with you.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says as he shoves his arms through the sleeves.
He walks past, not bothering to acknowledge me at all, and this is exactly how things have been since he arrived. We don’t speak to each other. He doesn’t corner me in the hall and press his body against mine like he did each night I walked him out from supper at Nan’s house. I truly don’t even exist to him.
“Bye, Frank,” Bronwyn says as she shoulder checks me on her way to the front door.
My fingers itch to reach up and rip a chunk of hair from her scalp, but violence doesn’t solve anything. The sooner they leave, the sooner I can curl up in my bed and cry. Why does Zeke’s indifference hurt more than the times he was mean to me?