Page 65 of Pretty Cruel Love

“Then you shouldn’t have left a message.”

Fair.

I check my watch—waiting for the window. Camera turnover hits in three… two… one.

I grab her hand and pull her into the hallway.

Her fingers brush against mine as we walk. At the corner, she releases me and moves ahead without a word.

I wait a full minute before following.

She’s already at the chess table.

I could end the game in one move. Checkmate.

But I don’t.

Instead, I slide my knight forward—a piece I can afford to lose.

“I wasn’t lying about Jonathan during the serum,” Sadie whispers, eyes still fixed on the board. “He wasn’t a good person.”

“I know,” I say. “I believe you.”

“Do they?”

“They will eventually…”

29

SADIE

Back “Then”…

I’ve only been in the principal’s office two other times since I started attending Stampington Academy:

Once, when my mom was a month late paying my tuition and they wanted to know why. (We can’t afford this place and we’re living above our means.)

The other was when the art and drama teachers held a strange intervention, begging me to choose which “major” I would focus on for my senior year.

“You’re amazing at both, but you can’t do both,” they said.

So they said…

“Miss Pretty?” Principal Sorenson’s rough voice cuts through my thoughts. “Why do you believe that you were raped last Friday night?”

“I don’t think it was rape. I know it was.”

“Well, why does Jonathan have a completely different recollection of events from that night?” He leans forward. “Were you drunk like he claimed?”

“No. I only had two drinks…”

“Did you make the drinks or did someone else?” He presses his lips into a thin line. “Underage drinking is bad enough, but… Perhaps you don’t really know your tolerance.”

“I wasn’t that drunk, sir.”

“Thatdrunk, which means you were, in fact, drunk?”

I let out a deep sigh.

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