“Addison, can I please see you for a minute?”

Interruption.

Miss Shrieve. Great. Just what I didn’t need this morning.

I came to a stop in the hall and pivoted to look at her. Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of my face. I wished I could disappear, but I was trapped, and when she lifted her arm, I automatically flinched away.

“Who did this to you?” she asked softly, then stepped to the side of the hall, waiting for me to follow.

“It’s nothing,” I assured, not wanting to get into it.

I wanted to go to my history class and wait for Mr. McKendrick. I may have been ending things, but right now I was feeling anxious, and he was the only person who could calm me.

“It certainly is not nothing.” Miss Shrieve took a deep breath and then let it out on a sigh. “What exactly happened yesterday with Jessica?”

Holy shit, she knew about yesterday?

Did Grayson tell her?

“Nothing,” I replied hurriedly, thinking to myself, please let this go.

“Addison? You need to start talking. Your behavior lately…you know you’re going to be suspended this morning, don’t you?”

My stomach knotted at the thought of my mom’s reaction to that news. She may not use her hands, but when it came to showing her disappointment, she could be as vicious as my father.

“Well, if you won’t tell me, maybe you’ll talk to Principal Thomas. Come on, Mr. McKendrick will meet us there.”

Betrayal.

The second she said his name, I felt it.

It didn’t matter that he’d told me it could come to this. The emotion was there just the same. Following silently, I came to a standstill when we entered the main office, and it was empty. He wasn’t there.

I followed Miss Shrieve’s gaze as she looked at the clock on the wall—8 a.m.

“Wait here,” she instructed and made her way over to Mrs. Howard, Principal Thomas’s secretary.

Angry, I reached into my pocket and gripped his pen like I wanted to snap it in half. The pounding in my head was from my anxiety kicking in, as any calm I usually got from him morphed to fury.

His betrayal cut deeper than the gash on my lip.

“Looks like it’s you and me, Addison. Mr. McKendrick won’t be here today.”

Seething, I stood and made my way over to where Miss Shrieve was standing.

Why he would do this to me? Why would he leave me to face this alone?

I took a seat in front of the Principal’s large desk and faced the balding man behind it. The clock in the hall became louder, drowning out the ringing in my ears.

Tick, tick, tock.

All sense of calm was gone.

He’d left me here, and that was when I realized I truly was alone.

* * *

Present…

“What do you mean Grayson gave it to you?”

“Why don’t you sit down, Addy,” Doc suggests as he sits.

“I don’t want to sit down!”

I can feel the beginning of hysteria starting to grip me but what did he expect? All along he’d...what?

“Did you know Grayson?”

“Sit down, please.”

Planting my ass in the usual seat, I sputter the only thing that makes any sense. “Did you and he...talk about me?”

“No.”

Not able to sit still, I bounce back up to my feet as I point the pen at him.

“Stop being so fucking cryptic.”

“I’m being honest. You’re the one who has been cryptic,” Doc points out and glances at the wall calendar. “For sixteen days now.”

“I know how long it’s been.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!” I shout, frustrated at not getting the answers I think he holds.

“Are you ready to start talking to me like an adult? Trusting me?”

Pacing back and forth, I shake my head.

I’d once promised never to talk about this with anyone. Knowing that if I did, it could ruin the one person that I loved.

But does it count as a broken promise when that person is gone, and I’m all alone?

* * *

Past…

Suspended for five days.

Mom had been called at work, and I had been ordered to get myself right home. She would deal with me tonight.

I ran out to my car, and as I neared it, I noticed there was a note on my windshield under the wiper blade. Picking it up, I unfolded the paper to see the words: ONE, TWO, THREE, FREAK written in bold letters. Jessica.

I scrunched it up and unlocked the car, climbing inside. I looked out at the kids running around the track and angrily slammed the door shut.

There went my track year at school and my perfect run of being the star everyone expected. Principal Thomas had told me I could make it up and still compete if I worked extra hard, but at this point, all I wanted to do was give up.

Starting the car, I pulled out of the lot with every intention of driving home.

That, however, was not where I ended up.

* * *

Work just wasn’t in the cards today.

All night I’d lain in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to decide where exactly everything had gone wrong. When was the moment that I’d truly lost my direction and not been able to turn back? Managing in the process to let down the man closest to me.

All I kept coming back to was the moment I first saw her.

That was when.

Dad had written, I understand, but somehow I doubted this was what he had in mind when he wrote it. He’d probably been thinking love on a grand scale, not on a scale that could potentially put his son behind bars.

Something needed to change. I needed to change.

So instead of going to school this morning, I’d gone somewhere else entirely.

I’d just gotten out of the shower after returning home when there was a loud knock on my front door. I pulled on a pair of jeans and slicked my hands through my wet hair. I really didn’t want to deal with people today.

I didn’t bother with the peephole before I opened the door.

Although I shouldn’t have been shocked to see her, I was surprised by how she looked as she stood scowling in front of me. Her hair was tangled all around her face, and her bottom lip was puffy and split open. She didn’t look anything like the girl who’d driven away from me yesterday afternoon.

White-knuckling the door, I tried to imagine telling her to leave. I tried to picture a time in my future where I wouldn’t think about her and wonder where she was, or how she was doing, or even worse, whom she loved. Instead, I stepped aside and Addison stormed into my house.

The tension in the air was palpable.

I’d gone to her last night with one goal in mind—to end this. We needed to stop the madness we’d gotten caught up in, but now as she stood in front of me, all I could think about was touching her one last time.

* * *

Driving home, I’d been determined to forget about Grayson, or Mr. McKendrick as I’d been thinking of him today.

Where the hell had he been?

Just calling in long enough to say—sure, suspend her—before disappearing was bullshit. It was the coward’s way out, and halfway home, I found myself making a U-turn.

I parked in my usual spot and made my way to his front door. I knocked three times and tried to keep my anger at bay, deciding that I would just end things and get out of there.

However, that decision flew out the window when the front door opened, and standing in front of me was a virtual stranger. Sometime between last night and this morning, Grayson had transformed.

Gone was the long hair I’d grown accustomed to, and in its place was a clean-cut version of my teacher. The stubble along his jaw was still familiar, and as he moved aside and I barged in past him, I couldn’t help but look him over a second time. The change was so unexpected it almost broke through my anger, but then his eyes dropped to my lip and I remembered my shitty morning. I steeled myself against any curiosity and instead, fired both guns.

“What the fuck was that this morning?”

“This morning?”

“Yes. You know? When I got suspended.”

Grayson closed the door and latched it before stepping closer to me. Without answering my first question, he inspected me and asked, “What happened to your face?”

“What happened to me?” I questioned, my voice climbing higher with each note. “What the hell happened to you?”

He said nothing as he made his way past me and walked through the house to the kitchen. I followed silently, since that was what he was going with, and waited. He opened a top cabinet and pulled out a bottle of alcohol.

Reminded of my father, I backed up a step. He turned and asked again in a tone that was not to be argued with, “What happened to your face?”

I touched my lip, grimaced and answered, “My father.”

“Your father did this? When? Last night?” He paused and placed the bottle on the counter. Walking over to me, he gently grazed my bottom lip with his thumb and said, “You need to report him, Addison. Or I will. What fucking irony.”

“What do you mean?”

“My father died yesterday. That’s why I wasn’t at work.”

His words were delivered with such a sense of detachment it was as if he were talking about a stranger. If it hadn’t been for the dramatic change in him, I would have thought he didn’t care.

That wasn’t the case though, and as I started to put it all together…his lack of presence this morning, the physical change in his appearance, and the alcohol sitting on the counter—I could tell that Grayson was wanting to escape.