Jesus fucking Christ.
Please spare me from all the good fucking people and their goodfuckingintentions.
I have no interest in being saved or being the kind of brother Homer wants. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to let go of my anger and stop hating him.
I was always going to leave once I finished it.
The task of getting her back together with him.
And now that my brother has delivered on his promise — he texted me this morning to let me know that it was done — there’s not even that holding me here. I wanted to give him the courtesy of staying until we wrapped up this project in a few weeks. But if he’s going to insist on killing me with kindness, maybe I should leave him high and dry.
It’ll serve him right.
It will fucking serve her right too.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
Who: The Bubblegum
Where: Dorm room at St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers
When: 11:23 PM; one day after Reign confesses his crush on Echo
Dear Bandit,
For years, I wondered.
I wondered why you gave me that anklet.
I know now.
For years, I also wondered why I didn’t throw it away. Why I kept it in my nightstand. Why every time I opened it, I’d strain to hear the tiny chime of the bells on it.
Now I think I know that as well.
~Echo
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
I’m officially a high school graduate.
For a week now, actually.
I never thought that something that was always so sure in my life, graduating high school, would become a thing to hang in the balance, but it did. And now I’m just glad that it’s over. That I’m out of that school with barred windows and tall brick walls.
Plus we got to have a last blast, a graduation party that all the girls at St. Mary’s, including me, organized. It was fun despite the minor hiccups, which have to do with Poe and how she went missing from the party for a few hours. But long story short, everything is fine now and I’m going to miss my friends badly.
It’s a good thing that we all live so close by though. In the week since finals and moving out of the dorm and back into our parents’ houses, we’ve already met up as a group once. We went to this amazing carnival over the weekend, all the girls and their respective boyfriends and husbands, and it was super fun.
Okay, I’m lying.
It wasn’t a fun weekend.
I mean, it was good to see all my friends and hang out with their partners, but I don’t think I had as much fun as everyone else. I also don’t think I’m as glad as everyone else about graduating and moving on with my life.
Because I only recently realized that I haven’t moved on.
I’m still stuck.