I lunge forward and keep going, sprinting towards the car at full speed. The car that must contain a spy because why else would it be everywhere I am? Why else would there suddenly be a taupe fucking sedan everywhere I turn? Why else would a vehicle park across the street from a school?
I sprint across the car park, jump the chain fence and hurtle across the road, not bothering to look to see what’s coming.
It’s a fucking school zone. If they’re going too quick to stop from hitting me, they deserve my death on their conscience.
The man behind the wheel looks curious, then startled, then alarmed as I plunge towards his window, smacking my palm against the glass, hammering, kicking at the door, tugging at the handle.
He locks the door. Even when I tug my hardest the damn thing won’t budge.
I lunge for the backseat, but it’s already secured. With a scream of frustration, I dive across the bonnet, crawling as I get my knees under me, slamming the heel of my palm against the windscreen, tearing at the wipers. Screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs.
“Open the fucking door,” I scream like a madwoman. Like the last person you’d ever, ever, EVER open the door to.
When my hands are screaming at me as loudly as I’m screaming at the unknown occupant, I spin around and kick my heels at the glass. One long scratch appears, my leg spinning at an odd angle, so it quickly runs out of steam.
“Miss Corrigan,” an alarmed voice calls from across the street but fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
They weren’t there to help me when the mad cunt who’s made me his personal vendetta decided to head a game of one-upmanship with a playing deck stacked against me.
They didn’t help three years ago when I came to the school nurse, half out of my mind with a pregnancy scare, too afraid to give details but babbling enough that someone, anyone with half a brain should have known something was terribly, terribly wrong.
“Who the fuck do you work for?” I cry out as a teacher—amaleteacher, what else—pins me from behind. “Tell me who you work for.”
My legs collapse and I’m on my knees on the road. In view of the entire school. A laughingstock.
The only place I’ve ever felt safe, and it’s now just another stop on the humiliate Em pub crawl. By the time my hysterics subside enough for me to recover my composure, it’s too late.
Too late to repair my reputation. Too late to earn back my status. Too late to have my perfect senior year.
Caylon doesn’t need to bully me any longer. I’m perfectly capable of destroying my own life, thank you very much.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
CAYLON
Em is distraught, unhinged, paranoia leaking from every pore. Surely in no fit state to be on her own, but she has the presence of mind to point out that she’s eighteen, able to act for herself, and if the driver wants to press charges, the police know where she lives.
Then she buggers off.
Meanwhile, I’m also distraught, unhinged, and paranoid. Also wracked with guilt and with a handy inside critic trolling my every thought, reminding me I’m dreadful, disastrous, depraved. The last person Em needs around.
I replay our kiss at the party. The one before the bathroom. Before the threats. Before everything.
The one I can’t take out too much in case it gets dirty, dusty, broken, damaged. But I need it to remind me; there was something, some spark. I didn’t make everything up out of thin air. I’m a monster but notthat muchof a monster.
What do you need? Her blood on your hands?
I push the thought away. I don’t have the strength to examine it. Not here. Not now.
The driver of the vehicle is shaken. No surprises there. But how much of that is from the attack and how much from being caught out is anyone’s guess. He’s Hadyn Warley’s dad, a man who has no business lurking outside his thirteen-year-old son’s school while fighting his ex for more visitation.
There’s no liability from that source. For the school or Em. The police arrive to hand him a trespass notice and escort him from the premises before I’m even called into the counsellor’s office.
I’d also like to leave but when I try to extract myself, similarly to Em, I discover the wide gap that exists between the ages of seventeen and eighteen. A gulf far larger than the three months remaining till I reach my majority would suggest.
Instead of being able to sit and think things through, come up with a plan to apologise, to right some of my wrongs, I’m forced to undergo a grilling from the school counsellor, Marge, an exercise equivalent to being quizzed by Elmo.
Zach and Lily wait for me while I participate in the pointless exercise and, as they walk me out, Lily has a mortified expression on her face. I don’t know what part she played in Em’s oh-so-public breakdown but that she had a role is clear.
