"Like me."
"Sort of," she laughed. "I mean, yeah. Pretty much exactly like you. I remember - at the Open House, when all our parents came - that his were weird. They frowned all the time. And when they talked to Mark it was like - I dunno. They were super strict with him, to the point it kinda freaked my own Mom out. She told my Dad she wanted to call Child Protective Services, but he talked her out of it."
I waited for her to continue. She squirmed in her seat.
"But, when he and Wolf started going out, you could definitely see the change."
"Change?" I led on.
"Yeah. Mark got...happier. Friendlier. But it was weird, because the whole time Mark got happier, Wolf just - " She inhaled. "He used to be nice. Like, really nice. He smiled a lot, and never really looked pissed-off like he does all the time now. But once he got with Mark, he just clammed up. He started talking less and less, and snapping more, until it was just - he wasn't the same."
"And then the fight happened."
"Yeah," she nodded. "Mark hit him first. I remember that. He hit him right in front of all of us, in the quad before first period. They were talking, and then we all heard the sound. And Wolf just....exploded is the best word I can come up with. I've never seen someone hit the ground so fast. Mark left the school that weekend, I'm pretty sure."
“What do you think happened between them?” I muttered. Kristin shrugged.
“I can only guess. Personally, I think it’s the reason why Mr. Blackthorn tried to get me to spy on them – Wolf specifically. The only people who really know what happened between Wolf and Mark are probably Wolf and Mark, and maybe Fitz and Burn. Maybe.”
I mulled it over, until Kristin patted me on the shoulder.
“Hey, don’t look so sad, okay?”
“Do I?” I felt my cheeks. “Look sad?”
She nodded. “A lot. It’s sort of like, your default expression.”
All the things Wolf said to me in the room come echoing back, like a reverb chamber. Did I really look that miserable to people? Did I ever once look happy?
I thanked her for the ride and went inside. Dad was surprised to see me back so soon, but I told him it was a stupid party. We said goodnight to each other, and I snuck into the bathroom to check his pill bottle – yup, he’d taken two. A little more relieved, I closed the door and started long and hard into the mirror.
You'll bury yourself in duty and your savior complex until you start to think misery is all you deserve.
My knuckles gripping the edge of the sink went white. Wolf doesn’t know me. He can’t know me. But then why did everything he say to me tonight feel true? Every word of his felt horribly, crushingly true. Why was it always like that with him? Why could he see right through me, cut to the heart of me like a blade? Was he really that observant?
No, the mirror-me said. It’s just like he said – he was once you.
My eyes fixated on Dad’s pill bottle. Was it really so bad? I was being a good daughter – this is what any daughter would do. I loved Dad. I wanted him to get better. Was I wrong for wanting that?
That night, Mom came home late from the hospital. She and Dad had a fight, a quiet one, the sort of fight I could only half-hear. Their furious voices echoed dully through the walls, and then Mom started sobbing. I watched the ceiling of my childhood bedroom and listened to the sound, taking it in this time instead of running away by burying my head in my pillow. Mom cried. Mom was fed up. Dad was quiet. Dad felt bad. I could read them, even though I wasn’t in the room with them. I knew what they were feeling.
Or did I?
The best psychiatrists probably knew what people were feeling. I always thought I was good at knowing that, too. I secretly thought I was perceptive and understanding of people. Or was that stupid to assume? Was that, like Wolf said, childish of me? Was it stupid of me to assume I understood what any human being other than myself was feeling? I wasn’t Mom. I wasn’t Dad. I was just…me. I was just Bee – and Bee didn’t know what to feel anymore. She was confused and tired and sad – so, so sad. So sad she started crying, too, into her pillow. She wanted posters on her walls, friends in her phone, smiles on her face, books in her hand and in her heart. She wanted a scholarship – she wanted a good college that could teach her to make people okay again. But she couldn’t have both. That was selfish. That wasn’t how the world worked – you sacrificed something to get something.
She wanted Dad to be happy, Mom to be happy – she wanted everything.
She wanted everything to be okay again.
Was that so wrong of her?
Chapter 10
WOLF
I don’t remember how I got home, after the fight.
I remember Burn pulling me and Fitz apart, shoving Fitz out the door and leaving me in the room. I remember furiously uncorking the bottle Bee brought up and downing half of it, and then? Blackness. Utter emptiness where my memories should be.
I stare up at the white ceiling of my room and touch my lip experimentally. Everything hurts. Again. Everything hurts and I’m dying and what the flying fuck was I thinking, fighting Fitz over something he said? He says dumb stuff all the time – what about this time was so different?
Her.
I knew the answer before I could blink. It was her. Again. She was always there when I flew off the handle, like some sort of catalyst for a chemical explosion. What about her set me off so badly?
Everything. Everything about her puts me on edge.