It cracked in the middle.
And just like that, the whole day rose up in my throat.
Brielle in the bathroom.
The printed picture at lunch.
The dollar bill on my locker.
The old newspaper photos. Mandy’s engagement announcement with Tarak. Mandy laughing on Edge’s bike. Mandy’s funeral. Edge standing at the cemetery like somebody had carved grief into a man and left him there for the whole town to photograph.
All of it.
Every stupid, ugly, humiliating second.
I started talking, and once I started, I couldn’t stop.
I told them about the whispers, about the screenshots, about boys making bets over which Royal Bastard had knocked up my dead mother. I told them about the girls calling me club trash while wearing crosses around their throats. I told them about the locker, the dollar bill, the jokes about my name, the way teachers looked at me like they knew but didn’t want the paperwork that came with helping.
I told them how they called Mandy a whore.
How they said my mother named me after a stripper.
How Brielle told me to go earn bucks at the bar if I wanted to fit in with my daddy’s people.
By the time I finished, Tris looked ready to commit violence with her bare hands.
Jake had gone very still.
That was worse. Jake loud was harmless. Jake quiet meant somebody was about to make a memory.
“Why didn’t you tell your dad?” he asked.
I wiped under my eye fast, furious there was anything wet there. “Because he would’ve made it worse.”
“Maybe they deserve worse.”
“They do,” I snapped. “But I don’t need Edge riding up to my school with half the Royal Bastards behind him like I’m some pathetic little girl who can’t fight her own battles.”
Tris softened. “Des, nobody would think that.”
“Yes, they would.” My voice came out raw. “That’s all they think. Poor Destiny. Crazy Mandy’s daughter. Edge’s secret baby. Tarak’s almost-stepwhatever. The girl everybody has to watch because maybe one day the bad blood kicks in.”
Jake’s face changed. “Who said that?”
“Everyone says it without saying it.”
The wind moved dust across the lot. Somewhere in the distance, traffic hummed. The sun was dropping lower now, turning the sky copper and blood orange, the whole desert glowing like it knew what I was about to do and approved.
I looked at my friends.
“They’re putting her sins on me,” I said. “Not the people she hurt. Not Edge. Not Tarak. Not Regan. Those are the people who have the right to hate her. Those are the people who could’ve looked at me and seen nothing but Mandy, but they didn’t. They loved me anyway.”
My throat tightened around the truth.
“They loved me anyway,” I repeated, softer.
Tris stepped closer. “Then let us take you home.”
