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Since that day, she had always saved a seat for me in the cafeteria, and somehow, we had become friends.

She had never talked about her grandmother again, but I tried my best to distract her at school from what must be going on at home. Just as she distracted me since I had told her what had happened at the party two weeks ago.

Something inside me stiffened, my vision blurred, and before I could control it, a tear rolled down my cheek.

I quickly looked out the window, toward the trees of the forest we were driving through toward the neighborhood where my family lived. I tried to focus on the treetops, but they flew past us way too fast.

It didn't help. My tears turned into a veritable flood. Silent, yet so violent. More and more tears ran down my cheeks, and I fought against wasting even a single thought on that evening.

“Hey, Mady?” Tony's concerned voice made me flinch, but I looked away, continuing to stare out the window. “What's wrong?”

Shit. I shouldn't have thought about it.

Convincing myself that nothing had happened had been a good solution. One that had led me, after just one week, to be certain that actually none of it had ever really happened.

Could tears lie?

I didn't like the that Tony slowed down and ultimately pulled the car over to the side of the road.

What was he doing? Why wasn't he driving on?

“Mady. Look at me.”

Everything in me resisted showing him how vulnerable I was. That something was wrong with me. I didn't want him to see me like this. I wanted to give him hope and not appear hopeless myself.

“Mads, please.”

Hesitantly, I turned my head.

This was the end of me. The end of that phase where I could suppress what had happened.

I could lie to my parents, to Ezra... But to him?

Tony took off his sunglasses, revealing his emerald-green eyes, and it bothered me that I couldn't read his fixed gaze.

“Come here.”

Suddenly, he put his arms around me, pulled me toward him, and I just let it happen.

“You can talk to me about anything,” I heard him whisper in my hair. “I hope you know that.”

I just nodded, trying to focus on his hand stroking my back soothingly up and down.

Tony was the only one who saw the real Mady. Who didn't seem to forget that I existed.

But this? It would overwhelm us both.

“I can't talk about it,” I sobbed into his black T-shirt, grateful that my mascara wouldn't show on it. “I don't even want to believe it happened.” I shook my head as if it would make anything better. “But it did happen... No matter how hard I try to forget... It really did happen.”

My words felt like self-betrayal.

“What happened?”

He was quiet, waiting, along with the silence that surrounded us, as cars occasionally passed by.

“Vivi took me to one of those student parties we aren’t supposed to be at yet.” I didn’t know why I was telling him, but Tony deserved the truth. “At the Bexleys'.” The mere thought of that night made my stomach rebel. “And it was different than usual. Lots of students, weird guys...”

I should have known. I shouldn't have been drinking.