Page 94 of Break Away
Bliss appeared first, her oversized hoodie damp from the mist outside, hair tangled around her shoulders, face pale and wet-eyed. Charm came in behind her, still wrapped in the soft cardigan that made her look expensive and untouchable even while her mouth trembled.
Both stopped in my doorway when they saw the open bag on my bed.
Bliss’s face crumpled. “You’re packing?”
“No, B. I’m creating a visual metaphor.”
Charm stepped forward carefully. “Ay.”
“No.” I pointed at her with the pair of socks still in my hand. “Absolutely not. Do not Ay me in that tone when the two of you spent all week handing me a glitter-covered sword and telling me I deserved to walk into Hockey House with my head up.”
Charm’s throat worked. “That is not what happened.”
I laughed, the sound sharp enough to cut the room. “Really? Because I remember a lot of very passionate best-friend advocacy about how Easton didn’t get to make every room unsafe for me. I remember, ‘You deserve to be there too.’ Beautiful speeches. Moving. Inspirational. Should’ve had a soundtrack.”
Bliss stepped inside. “And we meant that.”
“Did you?” I shoved the socks into the bag, then turned on both of them. “The second the fight started, everyone suddenly remembered Easton had feelings. Suddenly, I was the problem. The same girls who told me I deserved to stand there werepulling me back like I was embarrassing myself for reacting after months of him making me feel like prey.”
Charm’s expression tightened. “We saw the massacre at the Sin Bin, Ay. We were trying to stop you from burning yourself down.”
“No. You were trying to stop me from being ugly about it.”
Bliss flinched.
Good.
Bad.
I didn’t know. Everything inside me was too hot to sort right from cruel.
“That isn’t fair,” Bliss said.
“Fair?” I laughed again, breathless now and almost dizzy with it. “Oh, we’re doing fair. Great. Let’s do fair. Easton gets to freeze me out for months, fuck puck bunnies where I can see it, look through me like I’m gum on the bottom of his shoe, and everyone agrees he’s being an asshole. But when I finally get loud, when I finally stop taking it, suddenly we need accountability, nuance, and his side of the story.”
Charm moved farther into the room, her robe-soft cardigan wrapped tightly around her body, looking like a society heiress trying not to commit violence in cashmere. “Aura, nobody is saying he handled tonight right.”
“But he was right.” I looked between them. “That’s where this is going, isn’t it? He was cruel, but he was right. He humiliated me, but I humiliated him first, so he’s justified. He hurt me, but what I did was worse, so now we all need to gather around the tiny altar of masculine pain and discuss how I could’ve been more considerate while dealing with my own shit.”
Bliss’s eyes filled. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s us loving you enough to tell you the truth.”
Something inside me went still.
The word truth landed wrong tonight. It came wearing too many faces: Easton’s truth, mine, the version everyone could see across a crowded room, and the one that lived in places I still couldn’t discuss without feeling seventeen and trapped inside a room I couldn’t remember.
I folded my arms tighter over my chest. “You want truth?”
Charm’s lips parted. “Ay.”
“Yes, I panicked that night. Yes, I was scared, and I hurt him. Yes, I fell for him too, since apparently we’re taking emotional attendance tonight.” My voice rose, and I let it because whispering had never saved me. “And yes, I have some very inconvenient male-related trauma that makes me a fucking nightmare when someone gets too close. But until both of you know what it feels like to have people still whispering about a video you were too drugged to consent to, you can shut the fuck up about what my boundaries should cost a man.”
The room went silent.
Bliss covered her mouth. “Aura.”
