Harlequin Teen

old and wheezing

And as I closed the door, the only person I hated was myself.

footing, fall forward and my much-anticipated Pepsi becomes a sacrificial lamb. Brown fluid drips down the shirts of both boys, because I’m just talented that way.
“Oh, my gosh.” Hand to my mouth, fake wide eyes. “I’m so so

fall was the word most often coupled with love, falling in and falling out of. How was that even possible?

His mom had hit him…a lot. I didn’t care how old he was; that wasn’t okay.

We pretended and ignored the little and not-so-little reminders of her that we inevitably encountered every day.

met his eyes dead-on when he opened the door. “What did Mom want?”

And she’d signed it Katheryn. Not Mom.

Hate was such an ugly, infectious thing.

I felt every single one of the thirty-six inches separating us when he said, “Not seventeen.”