The Boy on the Bridge

It’s Hunter.

My heart drops as I read, “Where did you go?”

My fingers shake as I rapidly type back, “Don’t text me again.”

“I needed to know you were okay,” he shoots back.

“Like you care,” I answer. “I mean it, Hunter, if you text me again, I’ll block your number.”

Apparently not taking my warning seriously, he sends back, “We need to talk.”

Aggravated and out of sorts, I do what I said I would—I block his ass.

There.

I should feel better as I set my phone down on the countertop, but I don’t. I feel terrible if I allow myself to think about it for even a moment, so I stop. I can’t turn my brain off, but I can fill it with a million other things.

As I step into the shower to scrub Hunter off of me, that’s exactly what I do.

Chapter Twenty Three

Riley

Mercifully, it is weekend.

Two days away from school isn’t nearly enough, but since I couldn’t sleep last night, I’m happy to sleep in Saturday morning.

Every time I tried to sleep, my mind filled up with thoughts of everything that happened at that awful party.

I dreaded school during the years Hunter was gone, too, but it’s so much worse now that he’s back. My dread was a passive thing before. Sure, it was an unpleasant environment full of people who didn’t want anything to do with me, but I could more or less ignore it. I had never been friends with any of those people, anyway. It wasn’t as if I was losing anything or having it taken from me, I simply never had those normal high school experiences.

I’m a senior, and the party last night at Valerie’s house is the first one I’ve ever been invited to—and only then because I was the plus one of a football player.

But now I’m not just the girl everyone ignores most of the time, now it’s not a quiet thing that doesn’t stir up my anxieties.

Now there are social media posts about me, posts by people I’ve never even spoken to. Strangers are commenting on and ridiculing my sex life, calling me awful names and dredging up bullshit rumors from last year.

They shouldn’t even be surprised I fucked Valerie’s boyfriend in her bedroom—I did have that affair with a faculty member junior year, after all.

In a world that revolves around the prettiest, most popular girl in school, apparently I’m the villain.

It’s infuriating that people play into this bullshit. I’ve never willfully hurt a person in my whole entire life. Valerie does it for sport.

Try as I might, I can’t completely ignore the white noise. It’s hard to tune it out when you know so much of the buzzing is about you.

I make a valiant effort, though.

Since we’re just heading into our second week of school, the newspaper has a skeleton crew. Most of the regular contributors graduated last year, so there are a lot of positions open.

I volunteered to help out with the entertainment section and write a couple of extra articles even before I knew Hunter was going to ruin my life this weekend. When I initially volunteered, I kinda wanted to kick myself. I didn’t know how I’d find time to do that on top of all my first week back preparations, but now that I need busywork… good looking out, past Riley.

Since Mom had to work an overnight shift last night, she sleeps until about two.

I’m on the couch with a notebook open on my lap, a pen in my hand as I watch the movie I have to review for the school paper. The movie is actually four years old, not a new release, but I don’t want to go to the movie theater in town and risk running into anyone from school, so I decided to do something a bit differently. The book version of this movie is randomly on the New York Times Bestseller list right now, so I thought I’d read the book and watch the movie, and write about both for my article.

“Hey, you’re watching movies without me,” Mom says, openly surprised. “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

I glance back at her and offer a little smile. “It’s for work, not play. I have to review it for the paper, so I figured I’d watch this one alone.”

“Is it because I talk during movies?” she asks.

“Maybe.”

She sighs. “I knew it. Is it any good? Maybe we can watch it again later if it is.”

I shake my head, reaching forward and grabbing my drink off the coffee table. “I think you can skip this one.”

“Did you make coffee?” she asks, sniffing the air. “I smell coffee.”

I nod. “I did. I stayed up late reading and working, I needed it to stay awake. It’s still fresh if you want some. I saved you a cup.”