I was an idiot for trusting Jack with my feelings, that night at the party.

I clutch at Ms. Muffin and curl up on the bed.

Ugly.

Ugly, ugly.

Is that what you thought this was? Love?

Dark hair. Dark eyes. The smell of a cigarette. A crooked smile that used to make my knees quake and my head go fuzzy, becoming something sinister and evil.

I don’t fall in love with fat, ugly girls. No one does.

Ugly.

Ugly.

Ugly girl.

Ms. Muffin’s black bead eyes watch me with no pity.

Maybe I’ll love you. Maybe, if you hold still.

-11-

I watch Isis leave through the front door. Her thin shoulders are hunched. She’s sniffing away the remnants of tears, fists clenched at her sides.

She broke into my house. She’s inching herself closer to Sophia to hurt me. She is a nuisance. I should feel nothing for a nuisance like her. Especially not the gentle flame of sympathy that licks at the back of my mind. An urge to prove her wrong, that I’m not like the scum that hurt her. An urge to rip the bastard’s balls off and stuff them down his own throat until he chokes.

An urge to protect her.

I scoff and turn away from the window. Avery’s sitting in Isis’s car. It’s typical of Avery to get others to do her dirty work for her, but Isis still agreed to it. She’s halfly at fault.

Avery deserves nothing, no part of Sophia. She doesn’t deserve to even read the words Sophia writes.

I sigh and run my hands through my hair. I stink of the dogshit someone – Isis, probably – threw at the car. I ran it through a car wash, but it was stubborn. Just like Isis. The girl’s a mystery. Most people fall open like books for me to read within a few minutes. Stray animal hairs on their jacket - pet lover. Over sympathetic. Yellowed teeth – coffee or cigarettes or bad hygiene – all signs of an addiction to punishing oneself. Everyone is simple. No one bothers to hide themselves well. They put on perfume and makeup and designer clothes, but it’s a superficial shield that I can read. It takes me minutes to know who they are, if they’re particularly difficult, a few hours. People in Northplains, Ohio, aren’t exactly complicated and duplicitous. They tend to stick to malls and keg stands, gossip and football games.

But then she came. The new girl - a complete mystery. Most new people settled quickly, but not her. She stood out, with no friends except over-eager Kayla. She joined no clique, treated everyone with the same brusque, jovial, self-effacing humor. She isn’t afraid of being alone.

She never dropped her guard - her smiles and her jokes. It’s an act, a thick, hard shield forged after years of pain. I know that now. But still, she didn’t falter beneath it. She held it up even as I kissed her, even as the pictures of her old self circulated and the whispers about her turned vicious. She held strong. She took the blows, and she struck back at me with more fervor than ever.

The one exception was at the party. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was just the night air. Maybe she felt it was simply the right moment. But that was the first and only time she’s let the shield down. She showed me a glimpse of who she really is; the flippant devil-may-care new girl with a penchant for practical mischief has a heart-rendingly tender center, still untouched by the world and its cruelties. With such a strong shield, I expected her to be empty on the inside, hardened all the way through. But when she thanked me for kissing her, when she confessed to having given up on ever being kissed, I was almost afraid to look, as if my gaze alone would be pressing too hard on the gentle petal of a girl that was peeking out. A girl who expected nothing. A girl completely different from the seemingly confident one who strode the halls with snark to spare. A girl who thought so little of herself, she truly, honestly, purely believed she didn’t even deserve to be kissed. It wasn’t even an option for her.

Will Cavanaugh has destroyed her.

She was probably a trusting, naïve girl before him, like a daisy. And then he came, and pulled her petals off one by one, forcing her to surround herself with thorns to survive.

But he missed one petal. And she guards it with a tiger’s ferocity.

I’d stolen a glance at something she works hard to pretend doesn’t exist.

And in my anger at her interference with my life, I threatened the petal.

Part of me feels guilty. Part of me feels proud. I protected Sophia, who has no one left in the world but me. I’m her only protection against the same evils that’ve scarred Isis so deeply. Sophia came so close to becoming like Isis – angry and bitter and sad – that it gives me chills. Isis is what Sophia could’ve become, if I hadn’t acted on that sweltering August night.

Isis justifies me.

She justifies what I did – she’s the embodiment of the pain that twists girls into tortured things. Seeing her every day is proof I did the right thing. It silences the doubting voices in my head, if only for a few seconds. Wren’s avoiding gaze and Avery’s fearful one don’t sting as much when Isis is around. I know what I did was right, and that conviction is stronger in me when she’s near.

I wonder how Isis would’ve turned out, if I had been there like I was for Sophia. If I, or someone else, had done what I did for Sophia for Isis, what would Isis be like now? Would she smile more? Not that contrived, kitten-smile she makes when she’s being sly or feeling satisfied, but a true, happy smile. She’d be just as batshit insane, of course, but she’d do her practical jokes and pranks out of joy, not because she’s running from her demons. Not because they’re the only thing that distracts her from the pain.

“Jack?” Mom’s voice wafts through the door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

She opens it carefully, and steps in with equally careful movements. Blue paint is smeared on her cheek, her hair in a messy bun.

“I think –” She takes a deep breath. She’s never been good at discipline. I’ve always had Grandpa for that. But when she’s worked up about something, she never backs down from saying it. She’s much like Isis in that regard.

“I think she was a really sweet girl. I really liked her. What you said to her wasn’t fair. And it was cruel.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“Because I was panicking. She and I – Mom, she and I have this thing –”

“You aren’t going out, are you?”

“No, Jesus no. I have Sophia.”

“I know, but, Jack, she doesn’t really –” She cuts off, eyes darting around the room. “I love Sophia, I really do. And I know she loves you. But I don’t think she loves you the same way you –”

“I’ll apologize to Isis.”

Mom drops the train of thought I hate to talk about, and smiles.

“Thank you, sweetie.” She comes over and pats my shoulder. “I’d hate to see you lose a potential friend. You have so few of them.”

“That’s because none of them were interesting,” I say, and peer out the window one last time, to where Isis is pulling away from the curb. “Until now.”

***

3 Years

17 Weeks

5 Days

I sleep for an entire day.

And when I wake up I’m a new person.

I’m empty. I’ve cried out everything I had in me. I’m an empty shell waiting to be filled with what comes next.