But there’s something about the strain in his voice that makes me stop. My arms drop, cold at my side.
He backs up, frazzled with tired eyes. “You spent the last few years pretending I don’t exist, so just give me a break and ignore me again.”
A chill runs down my back as I stare at the boy who used to be my best friend. For a second he isn’t the boy who’s going to kill Mallory. He’s the boy I hurt. He’s the boy who held his dying dog in his arms, crying into Duke’s fur.
I don’t know what to say because everything he said is true.
“Can’t you do that?” he asks with a heavy, pointed glare.
I don’t move. I can’t. I’m stuck in quicksand, sinking into the chaos of guilt and hatred. I don’t understand how I can feel sorry for someone who is capable of killing my sister, and yet he keeps stirring up those awful emotions.
I stand there, unable to reply, and he doesn’t wait for me to find words. He walks back to Ms. Simon’s room.
I find Mallory seconds after the final bell, and her jaw drops.
Despite my attempt to scrub my clothes in the bathroom, they’re still dirty and wrinkled. The colors are faded and hardly noticeable on the navy blazer or plaid skirt, but I don’t think there’s enough bleach in the world to get the stains off my white shirt. Not to mention my hair, which is wet from rinsing it in the bathroom sink.
Her horrified expression only intensifies as I get closer. She hides her face with her hand like doing that will make her smaller or invisible somehow, but I don’t care about embarrassing her right now.
I want to be near her.
“What did you do now?”
I grimace as I follow her eyes down my shirt. “I had art.”
“You’rewearingart,” she corrects. Her shoulders slump forward as she lifts my collar. “I just washed these yesterday. Do you think your clothes magically clean themselves? I have enough to do today and now I have to . . .” She trails off, shaking her head.
I’ve once again disappointed her without even trying. All I need to do is breathe and it sends her into cardiac arrest.
She makes her way through the crowd, heading to her locker. I follow her, waiting off to the side. I don’t want to upset her more, but I feel better when she’s in view.
“Do you need something?” she asks as she loads her backpack up with every book imaginable. It has to weigh about as much as a sack of rocks, but she doesn’t flinch when she pulls the strap over her shoulder.
“Can you drive me home? I don’t want to walk.”
“I drove you yesterday.”
I never ride with her, always opting to walk, but driving with her seems like the best way to make sure she stays out of trouble.
“Please,” I beg.
She sighs, clearly not excited about it. “I’m not going home right away.”
“Why not?”
She scowls. “Since when do you care?”
She’s not wrong. The whole time we were in high schooltogether our lives were complete opposites. She’d go early while I’d barely make it before the morning bell. She was in countless clubs and after-school activities while I left as soon as school ended because there wasn’t anyone I needed to talk to.
“I just don’t want to walk alone,” I say.
Her head tilts and she studies me. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
There it is. Despite her frustration, she cares. I might annoy the living daylights out of her, but she’d fight a war for me if I needed her to. That’s the weird thing about us. Even at our worst, I know she won’t desert me.
If our roles were reversed right now and she was the one trying to save me, she’d take care of me no questions asked.
“No, I’m okay.”
