Theo takes a step forward. “Don’t speak to her like that.”
But my father is in front of him again, solid and immovable.
“You don’t get to tell us how to speak to our daughter,” he growls. “You don’t get to breathe near her. If you care about her at all, you’ll walk away. Because if you don’t, I’ll bury you. I’ll take this story everywhere. The police. The school board. Thepress. I’ll make sure you’re never trusted to teach or work again. Anywhere.”
Theo doesn’t blink or back down.
“You don’t scare me,” he says evenly. “But the idea of her suffering because of me? That does.”
His voice breaks, just barely. Just enough to convey the pain wracking through him.
“So if you think I’m giving up because I’m ashamed, you’re wrong. I’m walking away, for now, because I love her.”
He looks at me, and I swear it breaks something in both of us.
“Enough to let her hate me, if it means she gets out of this house in one piece.”
It knocks the air right out of my lungs. I can’t breathe.
“No,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “No, please. Theo, please. Don’t listen to them. Don’t leave me. Don’t let them take you from me?—”
My words dissolve into a scream. A guttural, agonized, broken sound that echoes through the room and lodges in my throat like glass. I sob. Uncontrollable, wrenching sobs that shake my whole body.
Theo meets my eyes one last time. Just one.
And then he lowers his gaze to the ground.
And I know.
In that single, silent second.
I’ve lost him.
Forever.
I clutch at my chest, the pain blooming deep and sharp beneath my ribs, like my insides are clawing their way out, unable to stand the heartbreak. My father yanks my arm, dragging me toward the car. I stumble behind him, crying so hard I can barely see.
Sal is still frozen in the doorway, her lips parted. Shemouths something, I don’t know what. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.
I reach into my pocket, desperate and hoping, maybe he texted me, maybe he’s already trying to fix this, but my mother’s hand is faster. She rips it from mine like it’s a weapon.
“You won’t be getting this back anytime soon,” she says, her voice full of disgust.
And just like that, the last tether is cut.
I look back over my shoulder, hoping, praying, that Theo will look at me again. That he’ll reach out, say something, fight.
But he doesn’t.
His eyes never leave the ground.
Then the darkness swallows us, and he’s gone.
The drive homeis silent except for the sound of me falling apart in the backseat.
Each bump in the road rattles through my bones, cracking me open from the inside out. I cry the whole way. Ugly, heaving sobs that I can’t control. It’s not even crying anymore. It’s keening. It’s breaking. My head pounds. My stomach twists. I press my forehead to the cold window, gagging on the lump in my throat.
I think I might throw up.
