Page 41 of Bitter Lies

“Nothing really.” I shrug. “I just, I’m so mixed up in my head. I guess.”

“Break it down for me. What’s mixed up?”

“Well, I like someone, but we have too much between us, and I don’t know. I just want to move on, but I can’t.”

“I see,” he says, “and does this boy like you?”

Chuffing, I smile sadly. “Maybe for sex.”

“Hm, and how does that make you feel?”

Sniffling, I wipe a tear from my cheek. “Used.”

The last week or two has been full of many revelations, and while I can appreciate that I’m able to have sex, I’m also freaked-out that it’s with Griffin despite his barbarity. I’m more fucked-up than I thought.

“Maybe that’s your answer, Halsey,” he says simply, and I nod, but it’s not as simple as that, and I don’t know how to explain the complexity of my emotion for Griffin.

He’s the boy who turned my world upside down and created meaning I didn’t know was missing. Before him, I was shy and introverted, although popular enough due to having known my peers for years.

I hated school because I was constantly anxious and followed my brother, the social butterfly, around with a good dose of jealousy. But Griffin didn’t care about my neuroses and loved me anyway.

He’s the one who held me close when my dog got run over by a car, soothing me in a way my parents never could. He helped me pass math when I couldn’t figure out the damn equations, insisting I was plenty smart when I said I was stupid.

He snuck into my room on the weekends and lay in bed with me, whispering in soft tones so we wouldn’t wake my parents. He was my everything, and even all this time later, I don’t know how to let that go, but I have no choice. I never did.

Dr. Marks gives me a pitiful smile, and I walk away with a grim feeling in my heart, another brick on my soul I need to remove, but it’s heavy and old and refuses to budge.

In Psych, I sit in our usual corner and avoid the world around me until Hogan sits beside me with a smile, and for the first time since this class began, Griffin doesn’t sit next to me.

He doesn’t even glance in my direction, and though it’s for the best, my soul shrivels a little at the slight because even with his icy-cold demeanor, I’ve gotten used to having him beside me.

It’s probably my fault since I’ve been playing musical chairs, but today I gravitated back to my usual spot only to be rebuffed.

“Hey, Halsey,” Hogan says with a smile.

“Hey,” I whisper, glancing up and meeting the curious gaze of my professor, another weirdness I can’t get used to.

I spill my guts to him, and he gets to see my life play out outside the walls that are supposed to be safe and anonymous.

Shifting in my seat, I tune back into Hogan as he says, “There’s a party next weekend at the Phi house. Wanna go with me?”

“Um,” I say through dry lips. Do I? Should I?

This is my chance to move on, but a party sounds like another dimension of hell, although I’ve slowly come out of my paranoid shell due to the shock immersion therapy in the guise of Griffin’s constant parties. Still, I don’t know Hogan all that well, but Griffin decides for me when he leans into the girl beside him and whispers in her ear.

I can practically feel her pleased shiver from where I’m sitting because I know exactly how it feels to be the center of his attention, and with an awful clenching in my chest, I turn to Hogan and muster a smile. “Okay.”

“Cool, I’ll message you about it later,” Hogan says as the lecture commences, and I stare blindly at our professor.

We’re packing up after class when Dr. Marks says, “Halsey, can I speak to you, please?”

All eyes turn my way curiously, and I shrink under the attention, studiously ignoring Griffin’s stare, which I can feel boring into the side of my skull.

With a weak smile for Hogan, I trek down the steps and stop before the desk, where Dr. Marks stands behind it.

“Halsey,” he says in a low tone as the other students exit behind us.

“Yes?”

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