Page 35 of Friend
She looked at me, and her wounded expression almost made me change my mind.
But then she stood, and her eyes briefly shut as she flinched. My resolve steadied.
I took her shirt at the hem and lifted. It wasn’t a lot, I could only see her stomach, but enough to see that her skin was bright red.
“Finn!” She gasped and grabbed at my hands
My jaw went lax as shock raced through me.
He’dhither. I’d suspected, of course, but it was even more than that.
It looked like she’d beenbeaten. “What the hell?”
My grip on her faltered in my surprise, and she took the chance to twist free. “Leave me alone!” She squeezed her eyes shut as she pulled down her shirt with both hands.
“How long?” I forced myself to breathe through my anger, to focus on what was in front of me now. “How long has he been doing this?”
She’d flushed, and it was obvious from her stance that she knew there was no way out of this one. “Since we got b-back from winter b-b-break…”
Since then?
My heart sunk at the realization. An emergency had come up at home, and I’d missed the first two days of the term.
It seemed Adrian had taken advantage of it.
But had they all ramped up in my absence…. Or was it just him?
“The three of them?” I asked. The mental vision ofallof them hurting her was too much.
“No,” Bianca grumbled, looking down at the floor. Her cheeks were dark with shame. “Just Adrian.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I’d known something was happening, but not this bad! At worst, I’d thought he’d been scaring her or stealing her pencils.
I’d always considered Cory to be the violent one. “What has he been doing?”
She still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Hey—” I hated seeing her this way, and I touched her arm. “—you don’t need to be embarrassed.”
She blinked rapidly, then sniffled before she responded. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
My chest tightened painfully, and I stared at her. “What?”
Bianca looked at me then, and the guilt was thick between us. “You’re always getting into trouble for me,” she said, voice low. “I didn’t want to make it worse.”
My throat was tight, and my voice strangled. “Worse?”
“What if you get expelled?” she asked.
I couldn’t think. There were only two horrible realities that kept replaying in my head. First, Bianca’s bullying had progressed to a critical level—one that I was going to have to stop immediately. And second…
She’d kept silent about this, forme.
And that was not supposed to happen.
First things first—I had to reassure her. “I’m not going to get expelled.” She looked up at me, shoulders tensing.
She clearly didn’t believe me.
