This isn’t that kind of fight.
“You fucking BITCH!” I scream, and I don’t even recognize my own voice. “His mother has CANCER! What is WRONG with you?!”
My fist connects with something—her jaw, her shoulder, I can’t tell—and the impact jolts up my arm in a way that feels good.
Hands grab at me. Students trying to pull me off, shouting, everyone talking at once.
I don’t stop. Can’t stop. Because if I stop fighting McKenzie, I’ll have to face what she’s done. What I’ve done. How thoroughly we’ve destroyed Caleb’s life.
And I can’t. I can’t.
Someone gets an arm around my waist—thick and strong and definitely not a student.
One of the cops.
“That’s enough!” His voice booms in my ear. “That’s ENOUGH!”
I’m still thrashing, still trying to get to McKenzie, when the second cop grabs my arms and twists them behind my back.
The cold bite of handcuffs against my wrists is shockingly familiar. Like coming home to a place I never wanted to see again.
“Harper Tucker,” the first cop says, and his voice is tired. Professional. Like he’s done this a hundred times before. “You’re under arrest for assault and battery and for possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute.”
Intent to distribute? Those aren’t even my?—
But it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter that I’m being framed. Doesn’t matter that McKenzie planted that shit in my locker.
Because who are they going to believe? The rich girl with the perfect record and the designer clothes? Or the trash from East Texas with a criminal father and a drug-addict mother?
We both know the answer to that.
McKenzie’s standing there with her hand pressed to her bleeding cheek, tears streaming down her face. But when she looks at me, her eyes are dry. Triumphant.
“I told you,” she whispers, just loud enough for me to hear over the chaos. “I told you I’d make you wish you were dead.”
And as the cops march me down the hallway—past my locker, past gawking students, past teachers who won’t quite meet my eyes—I realize something terrible.
She already has.
Because this isn’t about me. It never was.
It’s about Caleb. About destroying the person I love most in this fucked-up world. About taking away everything that matters to him—his reputation, his future, his carefully constructed perfect life—and leaving him with nothing.
Just like everyone always leaves me with nothing.
I’m sorry, I think, even though he can’t hear me. Even though by the time these cops are done processing me, it’ll be too late. I’m so sorry, Caleb. This is all my fault.
Just like everything always is.
The cop pushes my head down as I’m loaded into the back of the squad car, the way they do in movies. Like I’m a real criminal instead of a girl who just wanted to protect the people she loves.
Because oh god, I do.
I love you, Caleb, I think uselessly. Now I’m so sure, right when it won’t do either of us any good.I’ve loved you from the very beginning.
THIRTY-NINE
HARPER