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“Hey, Zoe.” A guy wearing a huge backpack practically hip checked me into the wall.
“Watch it,” I snarled.
He shot me a dirty look. “Fuck you.”
There were meaner things he could’ve said. By the time you get to senior year the F word has lost much of its gravity and ability to offend. It’s almost a regular part of the lexicon of teenage language, like texting, or soda.
I watched him walk away. Normally I would’ve had a good comeback, but I couldn’t summon one. What I wanted to do was kick him in the back of his stupid head. I could do it.
Zoe scowled after him. “Douche,” she said to his retreating back.
I shrugged. “The school’s full of them.”
She laughed. “You’ve got that right.” When I met her gaze, I saw concern and wariness in her brown eyes, like I was a wounded animal she wanted to pet but was afraid would take her hand off if she did.
“I know this might sound weird, but a few of us have started a petition.” She pulled a stapled stack of paper from her binder and handed it to me. I looked at the pages; the petition was to have Magda’s picture added to the shadow box.
I stared at all the signatures. There had to be at least forty there already.
“It’s not fair that she’s not there,” Zoe said. “Three other people whose pictures are there died the same way.”
I looked at her, tempted to ask if those people had been raped, but I knew that wasn’t what she meant. She meant they’d killed themselves. “Do you have a pen?” I asked.
She smiled and handed me the pen she had clipped to her binder. I signed my name.
“I miss her, you know?”
I handed the petition and pen back to her. I wanted to tell her that she knew nothing. That she was a stupid cow who had no idea what it was like to lose your best friend, someone you knew so well they felt like a part of you. Wanted to tell her she should be glad that she had never seen someone she loved suffer like Magda had. I wanted to tell her that I hoped she never walked into a friend’s room and found them on their bed after they’d taken a handful of sleeping pills—enough to kill them, but not enough to do it quickly.
I remembered holding Magda in my arms, screaming for help. My brain latched on to that memory of her, so pale and unresponsive, and rolled it around in my head until my lungs felt as though they were being squeezed by a giant hand, each breath more strangled and difficult than the last.
Mostly, I hoped Zoe never knew what it was like to feel responsible, to know that the last thing you’d said to your best friend had broken her heart and her spirit. I’d let Magda feel alone, and she’d killed herself.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “I know. I have to go.” I pivoted on my heel and walked away as fast as I could without running. I dived into the nearest girls’ bathroom and ducked into a stall. I closed the door and locked it before pressing my forehead against the cool metal.
I breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth until the panic faded. My mother thought I had PTSD. Maybe I did, but calling it that felt like I was trying to excuse my grief. It felt like a lie. Because what I had was not a disorder, but a sadness that ran so deep I could feel it in my bones. Sometimes I felt like Magda had taken my own life with hers that day.
I tried to push thoughts of her away. My parents and my therapist had been concerned about how returning to school would affect me. I thought they were the crazy ones, but it seemed they understood me better than I did. I should have taken a Xanax before I left the house. At least that would have taken the edge off.
* * *
The bell rang. I made my way to the auditorium with the rest of the throng. Magda and I always sat as far back as we could. I couldn’t bring myself to climb the stairs to the back of the room, so I sat four rows back from the front. The seat to my right remained empty as the auditorium filled up. I could almost pretend my friend was there beside me.
They divided freshmen into their classes first, calling out names and then telling them where their classroom was located. Next was the sophomores, then the juniors and finally the seniors.
I sat there, numb and disinterested, until four familiar names were called: Jason Bentley, Drew Carson, Brody Henry and Adam Weeks. People actually cheered them. Those raised voices set my teeth on edge. Then, the universe decided to be cruel.
“Hadley White.”
No one cheered for me or applauded. I doubted many of them even knew who I was. It didn’t make me feel any better, though. Because I had been Magda’s best friend, and those four boys had destroyed her. They should know who I was, but they didn’t. I could probably walk right up to all four of them and spit in their faces, and they would have no idea why I had done it.
My name was the last one called for that class. I stood up with the others and filed out of the auditorium. Like all the other sheep, I followed the four of them to our homeroom class. I was the only one who didn’t seem to want their attention.
I was probably also the only one who wanted to kill them all.
Last Year
“I don’t understand what you see in him,” I said as Magda and I walked to our lockers. It was only the second week of school, and she couldn’t stop staring at Drew Carson. “He creeps me out.”
She frowned at me. She looked like an angry deer, her dark eyes were so big. “I think he’s cute. He grinned at me in class this morning.”
“That’s not a grin, it’s a leer.” We stopped at my locker, and I turned the dial on the combination lock. “Seriously, I’ve heard stories about him, Mags. He’s not a good guy.”
“Take a pill. It’s not like I want to marry him.” Her eyes sparkled now. “I just want to see if he’s as good a kisser as I think he is.”
