What if that means Myles is still going to hurt her?
I have to stop him.
7
MYLES
I can’t decide whether my face or my ribs hurt more. I sit in English with an ice pack against my cheek, staring at my copy ofHamletcracked wide open, but I can’t focus. I don’t want to think about Mallory right now. To be honest, I don’t want to think about either of the Adler sisters. And yet, I get another text.
Mallory:
Meet me in the library after class.
Me:
Can’t you just text me?
She leaves me on read, which I take as a no. This day just keeps snowballing worse and worse.
Being trampled by Emma was the last thing I expected today. And who did she think she was calling me a murderer? Is it a twisted joke? Did she think it was funny? That combined with Mallory texting me has my brain on the vergeof exploding, and I’m going to be sick. My mind is being pulled into a million directions and I can’t breathe.
Why now? After all these years why has Emma chosen to speak to me? The way she shrieked as she ran toward me replays on repeat in my head. Her beady eyes and wild hair. As someone who spent the last three years purposely not looking at her, everything about her was a shock to my system.
She has to want something, but she hasn’t learned to communicate in a civil way. She never was good at opening up. I could always tell when something was bothering her, but instead of talking to me, she’d whisk herself away with some outlandish distraction. It never made sense to me. She could talk for days, but her words somehow never touched on her feelings. She’d crack a joke or run off to feel the wind in her hair because that was easier.
There was a time when I thought if I was patient enough, one day she’d open up to me the way I wanted her to. But I know now that she never cared about me the same way I cared about her. If she did, she wouldn’t have let our friendship disintegrate.
It’s hard thinking about her without it bringing up memories of us together.
I used to like how Emma wasn’t afraid to stand out. She didn’t care if she got weird looks as she climbed a tree to get a kitten down or if she wore bright orange sneakers with her uniform despite it being against the dress code. She was brave and fearless.
She was a talker, always coming up with stories to pass the time, and I loved hearing her voice. I liked to watch the way her eyes lit up when she was happy. She made my move easier because she distracted me from the loneliness I feltafter my dad died. Every time I was sad, I could lose myself in Emma’s world.
I even found myself telling Emma things I’d never told anyone else. She was one of the few people who knew why I loved baseball.
“I miss playing with him,” I’d said.
“I’ll play with you.”
And she meant it. On more than one occasion, she showed up to my house in a baseball cap much too big for her head, dragging a bat behind her.
But with a flip of a switch, she stopped wanting to spend time with me. At first I thought it was because we weren’t in the same school anymore and I was busy with baseball practice. She’d get mad at me when I was busy, but even when I tried to make time for her, she wasn’t interested. I knew her parents were fighting, but she wouldn’t talk to me about it.
She only wanted me sometimes, and I was so desperate to be around her, I’d let her guilt me into skipping practice or staying up late when she knocked on my window because I didn’t know how long it would take for her to want me again.
The bell rings and I jump, pulled back to reality.
Mallory. She still hasn’t replied, which means I need to find her.
I peek over my shoulder to make sure no one is following me and slip down the hallway and into the library. I walk to the very back aisle.
Mallory stands in the middle of the row with a book hugged to her chest as she eyes the books in front of her like that’s the real reason she’s here right now.
I approach, pulling a book from the shelf next to her, acting like I’m looking. “What is it now?”
“I need your help again.”
I roll my eyes. The “help” I gave her was letting her copy my last three homework assignments for physics, but I didn’t have a choice.
