“Thank you.” It’s a whisper and from right behind me. I turn to find Evangeline walking away from the kid whose locker is to my left. Adam… And he was talking to Ange? Why?

“Philena—” I shut my locker and turn to him. My eyes, though dull in color, burn with an emotion I shall label as fury.

“Don’t. Whatever she told you, it was probably a lie. We’re exes and exes lie. So shut up and leave it alone.” I try to stalk off pissed, but in all this I forgot about my ankle and limp as it twinges. He takes that second of pause to lean into my ear.

“Would a fellow female—even an ex—lie about sexual abuse? Physical abuse?” he goes to lift my sleeve and I pull away, shaking.

“Fuck off, Liechent. It’s none of your business.” I head to Drama, quickly.

I hear him whisper behind me, “You didn’t answer my question.”

*

We’re learning how to graph the equations we were solving last week. About half my class is clueless as to how to do it and the other half is okay with it. Then there’s me. Not that I’m surprised or anything—I’ve never been any good at math—but this seems to be a new low. I’m failing the class within the first few weeks of school. Even I’ve never succeeded at that before.

“Miss Xanderson? How are you doing with this? Is it making sense?” I shrug and nod in the general direction of Mr. Jacobs. He doesn’t really want to know, but he has to ask—it’s a teacher’s job to care. Or, at least, to pretend to care.

“Yeah, it’s making sense.” Even though it’s not. Even though I’ll probably end up using BOB (back of the book) to answer all the homework questions again and then flunk the daily quiz tomorrow. When the hell am I going to use Pre-Calculus anyway?

I get every note copied down—not that they’ll help me at all, it all looks like Greek to me (which makes sense, math uses a lot of Greek characters)—and am all packed up by the time the bell rings. I’m out of the room and to my locker before anybody else is even out of their seats and by the time they all make it to the hall, I am out the doors of the school. I don’t feel like taking the bus today—shoved in the back corner, then having to fight my way out to get off at a stop I’d rather they just passed right by—so I start walking in the soft misty Autumn rain.

It’s soothing, you know, to walk in the rain. Rain cleanses everything it touches—the air, the plants. Even me. Okay, maybe not me—I’m too soiled to be cleansed, but it calms me at least; keeps me focused. So focused, in fact, that I hear the car before I see it and I know the owner before I hear him.

“C’mon, do you really think I’m that stupid? Philena!” Adam’s voice tugs on my very last nerve and I swivel around to see him driving a beautiful blue Mustang. Not a new one—no, he has an old muscle car.

“Actually, before you started asking questions, I thought you were stupid. Now I think you’re an absolute idiot—oh, sorry Officer, I didn’t see you there.” I stumble a little as I see the police officer in the car next to Adam and wonder how Adam could be so… calm. I’m not even near the car and I’m nervous, to be in the car and sitting next to the officer…

Adam sees me stumble and slows down the car, then parks it on the side of the road, out of the way of traffic. The cop says nothing; just sits there.

“An idiot, huh? I think you’re hiding something. Is that something an idiot would say?” His voice sounds joking, like I tried to make mine, but his face says something totally different.

“Yes. And only an idiot would try to get me to talk to him out here in the open. Only an idiot would park on the side of the road to try and get me to talk to him about something that my ex who probably lied told him. Now, please, Adam, leave me alone. I’m going home.”

The cop raises his eyebrows, but otherwise is basically an emotionless manikin. Adam sighs tiredly and I watch as he drives away, and then continue on to the house.

Only once I know he can’t see me and the rain is pouring down do I allow the tears to flow from my eyes to my cheeks and then drip onto the ground.

*

A couple weeks from my encounter with Adam and the cop and he’s almost totally given up. Good. He doesn’t need to worry about me.

So why then, do I feel so totally alone? It’s never mattered before.

“And it doesn’t matter now.”

“What doesn’t matter now?” Shit, I said that out loud?

“Um. Nothing. Just—just my art.” Adam nods and I walk away.

*

“Hey Phil! Freak, did you think you’d get away without saying hello to me today?” Ally. Great.

“Of course not, Ally! What a wonderful day it is, isn’t it? Love what you did with your hair!” I smirk as she grimaces at my nickname for her and continue smirking even as she orders Chase and his cronies to sprain—“Or break, whichever.”—my writing wrist. They hold me against the lockers. Everybody else is at lunch or in class—and we don’t have hall monitors or security guards. Nobody thinks we need them. Hah.

I swallow down a whimper and stare straight into Ally’s eyes.

“Don’t call me Ally, you fucking slut!”

“Ally.”

I’m probably pushing it too far, but who really cares? I don’t, Ally doesn’t, Chase doesn’t—it just means they get to hurt me more, and, let’s face it, the more they hurt me, the less I feel. Bring it on.

The pain of the sprain—or break—travels up my arm and down my fingertips, but I keep staring into her eyes. The sting from her words is a weak one—like a mild bee sting. I've heard worse at home. Way worse.

One of Chase’s cronies—because Chase doesn’t want to get his hands covered in… me—punches me hard in the gut and I grunt softly as the air leaves me. My knees buckle like they have minds of their own and I fall to the ground. They walk away like nothing happened and I lay there in a fetal position, listening to their fading footsteps, then slowly moving and sitting against the lockers.

There are some clunky, loud steps headed my way from the right—the total opposite direction of where Ally and Chase went—and I look up, my vision blurry with pain, my wrist pounding. I lay my head back against the lockers, eyes closed, figuring it’s probably just some passing teacher, but gasping as the somebody moves my wrist.

“Yep, definitely broken.” Oh, not this dumbass again! I open my eyes to see Adam Liechent examining my definitely broken wrist and glare at him.

“What the hell do you want now? I don’t need your help!” I tug my wrist from his hands, biting my lip, and stand. My head spins and I don’t understand until I look down and see my hand-me-down shirt—soaked with blood. I lift it a little and realize the reason my legs gave when what’s-his-face punched me.

He didn’t just punch me, he… he what? What did who do? I’m so confused…

“So tired…” I smile as the floor gets closer and closer, “Hello old friend…” and somehow that’s hilarious and a giggle escapes my lips.

“Philena!” Who’s Philena? …Oh, I am. What’s wrong? I’m…just…

“Just sleeping… g’night, Liechent…” my eyes flutter shut and I drop into oblivion.