I swear he’s staring straight at me when he says this. I swear everyone is staring, all eyes on me, blaming, knowing. Everything I did; everything I didn’t do. This is like one of those recurring nightmares I have, where I’m naked in front of the whole school, and I’m supposed to ride a tricycle and juggle bananas at the same time, even though I don’t know how to do either. Except this is for real, not just a concoction of my stupid subconscious.
My legs act of their own volition, and suddenly I’m standing, squeezing my way out of the row, stumbling down the aisle toward the exit. It’s fight or flight, and my brain has apparently chosen flight.
No one stops me. Not as I bolt from the auditorium, Brendon’s voice ringing in my ears. Not as I run down the hall, push through the heavy doors and outside. It is, of course, only twenty-something degrees, and I have no jacket. I slump against the brick wall and hug myself, shivering in the cold.
“Chelsea!”
It’s Sam.
They always say misery loves company, but right now I kind of want to be miserable and alone, so I can wallow in my self-loathing properly.
“Chelsea,” he says again, out of breath, but I’m too ashamed to look at him.
So instead I watch as snowflakes cascade down and stick to my wild red hair. Irish red. Red like dried blood on pavement. Like Noah’s blood. Like—
“What’s wrong?” Sam says, and then, gently, “You can tell me.”
But I can’t. I don’t have my whiteboard.
That is so not what he meant and I know it. I’m not an idiot. Sometimes.
Hot tears well up in my eyes and trace tracks down my cheeks before I can stop them. I’m so tired of feeling like this, sick with guilt and constantly on the verge of panic attacks. And it’s like every time I start to feel remotely good about something, life says, “Oh, wait a minute, that’s not right,” and drop-kicks me back into You Are Made Of Epic Fail territory. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted.