“Our fathers ruined their own lives, Gavin, but today, you ruined mine. I won’t do the same to you, but you’ll do well to leave me alone from here on out, or I will go to the Principal, and I will tell him what you did, and I will end this,” she whispers.
She’s not mad when she says this. In fact, her voice never raises at all. She just speaks softly, quietly, as though it’s taking everything in her power to get this out. She reaches into her pocket suddenly and pulls out her inhaler. Popping the cover off, she slips the inhaler between her lips and takes a puff. She sucks in and closes her eyes, and I can see her silently counting to ten before she takes her next puff.
Fuck.
Now she’s had an asthma attack.
I wait with her, silently, embarrassed, until she seems to recover. She slips the inhaler back in her pocket, and then she looks at me.
“I never want to see you again,” she says. “Don’t talk to me again, Gavin. Don’t look at me. Don’t mention me to your friends. Leave me alone. Act like I’ve never existed, like you’ve never known me because you haven’t. I thought we were friends,” she whispers. “But that was a very long time ago.”
Then Emilia pushes past me, gently shoving me the way I shoved her earlier today, and she heads back toward the main hallway. The bell rings for the next class, and she’s instantly absorbed into a mass of students. She vanishes into the crowd, but I just stand there, staring at her.
What the hell just happened?
I’ve been fucking with Emilia for years. Years. She’s never so much as looked twice at me. For all the taunting, teasing, and I dare say, bullying, she’s never asked me to stop. She’s never fought back. She’s never done anything.
But she’s fighting back now.
And I don’t know how I feel about it.
One of the admins opens their door and steps out. They turn and notice me standing there.
“Shouldn’t you be in class?” He asks.
“Uh yeah,” I say. “I was just going.”
Chapter 3
Emilia
“YOU DID whatI?” Adalene almost spits out her water when I tell her about this afternoon.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Karen says. “Why today?”
“What do you mean?” Adalene looks at her sideways, as though it’s the stupidest question she’s ever heard.
“It’s just that he’s been doing this for a long time. Why was today the day you finally broke?” She asks.
She reaches for one of her fries: a forbidden treat she’s not supposed to be indulging in since she’s trying to lose a few pounds before graduation. The little restaurant we’re in is close enough to Crescent Academy to be appealing to students, but far enough away that most of the kids we know don’t come here.
“It’s a long story.” I look around the diner. The walls are covered in old-timey pictures and records and there’s even a damn jukebox in the corner. This place is like something that was dropped here out of the past, but I don’t even care. All I care about is making it through today, and then tomorrow, and then the next day. If I can hold on long enough, I’ll keep making it through right to graduation.
“We’ve got time,” Adalee says. She stares at the vegetables she ordered. I don’t know why she’s doing this to herself. I don’t know why either of them are. They’re both healthy-looking and slim, but there’s a lot of pressure to look perfect on graduation day.
“We used to be friends,” I finally say.
“What?” Karen says. “When?”
“Back in middle school,” I say.
“You and Gavin?” Adalee gives me a look like she doesn’t believe it, and I don’t blame her. I never talk about him like this. I never talk about the before time.
“Yeah. Our dads were best friends, so we kind of were, too.”
“I find this impossible to believe,” K
aren says.