For the past week, Mom had been frowning at me over dinner. She could see my sadness, but I tried to hide it so she wouldn’t be so sad.

“I’m fine,” I told her, twirling around the pasta on my plate with my fork.

“It’s okay if you aren’t,” she told me. Katie had a grimace on her face, too. They both felt so bad for me. “It’s okay to not be okay all the time.”

I shrugged. “Can I go to my room? I’m not that hungry.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need anything, and I know it’s a school night, but if you want to play video games with Jason, that’s fine by me,” Mom said, hoping to make me smile.

I smiled for her. “Okay.”

“I love you, Eli.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

I lay in my bed and put in my earbuds to listen to music. The saddest part of jazz music was how each song affected you differently based on your own mood. Some of my favorite songs made me want to cry, while others made me want to throw my iPod against a wall.

I missed her.

She’d been gone for six days, and I missed her more than I’d known I could miss a person. We’d emailed each other, but we were never really able to talk. When she was sleeping, I was awake; when she was going about her day, I was in bed. It was tough, learning about what was happening in her life after it had already happened.

School wasn’t any easier with Jasmine gone. If anything, it was worse. Katie did her best to watch my back, but Todd and his gang were back to harassing me full steam ahead.

A new semester meant a new class schedule, and I was lucky enough to have Todd or one of his friends in five out of seven of my classes.

The worst one was fifth period gym class, where I had three of them at once.

“You think you can just get away with breaking my nose, freak?” Todd hissed behind me as I sat in the locker room while two of his followers held me down. “Now that your whore girlfriend is gone, you don’t have any kind of pussy to protect you,” he said, spitting at me.

I didn’t say anything back to him, because words never worked.

“Just wait for it, sunshine. You’re going to get what’s coming to you. But, it’s kind of sad now. Now that I can’t fuck your whore anymore, I’m gonna need someone new.” He smirked. “I mean, your sister has a great rack, and let’s be honest, everyone’s already seen those titties, so I might as well see what they taste like, too.”

My hands formed fists, and I leaped up, wanting to slug him, but his friends held me down.

I’m not strong enough.

I’m not strong enough.

“If yo-you t-touch her!” I warned, and they all laughed.

“I-I-If I to-to-touch her what?” Todd mocked me. “I’m gonna touch her all right. I’m gonna touch every inch of her, and then I’m going to kick your ass for my nose, loser. You’ll never see it coming. Your life is officially a ticking time bomb, and I’m going to destroy you.”

I tried again to get loose from the jerks’ grips, but I couldn’t.

I’m not strong enough.

I’m not strong enough.

“Let him go, guys,” Todd ordered, and the two pushed me backward on the bench, making my head slam against the lockers.

My mind was spinning, and I didn’t have a clue what to do, how to protect my sister, how to make sure nothing happened to her. If anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself. If anyone touched her…

I couldn’t stop my skin from crawling as I paced and pushed my glasses up my nose. There was only one thing I could do, and I didn’t care if it made me a loser, didn’t care if it made me look weak. The only thing I cared about was protecting my sister, which meant going straight to my mom.

If there was anyone who could fix this, it was her, and it didn’t take long for her to swoop right in.

A few days later, Mom, Katie, and I sat in the principal’s office with Todd and his parents beside us. Katie hadn’t looked up once, and my hands fiddled in my lap.

“You do know that this is a big allegation, Mrs. Adams,” Principal Williams warned, sitting back in his chair. “Saying Todd would do something like this—”

“I wouldn’t!” Todd insisted, looking innocent as ever. “I would never do anything like that to a girl.”

Jesus. He should’ve really considered becoming an actor. If I hadn’t known he was the devil, I would’ve believed the jerk.

Katie huffed, rolling her eyes. Mom was livid. Her fingers tapped against the arms of the chair. “There has to be something that can be done about this, some kind of action that can be taken against him. I don’t feel comfortable having my daughter walking the same halls as this boy, and you shouldn’t either. Frankly, you should be concerned about all of your female students’ safety!” she barked.

“This is absurd,” Mr. Clause groaned, rolling his eyes. “I can’t believe I was pulled out of work for something so pointless. Todd hasn’t even done anything.”

“He threatened to rape my daughter!” Mom shouted, ten seconds past pissed off. “If you think that’s absurd and not worthy of some form of discipline, then that’s terrifying, to say the least.”

“Oh, come on. Are we not going to address the elephant in the room?” Mrs. Clause said, gesturing toward Katie. “Can we really take anything to heart when it’s about this girl?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mom asked.

My stomach twisted in knots, and Katie’s eyes widened with fear.

“Mom, forget it. I want to go,” Katie whispered, tugging at her arm. “This is stupid.”

“No,” Mom stated sternly, still looking at Mrs. Clause. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that your daughter was the girl of the year last year for screwing multiple boys at a house party. The video went viral. I’m surprised you didn’t see it.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mom asked.

“I just think it’s ridiculous. My son wouldn’t want to go anywhere near a girl like her,” Mrs. Clause barked.

“A girl like her?” Mom was red in the face and seconds away from exploding.

“You know—easy.”

“How dare you!” Mom shouted. “Your son’s a little shithead who deserves punishment for his actions.”

“Even if he said it, they’re just words, not actions,” Mr. Clause corrected.

“Really,” Mom hissed, flabbergasted. “Is that how you raise your son?”

Principal Williams tried to cut in to stop the arguing, but that ship had sailed.

“It’s better than how you raise yours! One child is running around the school as a little slut, and the other can’t even articulate a whole sentence. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have a father figure for them to take after,” Mrs. Clause said with revulsion.

Mom leaped from her chair and marched toward Mrs. Clause, and I was quick to grab her arm to stop her. When she looked at me, her eyes were wild, as if she were moments away from killing for her cubs.

“It’s o-okay, Mom,” I told her.

“Yeah, Mom. Let’s go,” Katie begged.

Mom’s eyes watered. She looked at Principal Williams and harshly said, “I don’t know how much they are paying you, or giving to this school in order to control your damn mind, but these are my children. This is your job. Do something,” before she turned and marched out of the office, ordering Katie and me to follow her.

We hurried our way to the car. She flung the driver’s door open and quickly sat inside, slamming it shut behind her. I slid into the back seat, and Katie took shotgun. Mom’s hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, and her breaths were uneven.

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” Katie finally choked out, tears falling down her face. “I…”

“Is that why you stopped hanging out with those friends?” Mom asked.

Katie nodded. “It was a stupid party, and, and I was too scared to tell you and embarrassed and…I’m sorry,” Katie cried.

Mom turned to her and locked eyes with my sister. She placed her hands on her shoulders. “Katlyn Rae Adams, you never, ever have to be ashamed of yourself or too embarrassed to talk to me. Do you understand?”

Katie nodded. “Yes, Mom.”

“We are going to talk about this at some point, okay? But right now, I just need to know you’re okay. Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“And those, those—monsters in that office today? Those adults who talked so disgustingly about a child like that? They are the problem. This world is the problem, not you.”

Mom pulled Katie into a hug, and they both cried against one another for a long time. We stayed in the school parking lot until both could catch their breath. Mom wiped Katie’s eyes, and Katie wiped Mom’s.

“Let’s get home for dinner,” Mom declared, putting the car into drive. “And then we are going to look into transferring schools.”

“Mom?” I called out.

“Yes, Elliott?”

“Did you, um, d-did you call Todd a sh-shithead?”

She smirked in the rearview mirror and shrugged. “I think I did.”

I smiled my biggest grin as she started drove us home.

Coolest. Mom. Ever.