AIDEN AND CASEY brought me to the junior high girls’ locker room. Aiden stood by the door while Casey walked with me. There were tears in her dark eyes as she helped me remove my shirt. It was completely caked with frosting and rubbed against my skin. Fire tore at my thighs, and when we took off my pants, red patches of bleeding skin showed where I’d chafed on the run over here.
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Aiden! We need a first-aid kit,” she yelled toward the door.
I shook my head. “I just need new clothes.”
Wordlessly, she rose and walked to the door. I heard the swish of the weather strip on the bottom for the door and soft voices before the heavy metal slammed shut.
I was alone.
My feet chilled on the cement floor as I walked to the showers. I hadn’t used these since they forced us to shower after gym class in fifth grade, but the handle squealed just as loudly now as it had then.
Ice-cold water splattered over the cement and then warmed. I stepped under, letting the force of the stream work on my hair. Pink diluted frosting spilled over my shoulders, down the rise and fall of my stomach, all the way to the silver drain before disappearing. Each drop of the water stung my battered skin, and the fresh wounds on my legs seared with pain. None of it compared to the splitting sensation in my chest.
When Merritt told me that no hot guy would want to date someone like me, I had believed her. I’d wanted her to be wrong, but deep in my soul, I knew I’d never deserve someone like Beckett.
Now, I knew it was true, not because of the number of Xs in my clothing tags but because of who I was. Because of the darkness inside that made me use people just like Merritt did. Beckett may have hated me now, but not as much as I hated myself.
I slid down against the tile wall and sat under the stream of water, sobbing. I’d wasted so much time hiding and avoiding life because I didn’t think I was worthy. If I’d stepped forward, had a real conversation with him, who knew where we’d be?
I couldn’t know for sure, but I was certain it wouldn’t be as painful as this moment. As painful as knowing Beckett was about to take the field for the most important game of the season feeling hurt and betrayed.
I hadn’t meant to, but thanks to Merritt, I’d humiliated him in front of his father, his team, the entire school, and our school’s biggest rival. How he would manage to play the second half, I had no idea. I could hardly imagine standing up.
The locker room door opened, and I curled in on myself, not wanting anyone to see more of my mess.
“It’s me,” Casey said, walking in with blue and gray clothes in her arms. She held them up. “Extra gym clothes. They might be a little tight, but they should work.”
I rubbed at my eyes, and my hands came away black. I scrubbed harder, trying to rub out every remnant of the mascara and eyeliner—just another part of the act I’d put on to hurt the one person outside of my family who actually cared for me.
“Rory!” Casey cried. “Rory, stop!”
But I couldn’t. I wanted to strip every bit of sugar and makeup from my skin and start over as someone else.
Anyone else.
Her thin hands squeezed my wrists and pulled them away from my face. “STOP!” she bellowed.
Her words echoed off the cement walls and slapped me back to reality. The reality where her clothes were getting wet and my naked body lay piled like a blob on the locker room floor. I doubted there was a low beyond this, but if there was, surely I could find it.
Casey’s expression softened. “Let’s get you out of here—before the game lets out. Okay?”
Slowly, I nodded. She helped me to my feet, and I walked to a bench. I couldn’t feel my body anymore, just sensed the movement and passing of the room around me.
She tried a few lockers until she reached an unlocked one and gave me a towel that hung nearly stiff, tented in the center where it’d hung over a hook. Too numb to care, I scrubbed it over my skin until I could dress in what she brought me.
It was a large gym uniform. The T-shirt stretched around my middle, and the shorts snugged my hips and thighs. I was caught between a camel toe and a midriff shirt, and I hated every second of it.
“Take the towel to cover up,” Casey said, not a hint of judgement in her voice. “You can always replace it.”
It was small, but it covered my front. I wrung water from my hair and stood. She led me toward the door, and Aiden’s dark eyes took me in. His expression stayed somber as he put an arm protectively around me.
My younger brother had officially bested me in every way. He was a star runner, had a devoted girlfriend, and now, he was a better sibling.
He led our small group out the school’s doors to the parking lot, and cold air immediately blasted me, shattering the numbness. It leeched through my hair, whipped at my legs, snapped my lungs into action.
Each breath burned until I was seated in Aiden’s backseat, shaking, and covered in an extra throw blanket Mom had him keep in the back.
Mom.
I groaned.
“What?” Aiden asked, snapping his head toward me. “Mom,” I answered. “She and Dad were at the game.”
“They’re dealing with Headmaster Bradford,” he said quickly. “They’ll see us at home.”
I didn’t ask how he knew. Just kept quiet until I faced another death by a thousand papercuts.
