Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake

kneels down and pulls at my arm. “Don’t.”
    I stop and meet her eyes. They’re so dark, I can’t tell where the color ends and the pupil begins. They’re also red and wet. “You want to leave all this crap here?”
    She flinches and removes her hand. “No. But . . . you don’t have to do this. Please . . . it’s fine. I’ll do it.”
    I shake my head at her and keep stuffing. The candle is the last thing in and I throw it inside, spilling red wax onto a thong. She stands up and turns away from me, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
    I tie off the bag and get up. “Come on.”
    She turns and frowns. “Where?”
    â€œJust come on.” I take her elbow and she walks with me down the hall toward the nearest exit. She digs in her heels when we get to the doors.
    â€œI can’t leave.”
    â€œWhy?”
    She juts a thumb behind her. “I have class. I have work to do.”
    â€œDo you really want to go to class right now?” I heft the bag up on my shoulder. “If you do, fine. I’ll throw this stuff away and we’ll both go on with our day. But it looks like you could use a break.”
    â€œIf I leave, she’ll know this bothers me.”
    â€œNot necessarily. But if you walk around the halls looking like your kitten just got run over by a truck, then yeah, whoever ‘she’ is will know you’re a little bit bothered.”
    She swipes under her puffy eyes. “Is that what I look like?”
    â€œYeah.” I pinch the air between my thumb and forefinger. “Just a tad.”
    Her hands whiten over her books and she presses her teeth over her lower lip. I can almost see her mind running through her calendar, all the assignments she has due, all the makeup work she’ll be responsible for. I should just toss the junk in the garbage and walk with her to her class, go to my own, forget this whole thing. But I don’t want to do that. I want to know why some bitch is terrorizing her locker. I want her to come with me and I want her eyes on mine and her words to fill up the space in my car. There are a million voices in my head right now, screaming about what a delusional idiot I am, but with her standing in front of me, her lashes fanning her pink cheeks, they’re easy to ignore.
    I watch her square her shoulders and take a deep breath. I gulp down my own shaky little-boy breath, because I know I’m about to get exactly what I want.
    â€œLet’s go,” she says, and walks past me out the door.

Chapter Eleven
Hadley
    Even before the sex-toy locker incident, the morning sucked. I woke up to the sound of vacuuming downstairs. Loud, clumsy vacuuming. I sat up and winced as the appliance banged and whacked into walls and doorways. Mom’s usually an early riser, but cleaning before the sun came up seemed like a little much. I hauled myself out of bed, showered, and dressed. By the time I got downstairs, the vacuum was still running, but it was lying on its side in the family room,
vroom-vroom
ing while it attempted to suck up any errant dust particles from the air. Through the kitchen archway, I could see my parents sitting at the table, sipping coffee and buttering toast like this was completely normal.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” I yelled over the noise.
    â€œWhat?” Dad yelled back.
    I pointed to the vacuum. He shook his head and brought his cup and bowl to the sink. “She won’t let me turn it off.”
    â€œMom?”
    â€œOf course your mother.”
    I glanced at Mom, already dressed in a gray pencil skirt and a light pink silk blouse for work. She was perfectly postured and coiffed, her mouth a tight knot.
    â€œWhy not?” I ask Dad, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer. Dad’s weekday mornings bordered on sacred and consisted of a steady diet of strong coffee and a bowl of granola, a newspaper, and
quiet.
In fact,