for you and get you a Gatorade so you don’t pass out.”
I kept glaring at him as I hobbled off the machine. There was no point arguing; he wasn’t going to let me move on to weights.
After I stood under the shower for a long time with my hands propped against the tiles, my lungs and heart returned to normal function. I put my school uniform back on and walked out of the shower cubicle.
Turner was sitting on a bench with his back against the lockers, tapping away at his phone. He looked up when I came out and held out a bottle of blue liquid.
I flopped down next to him and had a long drink.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked. “You looked like you wanted to murder someone out there.”
My spine immediately stiffened, and I stared at him with wide eyes.
He leaned away from me, confused. “What?”
I shook my head and relaxed my posture, dragging a hand down my face. For a second there, I thought maybe Donna had told all her friends, that she was warning everyone to stay away from me again. Except this time, she had a very real reason for it. But that didn’t make sense. Turner wasn’t acting scared and suspicious—he was concerned for a friend. Me. I didn’t deserve him.
“I can’t talk about it. It’s . . .” I pressed my lips together so hard it almost hurt.
Turner rested his hands on his knees. “When I found out about my mom, that she was dead, that my little sister had seen the whole thing happen . . . all I wanted to do was pretend it wasn’t real. I’d spent years dreaming about the day I’d get to hug my mom again, and then suddenly I found out I never would. You know, I don’t even remember the last time I hugged her. It must’ve felt so insignificant, like there was so much certainty there’d be another one, that I didn’t think to commit every detail to memory.” He turned to look me in the eyes. “Anyway, point is, my little sister needed me, Mena needed me, so I couldn’t just curl up into a ball and pretend it wasn’t real. I had to face it. And the only way I could do that was to talk about it. To my therapist, to the police, to my dad, to my girlfriend. Every time I shared a bit of how I felt, it was a little easier to carry all the pain and the heartache.”
He was telling me I needed to talk about my feelings. That cocky asshole part of me I’d worked so hard to eradicate wanted to roll his eyes and call him a pussy with a punch to his arm. But he was also, in a roundabout way, telling me that he had trusted me with his darkness, his pain, and maybe I could trust him with mine.
But there was one key difference between our situations. “What happened to your family, you were in no way to blame for that.” I held his gaze, my jaw tight. “I appreciate you being so honest about all this heavy shit in your life. But my story is the complete opposite. I’m not the victim here. I’m the bad guy.”
“There’s nothing you can tell me that will make me think less of you.”
I sighed and looked up to the ceiling. He was so wrong. I really didn’t want to lose Turner as a friend, but I couldn’t keep lying to him either. That wasn’t friendship. Not to mention, now that Donna knew all the gory details and was more pissed at me than I’d ever seen her, it was only a matter of time before everyone knew. It would be better if he heard it from me anyway.
For the second time in a day, I told someone the full story of the worst thing I’d ever done. I didn’t go into as much detail as I had at the park, and I didn’t break down crying, but I didn’t try to sugarcoat it either. I also told him that I’d told Donna and we’d ended up in another fight, but I didn’t tell him why I’d told her—I was still keeping her secrets.
“I took Austin from his mom, just like Boyd Burrows took your mom from you,” I finished. “All that pain you feel, I’m the cause of that for someone else.”
Turner sat back against the locker, mirroring my pose, and released a