It was official. I was going over Xander’s house, getting to see where he lived. With any luck, I’d get to see the workings of his inner mind, find out why he was so different from the Xander I’d known before.
The Xander who’d laugh at everything Christian said. The Xander who chuckled and told me to kill myself. The Xander who scrunched up his nose and acted like I smelled awful every time I walked by him. He was a little demon, a little shit before, and every word he’d ever said to me had hurt me, cut me like knives. Yes, I might sort of like this new Xander, but the things he did to me could never be erased.
No, some wounds never healed, even with time. Time was the great equalizer. Time was the one constant thing in everyone’s life. Time could make kings out of peasants and poor men out of the rich. I wasn’t sure what time had made of Xander yet, but it didn’t matter. My wounds might’ve been old, but they were still fresh. Certain scars never faded.
I hated Wednesdays. Mostly because after school, Mom took me straight to a therapist’s office, where I was hounded with questions and begged for answers. Where an older, foreign woman wanted to talk about all of my problems and my issues. Even after meeting with her for the last few weeks, I still hated talking about myself. I’d much rather talk about other people.
Mom was working two jobs to afford this and our new house. I was going to a new public school a state away, and I hadn’t seen my dad and Diane since the day Mom grabbed my suitcases from his house and took me. Mom had custody of me, and Dad just let her take me, almost like I was worthless.
Wait. No. I wasn’t supposed to think that. I was supposed to have happy thoughts, give my parents the benefit of the doubt. In my therapist’s eyes, my dad didn’t cheat because he hated me and my mom. He’d done it for his own happiness. It was all about framing things, looking at situations a different way.
It was hard.
“How’ve you been, Elle?” the therapist spoke. She was a woman older than my mom, with greying hair and washed-out blue eyes behind rimmed glasses. She always looked too put together, too perfect. I felt like a mess sitting across from her.
“Okay,” I muttered.
“How is your new school going?”
“Fine,” I said, shrugging.
“Make any new friends?” As if friends came to me easily, as if everyone flocked around me and wanted to spend time with me. She waited for my answer, ever patient, ever calm. Her ankles were crossed, and a leather-bound notebook sat on her lap. Every so often she would jot down some notes, make me feel generally self-conscious, even though she’d told me time and time again that just because she was writing something down didn’t mean I’d said something wrong.
I shrugged. “There’s a girl who keeps trying to talk to me, but I don’t know.”
“What’s her name?”
“Leah.”
“Maybe Leah wants to be your friend. Would that be so bad?”
I hated when she kept questioning me. Would it be bad for me to have a friend? No, but would anyone want to be friends with me after seeing my wrists? I wore long sleeves to school, but if Leah ever found out what happened, I was certain she’d have no interest in sticking around. Who wanted to be friends with a broken girl?
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never had a friend before.”
“It’s never too late to make friends,” she told me. “I think you should give Leah a chance. I know your mom wants you to make friends, too. She is worried about you, you know.” The way she so casually brought my mom into these conversations…I hated that, too.
I resisted the urge I had to scratch at my wrists. The wounds were healed, but it was like they were still scabbing. Itching like crazy. Or maybe it was all in my head. Maybe I really was insane, and this was all some joke. “I know,” I whispered.
She let silence grow between us for only a moment before she asked, “Have you thought about what I mentioned at the end of our last meeting?”
My mind flashed back, and I fought to keep myself from frowning. Yes, I knew exactly what she’d said, and I grew angry when I thought about it. My clenched hands were enough of an answer for her.
“Elle, I know you blame them,” she said, speaking carefully, “but ultimately, each and every decision we make is our own. No one forced your hand. They may have paved the road that you took, but you didn’t need to take it.”
This stupid therapist wanted me to do the one thing I could never do. The one thing I would rather die than do—she wanted me to forgive them. To forgive my old classmates, to forget the blame and the anger I felt toward Christian, Xander, and Alec. Some people might be fans of forgiveness, but I was not one of them, and I never would be.
“Even adults struggle with forgiveness,” she went on, “but forgiveness is a part of life. To truly move on from this, you’ll have to do the one thing you don’t want to, and that’s forgiving them.” Behind her glasses, her stare held me hostage, an intensity I felt uncomfortable beneath. “And forgiving yourself.”
Forgiving myself? I was not the one who’d tormented another kid until they attempted to commit suicide. I didn’t merit my own forgiveness, mostly because I didn’t need it. And them? Christian and the others? I’d rather die than give them any hint of forgiveness. Even if I never saw any of them again, I wanted them all to be miserable. Karma, right?
No, I didn’t need my own forgiveness for what I did. I knew it was stupid; I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t change the past. Those three boys? That class who’d done nothing but laugh and egg those three on? My mom would kill me if she knew I was thinking this, but screw them. They would never get my forgiveness.
Christian, Xander, and Alec? I would hate them until the day I died—for real, this time.