I grimaced. Gross. There was only one way to stop this conversation. “You know who I think would be a great kisser?”
She leaned forward, eagerly, as though I was about to tell her the secrets of the universe. “Who?”
“Your brother.”
“Ugh!” She looked like she’d bit into something rotten. “Don’t even go there!”
I laughed as I grabbed my books. “But he’s so pretty, and his lips look like they’d be really soft, y’know? But firm.” I’d never admit that I wasn’t joking with her. My crush on Gabriel was my little secret.
“Stop it! Okay, fine, you win. Let’s talk about something else. Are you still sleeping over Saturday night?”
“Sure.” I shut the locker door and we walked the short distance to hers. “Are you going to cancel on me if you get a better offer? ’Cause I can always just hang out with Gabe if you have other plans.”
She rolled her wide, dark eyes. She was so pretty. “Please. Like I’d ever choose a guy over my best friend.”
I grinned. “Nothing will ever come between us. Ever.”
I was wrong.
* * *
I had only one class that none of them were in. AP English literature and composition would be my refuge. I was tempted to see if I could transfer out of some of the other classes, but then someone might want to know why.
If Mags hadn’t died, she would be right there with me. She’d spent months in the same classroom with those assholes after they hurt and humiliated her. She suffered through it until she couldn’t anymore. Changing classes would seem like an insult to her memory. Besides, there was part of me that liked sitting a few seats behind Drew Carson, staring at his back as rage bubbled inside me. Maybe it was the fact that I felt something that made me like it, or maybe I was just broken.
Jason Bentley sat next to me. I started to shake so bad I could barely hold my pen. I picked up my stuff and moved two rows over. There was no way I could spend the rest of the year next to him.
After my last class I went to my locker, gathered up what I needed and left. How was I going to do this for the next eight months? One day had felt like a year.
Halfway home I heard someone shout, “Hey!” behind me. When they did it again, I realized they were talking to me. I stopped and turned around.
It was Jason.
I wanted to run—away from him and at him. Every instinct I had screamed for me to escape while my heart urged me to pick up a rock and throw it at his face. Instead, I just stood there, unable to tell if it was defiance or stupidity that kept me still.
He approached me with a confused and wary look on his face, sort of like the one Zoe had worn that morning. “Hey,” he said. “You’re Hadley, right?”
I just stared, unable to speak for fear that all that would come out of my mouth was a scream, not of fear, but something primal and filled with rage. God, was I having a heart attack? My chest was so tight.
At one time—before he and his friends ruined my best friend—I’d found him cute. He was smart too, and out of the four he was the only one who ever paid any attention to me. Whenever Magda was around, I was always surprised when a boy looked at me. I wasn’t ugly—in fact I’ve always thought of myself as passably pretty—but Magda was gorgeous, and she’d had no idea just how beautiful she was.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked.
I continued to stare.
“Why did you move when I sat next to you in class today?”
Did he really have to ask? Yes, apparently he did, because there didn’t seem to be any malice in his tone or expression at all. He truly had no idea why I despised him.
“Magda Torres was my best friend,” I whispered, staring into those blue eyes. Disgust rolled in my stomach, rose in the back of my throat until I thought I might puke. Hate was a vile-tasting thing I wanted to spit onto his expensive sneakers.
Jason’s eyes widened as the color drained from his face. He took a step backward. “Oh.”
I took a step toward him, unwilling to allow him to escape so quickly. My chest wasn’t so tight now. Instead, it burned with rage. “Is that all you have to say?” I smiled, but it felt more like a twisting of my lips. I mean, he’d followed me all this way. It wasn’t just to ask me why I moved, was it?
What was I doing? He was bigger than me, and even though I’d been taking martial arts ever since I was a kid, I’d never actually fought someone outside the dojo.
He held up his hands. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“No, and you didn’t get any, did you?” I glared at him, took another step forward. “You didn’t even go to trial. How does it feel to have gotten away with it? Did you and your buddies celebrate when she killed herself?”
Jason looked horrified. Good. He just stared at me, shaking his head.
A car pulled up beside us. Drew Carson was driving, and Brody was in the passenger seat. Adam was in the back. For a second I was terrified that they were going to throw me in the car, take me somewhere secluded, and do to me what they’d done to my friend.
Brody’s window came down. “Dude, we’ve been looking for you. Get in.”
I didn’t look at them. I couldn’t. I was already shaking so badly my teeth chattered. If I looked at them, they’d see my fear. They’d see my rage. And I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.
Jason glanced at me before opening the car door and jumping into the backseat. I stared at the ground and heard them laugh as they drove away.
