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“You need to leave before I hurt you.” He merely stands there and glares at me like I’m speaking a language he doesn’t understand. “Get the fuck out of my house. I don’t need people like you and them in my life.”
“Us?” He doesn’t bother to hide the confusion in his tone. “You started all of this years ago. You called her Bloody Mary first when she got caught with blood on the back of her jeans in sixth grade. You put the spiders in her locker because you found out she was terrified of them. You convinced her to eat Reese’s in fourth grade, knowing she was deathly allergic to nuts. You were the reason she ended up hospitalized that day. All of that was you. We were just following your lead.”
“I don’t remember any of that,” I seethe.
“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Listen, man. I know you’re pissed right now, but eventually, you’ll get all of your memories back, and you’re going to regret alienating all of your friends.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he huffs, but thankfully, he walks away.
I stay in the kitchen for a few minutes before heading back out to the pool. The last couple of people are drying off, preparing to leave.
“I think it’s great that you put them in their place,” a girl I hadn’t been introduced to says as she walks past me. “There may be hope for you yet. Westover will change if you make them.”
I don’t respond to them, but her insinuation that people will still follow me no matter which direction I take things grates on my nerves. I don’t want to be their leader. I don’t want to be the one that influences what people think or how they react. I just want to be left alone, and everyone else needs to be their own person.
Bronwyn doesn’t make eye contact with me when she grabs her bag and turns to leave. Vaughn also refuses to make eye contact, but at least he has the wherewithal to look ashamed of his role in what happened. I watch all the teens load up into a half dozen different vehicles, and it doesn’t even bother me when Kyle wraps his arm around Bronwyn’s shoulder as he leads her to his car. They can have each other for all I care. The only person that matters to me right now is inside my house.
I lock the front door, but before I head upstairs, I grab the plate with Preston’s sandwich on it. Piper has been cooking for him all week, and I don’t want her hard work going to waste. I reheat the sandwich in the microwave and carry it up the stairs to my brother.
“Thanks,” he says when I hand him the plate. “All of your friends gone?”
“Those people are idiots,” I mumble.
“I’m only ten, and I could’ve told you that.”Chapter 16Piper“I hate that I cried in front of them,” I confess through my sobs.
Peyton wraps her arms tighter around me. I’m grateful that she’s here, grateful that she witnessed what happened in the kitchen and not Frankie. My best friend would’ve clawed their eyes out, and then she would’ve turned on me for not letting her know just how bad things had gotten with the kids at school.
“I’m normally stronger than this.”
“You’re the strongest girl I know,” Peyton whispers.
I cry quietly for a few more minutes.
“Let me get you some tissues.” She’s off the bed, disappearing into her bathroom before coming back with a length of toilet paper.
“He’s actually making them leave,” she says when she crosses the room and looks out her bedroom window.
I watch her as she continues to look down at the people that have made my life miserable. Her brow is creased, and she looks like she wants to say something, but I’m sure my sobbing for the last couple of minutes is keeping her lips clamped shut.
“Just say whatever it is that you’re thinking,” I urge.
It’s been hard with Frankie gone, but Peyton has made it easier to deal with the bouts of loneliness.
“What if he is different?” She turns to face me. “What if the guy who was mean to you for so long is gone?”
I open my mouth to tell her it doesn’t matter but then close it so I can actually think about how that really makes me feel.
“It doesn’t change anything.”
“It’ll change the future,” she counters. “That’s something, right?”
“I’m not saying I’m going to hate him for the rest of his life—”
“But you won’t forgive him,” she interrupts.
“I don’t think I can.”
“I think you should. I think he’s genuinely sorry for how he’s treated you.”
“I don’t think someone can authentically regret doing something that they don’t remember doing,” I argue.
“But you think it’s right to continue to dislike him when he isn’t that guy anymore?”
