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“People always tell you to be your true self, but when you’re unapologetically you, it pisses them off,” Row grumbled.
“It’s the chicken-and-the-egg situation,” I sighed. “I’m not sure what came first—me having social anxiety and being bullied for it, or being bullied to the point I developed a fear of interacting with humans.”
“You don’t fear interacting with humans. You interact with them all the time—you moved to New York, got a degree, work in hospitality. It’s the fact you don’t bend to boring social norms that makes you stand out.” Row elevated an eyebrow. “I’m here to tell you, don’t ever change.”
“Why?”
“Because your quirkiness is one of your best fucking features.”
A delicious sensation of pride and warmth washed over my entire body.
He rubbed his palms over his legs to gather heat. “Anyway, back to your story.”
“In high school, the bullying got worse. Before, I was weird but meaningless enough not to warrant any special attention. But now, I’d started taking up space. Boys began noticing me. I joined the track team. I was an award-winning mathlete. A lot of people decided to overlook my weirdness and befriend me. They all wanted something from me, but I was so hungry for positive attention, I was happy to give it to them. That’s when the lying began. When I realized I could mold myself to be whatever people wanted me to be, and that made them stay, at least for a while. For the first time in my life, I actually had friends who weren’t Dylan. My stock went up, and that’s when shit went down.”
“They were jealous.” His eyes darkened to two black holes, threatening to suck me in whole, and his mouth latched on to the vodka bottle angrily.
“Jealous?” I kicked the ground, throwing my body backward on the swing. “Doubt it. I don’t think those girls wanted to swap places with me. They just didn’t like me in their sphere. The track team was the worst.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I was really good. Competed over first place in my freshman year with this girl who was desperate to get a scholarship through track. She was a senior, and neck and neck with me. She always had a nasty remark at hand when I passed her. I called her Queen Bitch.” In my head, anyway. I was incapable of being rude, even to the most awful people.
Row passed me the vodka. When I grabbed it, it seemed much lighter. We were both whimsically drunk. In that existential spot where the world made more sense because you’d stepped out of your point of view for a minute.
The clear liquid scorched a path down my throat. Finally, I got to the part I’d never shared with anyone. The part that had carved me into who I was today with a rusty Swiss knife. A girl who’d sworn off men forever. “Worse than potentially taking the first spot from Queen Bitch as the fastest female runner at school, she found out one day that the boy she liked, Franco, was my secret boyfriend. He was eighteen. I was fourteen. We did…stuff.” Almost went all the way. Stupidest thing I’d ever done to be liked. “It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. I still did it. He was the captain of the hockey team. Made me feel seen. Grown-up and beautiful. He said we were his favorite secret. I agreed to lie for him, not even telling Dylan about us.”
Franco had been using my body and my pariah status to get his rocks off. I’d always known that in the back of my head. But fourteen-year-old me had been desperate to make a friend in the popular hockey hero.
Row hummed with hot, furious energy. I could practically feel his fury trickling into my system, hiking up the temperature in the park by ten degrees. He glided his tongue along his upper teeth, stifling a curse. “Continue.”
“It all came to a head when Queen Bitch caught us in the locker room…well, me, giving Franco…uhm.” Head. I couldn’t say it. But I didn’t have to. Row’s nostrils flared and he closed his eyes, bracing himself for the knockout confession. “Franco could’ve gotten in insane trouble for messing around with me, but he thought himself so untouchable, it didn’t even cross his mind.” My heart was about to spill out of my chest like a broken egg, I felt so raw talking about it.
“You were abused.” Row’s lips curled over one another like burned paper. “You should’ve never gone through this alone.”
“When she caught us, Franco just…laughed. I wasn’t sure how I was expecting him to react, but I knew it wasn’t that. He told her I was a groupie, a stupid little whore. He pushed me off him so carelessly, and when I hit the back of my head on the grimy floor, he let out a snort. She tried to laugh it off too, I think. To show that she didn’t care. But I think it was just too much for her. I was the weirdo freshman. I wasn’t supposed to take her scholarship and the guy. I don’t even know why she wanted the scholarship so bad. It’s not like she didn’t have money. So during one of our morning five-mile rounds around the woods, she went after me.” An icy shiver licked over my skin. “Along with everyone else on the team. They all looked up to her. Bigwig dad, money, looks, reputation. Everyone on the team wanted to please her.”
“What was her name?” His voice was low, husky, deadly.
But I was in a trance, transported back into the moment. “What started as a routine practice ended up as a bloodthirsty chase. They’d had enough. I was drawing too much attention, making too much noise. Coach wasn’t there that morning. It was just us girls. Queen Bitch, the ringleader, said, ‘Time’s up, Litvin. You didn’t really think you were going to get away with it, right? Being normal and popular and shit.’”
I still remembered every word like it was yesterday because each had left a scar on my heart.
“The woods stretch out for hundreds of acres from either side of this town.” I kept my eyes on the ink-black sky, avoiding his pitying look. “I knew I stood no chance against all of them. It was just me and them and their hate.”
Row’s fingers were screwed tightly into his eyes. “Dot…” His voice was gruff. “That time you broke your ankle…you didn’t fall, did you?”
Everyone had thought my injury was a freak accident. After all, I was a klutz. I closed my eyes. “They chased me.”
“Let’s see how fast you run now, you little shit.”
“Said they’d skin me alive when they got to me. It took them twenty minutes to catch me.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Turns out I really was the fastest. But then my teammates were everywhere. Snaking between trees, lurking behind bushes. Queen Bitch was the one who ended up snatching the hem of my hoodie. ‘Well, well. If it isn’t Franco’s little hussy girlfriend. You know he only dates you because you’re a Russian whore, right?’ She dragged me by my feet toward the river. I kicked and screamed, clawing at the wet ground. Two of my fingernails snapped out of my skin. I begged for help.”
“Aw, she’s a feisty one. Franco said your tics go crazy when you go down on him. Is that true?”
It was. And I had been nauseous with humiliation because he’d shared the most intimate, shameful part of me with my enemy.
“You know he told me he put pictures of you naked on porn sites? Your face is all over the internet with you cupping your tits. What kinda freshman whore even sends a senior naked pictures? Jesus.”
The revelation had poured hot, renewed rage into me. I’d managed to kick her in the face. She had stumbled back, bracketing her nose, blood gushing between her fingers.
