He didn’t deserve more than okay. No, he didn’t. Not after what he did.
He hit me. At a high-school hockey game in front of everyone I knew. I panicked and waited, face buried in my friend Helen’s lap, while others bullied Seth away. That was the last time I’d seen him.
Kat’s name fills my ears—her scores—and guilt hits like a brick. It’s hard to repress a memory when you feel the stubby little eyes of the person you’re trying to forget boring holes into the back of your neck, reality or not.
Recalibrate.
Refocus.
Do your job.
“Kat, Kat, Kat,” I mumble and squint. She’s a sea lion, basking in the sun. Beneath my sunglasses, the pads of my fingers press on top of my eyelids and I feel my gelatinous eyeballs beneath. How easy it would be to thumb them out, to cause a scene.
But then he’d come back.
I’d ignored him so he hit me. I’d ignored him because he let me lie to myself.
He’s not dealing.
He’s not high.
He’s trustworthy.
After three weeks, I sobered up and asked him to stop texting, stop calling. I tried to ask for my virginity back, so he took Becky’s—the girl I sat next to in history—less than twenty-four hours later. I started sitting next to Navy Nick and started calling Seth a d-bag. Three towns and as many school districts away, my words got back to him. He took his retribution at the Pelham-Mamaroneck game where he knew I’d be.