Hey, slut, welcome back.
The voices blur together. There are probably only fifteen or so, but it sounds like a chant in my ears, the exact same phrase flung into the hallway with the exact same tone, the exact same inflection.
As if it were planned.
“I’m getting her out of here,” Charlie says. She takes Hannah’s arm and heads for the nearest bathroom, Hannah looking totally shell-shocked. I watch them go, eyes still peeling for a perpetrator.
Finally, I find one.
As Charlie and Hannah move down the hall, pressed against the lockers to avoid notice, I see Jaden Abbot spot them and smirk. His mouth opens, lips curling around ugly words.
Hey, slut, welcome back.
The blood in my veins boils over.
I move toward him, cutting through other kids like a warm knife through butter. I don’t have a plan, don’t know what I’ll do when I get there, but I keep going.
When I reach him, my arm lashes out. I feel the sting of my palm against skin, the barest hint of scruff scraping my fingertips.
“What the fuck?” He stumbles back, hand flying to his face.
I follow his movements. I shove his chest. I scream at him. I don’t even know what I say. It’s as though I’m outside of myself, floating near the ceiling and watching it all happen. Jaden’s expression blurs in my vision, shimmering from his own to Mr. Knoll’s. To Owen’s.
A circle forms around us and I keep pushing him. Keep hitting him. Keep screaming. He keeps stumbling backwards.
“You bitch!” he yells, and my hand arcs through the air again. This time, he catches my wrist, flinging it away from his face, but I don’t even care.
Because this. This is more than a skirt swishing at the top of my thighs. This is doing something.
“Mara!” I hear Alex’s voice somewhere behind me, but it’s not real, not really there. My throat aches from screaming, but I keep at it, words incoherently falling from my tongue, words for this asshole and every asshole.
My arms are wrenched behind my back. I don’t even glance around to see who has me, just glare at Jaden, who’s now straightening his clothes and glaring right back. A red handprint surfaces on his cheek, one eye all puffy and watery.
“Miss McHale, I think that’s quite enough.”
Principal Carr is at my side, Ms. Rodriguez next to him. Our on-site security officer, Deputy Russell, has my arms behind my back. I can tell he’s trying to be gentle, but I’m not making it easy for him. I buck and snarl, something wild set loose inside of me. The fact that I’m probably flashing my underwear to half the student body is a dull holy shit in the far corners of my mind, but I don’t even care right now.
The three of them drag me down the hall toward the office. Right before the door closes behind us, I see a mess of golden-brown curls near the first wall of lockers. Owen stares at me, mouth hanging open in shock. His expression clears my fevered vision and I want to shake off my captors, run toward him, grab at his shirt and make him tell me he didn’t put his friends up to that shit show I just witnessed. That he didn’t break Hannah into pieces.
But then all that feeling I think I see in his eyes flickers out and goes cold. His lower lip trembles despite his tightened jaw, but then he turns away from me and is lost behind a cluster of frantic freshmen as the late bell echoes through the hall.
Chapter Seventeen
THEY MAKE ME SIT in a scratchy polyester-covered chair outside Principal Carr’s office until my parents arrive. The secretary, Ms. Villanova, who’s always been pretty nice to me, keeps throwing disapproving glances at me and my exposed legs, which does nothing to calm the hurricane swirling and building strength in my head right now.
The glass door leading from the office into the main hall swings open and my mother blasts through, hair loose and long and flying in her wake. My father trails behind, his hands stuffed into his pockets.
Ms. Villanova doesn’t even greet them, just picks up the phone, presses a button, and says, “The McHales are here,” before hanging up again.
Mom finds me vibrating in the corner and her eyes nearly fall out of her head. She blinks at my outfit, at my tense posture, my clenched jaw.
“Mara,” Dad breathes out, angling around Mom to get a better look at me. “Honey, are you okay?”
I can’t answer him. I don’t want to lie, but if I say no, I know he’ll kneel down in front of me and take my hands in his and then everything in me will break.
“Clearly, she’s not, Chris,” Mom says. “Mara, what in god’s name are you wearing?”
I just glare at her, hating her for the disgusted look in her eyes. She flinches. My mother literally startles and I savor it. I wish I could take a picture of myself right now, so I can remember this fiery girl, hold on to her.
