“Love you!” Talia echoes, linking arms with him as they veer off toward their class.
Unluckily for me, thanks to needing to catch up, Talia isn’t in this class with me. I wave, watching them disappear. Once they’re out of sight, I pull my hood up and lower my head. I keep it lowered as I walk through the main doors of the psychology building, trying to ignore the faces that glance at me and then quickly look away. Some faces I catch glimpses of try to offer fake smiles, but most don’t bother.
Typically, my class is on the second floor, right at the back of the building. I move as fast as I can, my shoes echoing on the polished linoleum. My thoughts spiral with every step. Do they think I’m lying? Do they pity me, hate me? Do they think that I killed him?
I shove through the classroom door and spot an empty seat in the back, slipping into it like a shadow. Professor Doyle starts the class without acknowledging me. No forced “welcome back,” no questions, no eye contact. I wonder if he saw the article. I wonder if he knows. Part of me is grateful nobody has said anything directly, but the other part of me wants to scream. I want someone to say it, to ask me what they’re all so desperate to know. But I also just want to disappear, to melt into the floor andnever be looked at again. Funny isn’t it, the human brain. How it can want two things that are polar opposite to each other.
I sit through the whole lecture in silence. My notes are messy, my handwriting barely legible. The words just blur on the page, my pulse thrumming through me like a warning drum. I don’t want to be the story people whisper about. But I’ll continue to smile and shine. Because if I stop pretending I’m okay, I’m not sure I’ll ever find my way back.
Cheer practicethat afternoon was brutal.
Not physically—though the burn in my legs was ungodly—but emotionally. The kind of brutal that crawled beneath your skin and sat heavy on your chest. Every beat of the music felt too loud, every clap and stop and cheer a mockery of who I used to be. I went through the motions like a wind-up doll, arms raised, legs kicking, mouth forming the right words at the right times. But there was no soul in it, not anymore. Because who the hell were we cheering for? The football team? The one without the captain? The one whose former star player raped me, then died?
The pitch looked the same—fresh-cut grass, white lines bright in the low winter sun—but I wasn’t the same girl standing on it. I felt like a ghost among the living, stuck in some alternate version of my life that I couldn’t crawl out of, no matter how frantically I tried.
When practice finally ends, I collapse onto the bleachers next to Ezra and Talia, gulping down water like my life depended on it. My lungs sting, my thighs tremble, and my chest is unbearably tight. Sweat glistens at my temples, and I can’t tell if I want to scream or run. But I don’t have time to figure it out, regardless. Because Jason Mahoney is walking directly my way.Swaggering like he’s the star of something shitty teen drama, with a malicious glint to his grey-blue eyes.
“Hey, Daisy,” he says, loud enough that it makes my stomach drop. He wants attention for this, his predatory smirk confirming it. I brace myself, my heart pounding erratically.
“Uh… hey, Jason?” I manage, confusion in my tone laced with a hint of dread.
He steps closer, tilting his head like he’s about to offer me a compliment. But the words that come out of his mouth make my blood turn to ice. “Listen, I heard you’re not a virgin anymore. You know, after putting out for Ethan.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “So, I was wondering if you’d consider me next. I’ve never had a bigger girl before. Or are you gonna scream rape if we fuck too?”
Everything freezes. The air, the people around us… Me. I feel my soul leave my body, hovering somewhere above the bleachers, watching myself sit there and take the vile words being thrown at me.
Ezra’s voice cuts through the haze in my mind. “What the actual fuck?”
Talia doesn’t wait to respond. She launches herself over the row in front of us and punches him—hard. There’s a satisfying crunch as Jason stumbles backward, blood pouring from his nose. I watch as he wipes it with the back of his hand, glaring at me, despite Talia being the one who sucker punched him.
“You’re a liar, Daisy,” he spits. “Everyone knows Ethan wouldn’t do that to you. You just regretted putting out, and now you’re dragging a dead man’s name through the mud.” He angles his head towards Talia, still keeping his eyes firmly pinned on me. “You’re just as much of a slut as your best friend now, though. Congrats.”
He winks, like this is just one big joke to him. Like my life is nothing more than a joke. He walks away laughing before I can muster up the courage to respond, rejoining his pack of wolves.Their cackles echo across the field as they throw glares in my direction. My ears ring, my face is hot, and my chest hurts. The shame crashes into me as my palms begin to sweat, my hands trembling. Everyone’s staring now, absolutely everyone., even the football coach and the cheer coach. This is never going to end, is it?
Ezra kneels beside me, gentle and tender as ever as he strokes a hand up my arm. “Daisy?”
Talia’s seething, pacing back and forth in front of me. “I’m going to kill him.” She tries to run after Jason, but Ezra catches her first, wrapping his arms around her waist, physically lifting her off the ground. Her legs kick furiously as she screams at him to let go.
“He’s not worth it,” he growls, his usually cheery voice cracking under the weight of his own rage. “He’s not fucking worth it, Talia.”
My skin continues to prickle with the weight of a hundred eyes pinned to me. My throat feels unbearably tight. “I… I have to go to work,” I whisper.
“Daze—” Talia starts, reaching for me.
“I’m fine,” I say, gently shaking my head with a smile suddenly plastered across my face as I frantically blink away the tears forming. “Honestly, I have to go.”
I leave, not daring to run in case it draws any more attention to me—if that was at all possible. I grab my stuff, ignoring the looks in the locker room, deciding not to change out of my uniform. I’ll deal with that at work. I just need to get out. I need to disappear before the sob building in my chest explodes out of me.
The coffee shop is quiet when I arrive, and the moment I step into the staff bathroom, I collapse down onto the closed toilet lid, my bag falling to the floor, pens scattering everywhere. I sit, shoulders shaking, tears tracking down my cheeks, painting wettrails on my skin. I curl in on myself, elbows to knees, hands covering my face. How is this still happening, haven’t I suffered enough? I choke on a sob, the world feeling a little too heavy for me to handle all over again.
I’m falling apart.
Thirty minutes into my shift, and I’ve burned myself three times on the milk steamer—my wrists are literally blistering—I dropped a coffee cup during a rush, and I’ve had to remake two orders. I’m clumsy, I’m distracted, and I’m absolutely unravelling at the seams.
An hour into my shift, I’m slowly managing to get my shit together enough to make orders correctly, thinking maybe I’ll make it through the rest of the night without messing up, whenshewalks in. Phoebe and her army of clones who think giggling louder than necessary makes them relevant and not just annoying as hell. I glance up, hearing their annoying screeches echoing through the cafe, and it suddenly feels like the air is thick. She stops dead in her tracks, arm shooting out to halt the girls behind her.
“Ew. I’m not being served by that lying whore,” she says, loud enough that every head in the cafe turns to look at her, then me. Silence settles in quickly as the leeches surrounding me soak in the drama. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
My heart plummets into my stomach. The one place I thought I could just get on with life without drama. How naive of me. I force a shaky inhale, closing my eyes and running a hand down my face. Just as I reopen them, my manager appears beside me, his mouth in a sharp line. Shit.