When I finally felt like I could walk without falling down, I didn’t head straight home. My legs shook for most of the walk, but eventually they became strong again and they carried me up the hill to the local cemetery. I didn’t have to look at the headstones to find the one I was looking for. I knew exactly where it was. It was the newer one at the end of the row with so many roses on it. Magda had loved roses. It didn’t matter what color so long as they smelled like they should. Usually I brought her one when I came to visit, but I hadn’t planned on visiting her until Friday.
I set my book bag on the grass left of her headstone and sat right on top of the mound that covered the hole where she’d been buried. I pulled a weed from the base of the heart-shaped stone her mother had erected that simply had her name, her birthday and the date she died engraved upon it.
Usually when I visited, I talked to her and told her what was going on in my life. I would tell her about our favorite TV shows, the books I’d read, local gossip, but today I didn’t feel much like talking. I just wanted to be near her, so I sat there, on the grass, and let the sun warm me.
A little while later, I heard footsteps behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was. I already knew.
“I thought you weren’t coming until Friday,” he said.
I didn’t look up, but moved a little to the left so he could sit down beside me. We always shared the mound and never made the other sit on the flat grass.
Gabriel and I came here a lot. We never planned to be here at the same time, and sometimes we weren’t, but when we were it was okay. Once you cried on someone, it wasn’t such a big deal if they saw your grief again.
Magda’s older brother was tall and lean with long dark hair and even darker eyes. Like his sister he was gorgeous, and seemed naively unaware of it. He was more cynical, though. Magda had seen good in everybody; Gabe knew it wasn’t true.
“Rough day?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
I’d known Gabriel since I was five years old, so when he put his arm around my shoulders I leaned into him, my cheek resting on his chest. I could hear his heartbeat, and for some reason that made me incredibly sad and happy at the same time.
That’s when the tears finally came, because I hadn’t felt happy since before my best friend had her rape smeared across the internet. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be happy now, when I should have been the one to save her, and had failed.
CHAPTER 3 (#u76b1cd3b-6dee-58c7-b48c-e3150851238a)
I had Aikido class that night, in a strip mall located on West Main Street. The instructor was a great big guy named José, who was very strong, and surprisingly light on his feet. He smiled a lot, which made him look completely unthreatening. I liked him. I’d started taking his class a couple of years ago. It was one of the few things Magda and I hadn’t done together. She tried it, but just didn’t like it. She didn’t like hurting people—or getting hurt.
“We have a special guest tonight,” José said. “Detective Diane Davies from our local police station. She’s going to talk to you all about how you can use aikido to protect yourself from an attacker.”
Detective Davies was tall. She wore a T-shirt and sweatpants, and I could see muscle definition in her arms. She’d seemed nice at the time, like she really wanted to help. But in the end, she’d let Magda down too.
“I need someone to help me demonstrate these moves,” Detective Davies said. “Would anyone like to volunteer?”
I put up my hand before I could stop myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to be helpful, but that I was hoping to have the chance to punch her in the face. Not a particularly sane thought, but I was just so angry. Angry that Magda was gone. Angry that Jason Bentley hadn’t known who I was. Angry that everybody was just going about their regular lives like nothing terrible had happened. My best friend was dead, and she had been for months. My life hadn’t been the same since she was attacked, and it never would be. I was always going to wonder what Magda could’ve been, what she could’ve achieved, and about the fact that four assholes had made certain she’d never do any of it.
So yeah, the chance to unload a little violence—with no ramifications—on one of the people who had let Magda down was too tempting to pass up.
And maybe she’d land a couple of strikes on me, and I could let the pain inside me go somewhere else. Take the punishment I deserved.
Detective Davies met my gaze as I approached the front of the dojo. When we stood face-to-face she smiled at me, and said, “I know you. It’s Hadley, right?”
So she did remember. “Yes.”
Her smile faded a little. Good. I hope she remembered Magda, and that she felt at least a little guilt standing there with me.
“First I want you to come at me,” she instructed. “I’ll defend myself against you, then we’ll break down the moves, and then you’ll use them on me.”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
She moved a few feet away from me. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I didn’t run toward her, or lunge. But I quickly closed the distance between us and aimed a kick I had learned in tae kwon do at her sternum. She was fast, way faster than I anticipated. She grabbed my leg, using my momentum to throw me off balance and facedown on the floor.
I sucked in a deep breath to replace what had been knocked out of me, and pushed myself to my feet. She was good. And I was pissed at myself for not being at least as good.
The detective addressed the class. “You all know that aikido is about displacing the energy of an attack. I didn’t have to strike out, and I avoided being hit simply by using Hadley’s momentum to my own advantage and against her. Now, Hadley, would you mind helping me break the moves down so that everyone can see before you use it against me?”
I walked back to the center of the mat with her. We went through the movements again, this time in slow motion. I paid close attention to how she grabbed my leg and twisted her own body. This time when I hit the mat it was with barely any force at all, and I was able to catch myself.
“Now,” Diane said. “I will attack you.”
