Page 84 of Forbidden Lessons

I didn’t expect him to go down the first time. I sure as shit didn’t expect the second time either.

But I’m running on instinct now. Fueled by a primal rage I didn’t even realize was percolating under the surface until I stared into the eyes of my best friend and saw how much hedespisedme.

And that fucking pisses me off, because he makes out like I killed his first born child or something.

I was sixteen when my dad left town. It happened a few days after my birthday, a few days after I saw Kai. If I’d known it would be the last time I’d see him, things would have been so much different.

I would never have sent that letter, the one I submitted for Professor Rooke’s assignment.

I WISH I NEVER MET U

I FUCKING HATE U

BURN IN HELL

I didn’t have a say in the move. God, I didn’t even get to pack my shit. My dad shoved me in the car and drove us out of Agony Hollow like the fucking devil was on our heels.

It took me a few months to realize how true that was.

My meth head dad had wracked up an awful amount of debt with his dealer. If we’d had anything left to sell, he’d probably have pawned it. But there was never money to replace anything, like ever, so his only option was fleeing.

I wish I’d had some kind of warning. Kai would have come up with a plan. We could have run away to the beach and gotten married like we’d always wanted to.

But maybe my dad knew somewhere in the still functioning parts of his meth-addled brain that, given any notice, I’d run for the hills.

Hillside, to be exact.

Because that’s where Kai was living by then.

The Jordan’s got lucky. Somehow, they escaped Riverside’s sticky web.

I thought I’d escaped too, when we moved to Ashwood.

Who knew hell had a basement?

I tried to stay in touch with Kai, even after I sent that awful letter. Told him where I’d moved to, and how much I hated the tiny one-bedroom apartment. How the stink of fried fish from the corner shop below got into every inch of that place, even my clothes.

I told him about my dad nearly ODing. Twice.

How much I hated my new school, because I was really struggling to concentrate, and everyone kept calling me Fish for Brains.

But I didn’t tell him what my uncle tried to do every time my father left the two of us alone. How it got so bad that I stopped coming home after school. That I would wait at the bus stop untilmidnight, hoping everyone would be asleep when I let myself inside the apartment.

That, some nights, my wish came true. But not always.

Not always.

All those letters. All those apologies.

And Kai only ever wrote back once.

A reply to my hateful letter.

Two lines, scrawled so hastily, so savagely, it almost tore the paper.

FUCK ME?

FUCK YOU!

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