Page 42 of Bitter Lies

“Is everything okay? Is he the boy you were speaking about earlier?”

“Um, what? No,” I mutter, heat suffusing my cheeks.

“Hm, okay, good. Remember what we spoke about? You need only positive influences around you right now.”

“Yes, of course,” I whisper, turning away from his firm tone uncomfortably.

Some part of me wants to tell him to back off, but he’s my counselor. Maybe he knows better than me? Perhaps calling me to the front of the class and reminding me of my words not two fucking hours ago is normal?

Of course, Griffin is waiting for me and as soon as I exit, he takes my arm and pulls me outside. With his brows low over his eyes, dark with thunderclouds brewing, and his mouth a stern line, I prepare myself for whatever’s coming next.

“What the fuck, Halsey? What’s going on?”

“Oh, um, just something about my grades,” I mumble, and he drops my arm, looking me over with suspicion.

Smiling tremulously, I walk away and leave him staring after me with a frown.

∞∞∞

“Dinner,” Max says, and grunting, I drop the book I was staring at blankly.

Tonight is taco night, I discover when I trail Max into the kitchen and fill my plate before sitting down tiredly opposite Max with Griffin between us.

Absently, I chew the crunchy shell, lost to my thoughts, until Griffin says, “Halsey, why didn’t you tell me Dr. Marks is your therapist?”

Dropping the taco to my plate, I mutter, “Because it’s none of your business.”

“Please,” Max interjects, “Mom made it our business when she gave us your class schedule and insisted we eat fucking dinner together every night.”

Glancing at him incredulously, I look to my plate and back to his grim face before moving to Griffin, who’s looking at me with a blank stare.

Ignoring the sting of humiliation flooding through me like an acid fucking bath, I push back from the table abruptly and grab my plate, dropping it in the sink. My half-eaten taco slides into the drain and cracks down the middle.

“Jesus, here we go again. Don’t be a bitch, Halsey.”

At Max’s rude grunt, I drop my head, and lean against the counter searching for the girl who used to fucking stand up for herself and certainly didn’t need to be summoned to dinner every fucking night.

“Whatever,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Neither of you give two fucks about whether I eat. And if you have to lie to Mom, then fucking lie because I’m not sitting down with you fuckers again.”

“Ha!” Max sneers, “You’ll fucking sit down at this table every night if I have to fucking make you.”

“Max.” My eyes fly to Griffin at his warning tone but he’s staring at Max.

“No, bro. I’m tired of this shit. You wanna bang half the fucking town, do it, but don’t fucking play the sympathy card after. Do you even need the little pills they gave you? Or is that just a fucking front, too?”

“For the last fucking time, I didn’t try to kill myself. And if you two complete assholes would stop being selfish dicks, maybe you’d see that this is no picnic for me either.”

“Really?” Griffin says, dropping his fork. “We’ve been making you fucking dinner for weeks and fucking escorting you to class and shit. Who’s the real asshole here?”

Grunting, I push away from the counter and snarl, “For the fucking record, you taking me to class isn’t going to keep me from offing myself if I wanted to! It’s not like I’m going to do it in class with the entire student body watching.”

“Good,” he growls. “Then maybe we can trade fucking partners because I have no desire to see inside your sick head.”

“Grr,” I mutter, stalking away, only to turn at the hallway and scream, “That’s fine! Because it was all fucking lies anyway.”

I lock myself in my room once more and lean my head against the door, puffing hysterically under my breath.

I can’t fucking breathe under the weight of the chains I’m bound with, and Mom only made it worse because now the fuckers have even more reason to hate me.

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