Tears spring to my eyes. I feel empty and alone and so incredibly rejected and stupid and wrong I can barely breathe. “What are you going to do about Chewbarka?”
Daniel angrily smears at his face. “I don’t know. There are zero good options.”
“But—”
His phone rings. “Please just go.”
I stand up and brush the dirt and leaves off my jeans. The woods swim in my vision. Daniel’s phone rings again. “I just wanted to help you and Chewbarka,” I say. “This whole time. I promise.”
He won’t look at me.
22
Just for Now
Daniel
The phone rings again. It’s Mom. Dr. Snyder must have called her, he must have told her I have Chewbarka. She’s calling to ream me out, to tell me to get my butt home this instant so she can figure out what to do with me.
I send the call to voice mail. “This isn’t your problem,” I tell Ash. “It never was.”
“But I care about—”
“I know,” I tell her. Him?
Him.
God. She lied to me. Or he did. I don’t know. I just know that I care is true, because look at everything Ash has done to try to help me save Chewbarka.
It doesn’t matter now. They’re going to kill this dog, who’s done nothing wrong. Who just wants someone to hold her at night when it’s cold.
My throat goes tight. I turn away. “Please go.”
Ash says nothing for a long time. My mind spins. I can’t process. All I can do is feel. My heart has come loose and crash-landed into my spleen.
Eventually, I hear Ash walk away. Chewbarka watches him leave and whines softly.
I turn to go after Ash. To say I’m sorry, I just need a minute to compute, I’m not saying go away forever. Just for now, so I can figure out what I feel. What to do. How to be.
But I still see Ashley, like Ashley the girl I assumed he was, when I look at his retreating back. And it feels like I’m losing the girl I knew.
It hurts like fiery hell. I care about her. Him. Whichever.
Ash the person. Not only Ash the girl. The person.
Who’s leaving. Because I said to.
I duck back into the tent with Chewbarka. I need to get this epic tear flood out of my system so I can bring Chewbarka home to Mom and plead my case without turning into a blubbering idiot. I want so badly to talk to Cole. To Dad. Even to Mom, minus the judgment. I just need to know someone’s in my corner, now that the very last person who I knew was on my side has just walked away because I told him to.
I have got to start fixing my relationships.
23
The Gatorade Kid
Ash
I don’t know why I go looking for the Gatorade video when I get home. Maybe I want to convince myself it’s not that big a deal. That losing people you care about is part of life and I should get over it.
But first I want to figure out how Bella found it. I open Insta since she probably searched Ash Haley on there. My profile is private but my screen name, Ash_BashCrashSmash, is still visible. The one friend we have in common is Griffey.
I check his photos. The fourth one down is a shot he took of the two of us pretending to arm wrestle. The second comment on that photo is from Camille. It says Aaaah I miss Ash!!
“Sure you do,” I mutter. I look at her profile, which is public. A few posts down is a screenshot she took of some nasty comments Tyler and Jackson left on one of her photos. She’s captioned the screenshot Theydies and gentlethems, I present to you my charming classmates who bullied my friend Ash right out of school, followed by three of the eye roll emoji. The first comment is from my former cross-country teammate Nate, the one I saw at the convenience store with Daniel. It says I miss Ash! @TylerDurdenWishes and @JacksonWithTheAction are the scum of the earth. Below that, Tyler and Jackson have, predictably, defended themselves by slinging a lot of profanity at Camille and Nate.
I sigh. That didn’t take much sleuthing. Bella probably followed the same trail and found Tyler’s or Jackson’s profiles. Griff told me Camille deleted the Gatorade video later that night, but Tyler and Jackson had already downloaded it and reposted it, bragging about what they’d done.
I never went looking. I wanted to forget the whole thing.
I don’t want to risk seeing the video on Insta with a bunch of comments calling me a freak and saying I deserved what I got. I don’t need to fan the flames of my wrecked self-esteem after that mess with Daniel. Instead, I open Facebook and go to the Bailey Middle PTA page, where Mom said she saw it. I scroll through the last few weeks of posts, searching. Torn between hoping I’ll find it and hoping I won’t.
My stomach dips when it shows up on my screen. It has 122 comments.
I look at the framed cross-stitch on my wall that says When life shuts a door, open it. That’s how doors work.
I take a deep breath and click play, bracing for the fear and humiliation to hit again.
But it doesn’t.
This time, when I watch Jackson jerk my head back and deadname me, when I see Tyler pour Gatorade up my nose, my heart fills with anger.
Not anger. Rage.
How could they do that to me? What is wrong with them? How screwed up do you have to be to attack someone like that? Someone who is literally zero threat whatsoever to you? And to do it three against one—
I sink back in my desk chair, shaking. I open Insta to tell Camille, again, exactly how furious I am at her for posting it. How
