Chapter 80

GABRIEL

***

“Are you okay?” Harper asked.

“Yeah, why?” I answered a bit too quickly.

She looked over at my hands and when I looked down I saw that I had snapped the pencil that was in my hand in half. I hadn’t even noticed that it was in my hands, let alone that I had broken in. It was too into my own head, thinking about what had happened over the weekend and getting angry all over again and going through a wave of emotions: confusion, anger, fear, and back to confusion. I had never been as distressed as I was at that moment.

My face in the mirror kept coming back to mind and I felt so much shame and embarrassment just thinking about it that I wished I could turn my brain off, even if it was for a second. It was all I could see when I closed my eyes.

It haunted me every waking moment, the fact that I had turned red in the face and made Emily’s words true: you mean nothing to me. Although I wouldn't say the same to you. There was no point in hiding it, what she had said was true and