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At least until Roho sat behindin his seat… and whenever I heard the sound of hih a gap in my chair… and then, my arse

I would have turned around and told hiht I would have, that was I didn’t get this sort of treat , probably Callie and Aileen were in front of oing on Maybe they wouldn’t even want to It see so that was no worse than what Callie had done Better I’d just wanted to look out for her from the start, and since when could she say the same about me?

I tried to hold back when everyone else was leaving the classroom, so I could make my more subtle way to the library, but when Mrs Patterson left and the rooone about this in a bad way

I started hurrying to the door and heard a quick tread behind hter

“Got someone to hurry off to, Tamara?”

I turned, and before I could snap out a response, Rowan’s s overpast as if nothing had happened

I stared at the two girls ere still left in the room: Mari, and Tina “Did you see—”

They both just shrugged and made aard sideways steps around me to leave the room

I couldn’t even process what had just happened I wanted to sit down right where I was and cry, but that wasn’t going to help me

I bolted out of the roo past some of the people who had left before ht noho ht be able to help

It wasn’t hard to track down Steven during a lunch hour: I just had to follow the loudest shouts and laughter across the caht to a man to protect me—a man as himself violent, at the very least But when the only other option in my head was a meltdown, surely this couldn’t be such a bad choice

Chapter Thirteen: Steven

I easily swatted away the ball Tyrell shot in et back atout about ave a shit about that cos quiet because Taet to hear about her personal life, and gossip had a way of spreading everywhere in this stupid small town, but for myself, I actually didn’t care Taundy would have killed to fuck so iven it up to ossip for sure if she’d gone with any of the sorts of guys I hung out with They were fucking pigs

I guess I was a fucking pig too, for wanting to fuck her before I really got to knowto talk about her to other people They’d just think I washalf of it up anyway

I realised I’d zoned out a bit, but it seemed like everyone else had too Mic and Tyrell and Pat were staring at so behind me