Chapter One
I Want to Believe
Ian
“It’s been a long couple of days for you,” Dr. Diane Miller, the student advocate and counselor stated, or rather, understated. Long didn’t begin to describe it. In fact, it felt like we’d been in one continuous day since I got to her place to get ready for the dance. The dance that was supposed to have been our night, our date, before I blew it. Then that crap with Mitch…
“Bubba,” Diane said, pulling my attention back to her. Neither Jake nor I had really commented on her statement. The only reason we were even in her office was because we had to do the anger management and work on our communication, per the principal and the coach. That meant two sessions a week, and we’d only gotten started the week before.
Fuck, the only reason we were even at school was to get Frankie’s homework and to do this. We were all going to rotate staying with Frankie, or at least the guys were. Hopefully they’d let me pull a shift on Thursday.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I told Diane when she kept staring at me. I shifted in the seat and tried to ignore the throb in my hand.
“Pretty much,” Jake agreed with me. Granted, our fight was what landed us up in here, but we were united on this topic. It was no one’s business. The kids were all talking about it. I’d heard the gossip everywhere, seen some of the social media posts, and already saved some dumbass sophomore’s life when he straight up asked Jake about it.
Moron.
“Okay,” Diane said, shifting aside a notepad and staring at both of us. “I’m aware of what happened at the dance. All of the teachers were informed.”
Great.
“I also know what happened to your hand Bubba.”
“My hand is fine.” I’d jammed my finger and dislocated two knuckles. It was worth it. Walking in that room… Red hazed my vision all over again. She’d been so out of it. Her dress had been torn. The knuckles on her hand had been bleeding. She’d punched him.
She’d also scratched the shit out of him.
Frankie was no slouch, but the assholedruggedher.
My fists clenched, but Jake sat forward. “Great, then you don’t need to ask us about it.”
“Actually,” Diane said. “I do. Not about the specifics, because clearly neither of you want to discuss that.”
She was right about that. No we didn’t want to discuss it. “We’re not here to discuss that. We’re here to work on our anger or some shit, right?”
Jake and she both gave me a look, and I sighed. Yeah, my temper was showing. I didn’t want to be at school at all. In fact, I wanted to trade places with Archie and be at her place, looking after her. But it had been really fucking hard to be there the last few days. And I kept messing shit up where she was concerned. The last thing she needed was me being an ass.
So, Archie was there and I was here.
“Sorry,” I said, and blew out a breath. “I’m just mad.”
“You have a right to be angry,” Diane told me.
Jake snorted, but when she looked at him, he shook his head.
“Boys.” Diane exhaled the single syllable and leaned back in her chair. “You’re in an impossible situation, so let me make a few things clear to you. What you’re experiencing right now is tough and traumatic for adults, much less kids—granted you’re eighteen,” she said with a nod to me. “And you’re seventeen, almost eighteen. Someone you care about has been hurt. Badly. Right now, you’re both staring at me and thinking ‘no shit, and she’s the one who is hurt, not me.’ And to a point, I absolutely agree with you. However…”
She paused there, studying us for a long moment, and I found myself trying to figure out how she was going to make this about us. It wasn’t about us…
“You’re blaming yourselves because you didn’t prevent it from happening. You’re blaming yourselves for not seeing something you feel you should have seen. You think there’s something you could have or should have done…”
“I shouldn’t have let her go to the bathroom,” Jake said. “Not by herself. One of us should have been waiting. So you’re right, there’s something we could have done. We didn’t, and now she’s got to deal with it. But weweren’tgoing to talk about this.”
“I understand not talking about the incident. What I want to talk about is how it makes you both feel.”
I laughed, and it came out a hollow, empty sound as I stared up at the ceiling. “What does it matter how we feel? It isn’t about us.” Or the fact that it was the dateIasked her out on and ultimately fucked up. If we’d been there as adatedate, maybe it would have been different. Maybe…
Shit. If I hadn’t pushed her away. If I’d not listened to my dad…and now… If I’d seen what the hell Mitch was doing…