“Ivy?” Honor asked in such a small voice that I closed my eyes against the sudden anxiety I felt for her. “Tyler’s not the only boy. Lots of boys asked me to the dance, but Tyler’s the only one I liked enough to think about going with.”

“Oh, really?” I closed my eyes tighter, but this time against tears. I hated that she would have to go through this mostly alone, and without any idea of why this was happening to her.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” she asked truly perplexed.

“Was it a lot of boys?”

“All the boys…. In my class and in seventh grade,” she confessed in that worried tone again. “But I didn’t tell daddy that.”

Oh no. I could not let her get away with that. I walked her over to her big bed and sat down with her so that I could face her. “Hon, don’t keep that kind of stuff from your dad, Ok? I know it might seem embarrassing, or…. it might be hard to tell him that kind of stuff, but he really does want what’s best for you. He won’t get mad at you; it’s not anything you did wrong, Ok? He can probably help you, make it easier for you.”

She nodded along, seeming to understand how important it was to be honest with Smith by my freaked out tone.

“Ivy, is something happening to me?” she whispered in that frightened little voice again.

“Honey, no! Why would you think that?”

“Because…. because it’s not just the boys. It’s the girls too,” she admitted and then looked away.

“What about the girls?” Suddenly there was ice in my veins. I remembered what middle school was like for me away from Sloane and Exie, completely on my own. It was awful. Girls were cruel, and the boys were relentless.

“They stopped being nice to me,” she croaked. Her chin trembled and then a tiny little tear slipped from the corner of her eye and down her cheek. I wiped it away quickly with my thumb and then held her face in my hands so she was forced to look at me.

“Honor, there is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect and special and wonderful. No matter what anybody else says, or does, you have to know that is true about you. You are the one that decides how you feel, Ok? You make you matter. And I think you are the greatest eleven year-old in the universe and my opinion matters too.” She laughed at that with a watery smile. “I love you, Ok?”

“Ok,” she mumbled, throwing her arms around my neck. “I love you too!”

And then my eyes were brimming with tears.

A knock at the door and Smith walking into the room tore us apart from each other. Smith looked back and forth between us before deciding that whatever had caused the tears must have been a good thing because his face softened and a sweet smile turned his mouth.

“Honor, your mother would like to spend more time with you before she goes,” he instructed. Honor stood up and gave me one more confident smile before disappearing into the hall.

I stood up too, wanting to follow her before my mother got her alone again. Smith stopped me with a raised hand though and asked me to wait.

“Mallory talked to you this week?” he whispered.

I nodded and then stole a glance at the door just in case my mother suddenly appeared.

“Please let her try,” he begged in a rumbling whisper.

“Ok,” I said quickly. “I told her Ok.”

Smith immediately relaxed, his face smoothing out to happy. “Good, Ivy. That is good.”

We both moved toward the door before I said, “Have you thought about homeschooling Honor?” My voice was as quiet as I could make it without having to resort to smoke signals to communicate with Smith.

“After last week, I’m seriously considering all-girls school,” he sighed. Smith ran a rough hand over his face showing me how much he realized this problem was going to cost him.

“Please don’t do that. It would crush her,” I pleaded. I grabbed onto the sleeve of his navy blue oxford and gripped it tightly. “All-girls could be…. could be rough…. Could be traumatizing. It would push her right to my mother.”

He thought over my words carefully, taking them in, chewing on them and then visibly deciding that they were helpful. “Homeschooling? You really think I need to remove her from society completely?”

“No,” I answered quickly. “Not completely. But enough so that you can keep an eye on her and help her mature. She will never be like my mother. She has you. It won’t happen to her. But it won’t stop either, what happened last week will never stop. She has to learn to…. handle it.”

“What is this Ivy? What has its claws on my little girls’ life? On your life?” Smith’s voice broke on his last question. I could see how sickly worried he was for Honor, how desperate he was to protect her from our mother and everything she represented. “Is it something I can stop?”

“It’s uh,” I obviously couldn’t reveal my secret twice in the same weekend. “It’s just bad genetics. Honestly, Smith. Just think about homeschooling, please?”

He nodded his agreement and before he could ask me anymore questions or before my mother spent one more second alone with Honor, I bounded down the steps and rejoined my family.

Homeschooling, although dreadful, would protect Honor. And right now that was my only goal in life. I wondered how different my life would be if I had someone to protect me.

And then I thought about Ryder and how desperate he was to help me.

So maybe my bad did balance out after all.

Maybe I did have someone special looking out for me.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The next day at school I felt this weird mixture of strong hope and eternal despair. My situation was depressing. Nix was scary as all hell. And he was back early from Greece. My future loomed bleak and ominous on the horizon.

But Ryder gave me this smile when I walked up to the school this morning that was secret and meaningful and…. possessive. His eyes grazed over me from head to foot as if he were searching for something physically out of place. And then his powerful silver eyes met mine and held them, connected me to him and transferred some of his indomitable strength to me.

I could smile then. Breathe again.

And it was because Ryder knew my secret and decided I was still worth friendship.

We hadn’t actually spoken to each other yet today, he was with Chase and Phoenix in front of the building and I wanted to avoid all things Chase for a while. But just knowing Ryder supported me, made getting through the monotony of the day easier, made everything easier.

Between fifth and sixth period I found myself alone in an upstairs bathroom. I was kind of just wasting time and messing around with my hair when three girls walked in laughing loudly. They were giggling about boys and parties over the weekend. I recognized them instantly, cheerleaders that used to hang around Sam and the other basketball guys. Maybe they still did, I avoided the entire basketball crowd like a death sentence.

There laughter evaporated when they noticed me, their expressions puckering like someone had sucked all the oxygen from the room. And maybe someone had because I was finding it hard to breathe again. The shortest girl, also the ring leader from what I remembered lifted a slender finger and circled it around slowly, pointing at me, marking me.

“Well, look who it is,” I thought her name might have been Cammie snarled.

A taller, thicker girl, who was maybe Jayla huffed out a bitter puff of laughter. “Heard you were back, Ivy. I also heard you were making your rounds on the soccer team now. Slut.”

“Whore,” Cammie quickly reinforced their nasty sentiment. So we obviously would not be sharing our grief over Sam today.

“Why did you even come back?” The third girl asked with so much pain and loathing that I almost forgot my own problems with hers glaring so achingly bright. Her name was Cassandra, and she was drop dead gorgeous. Perfect mocha skin, long silky black hair, the darkest, deepest black eyes. She was prettier than me. Smarter than me. And had been dating Sam for two entire years before I showed up.

Before he broke up with her for me.

I sucked in an ugly, ragged breath and willed myself to meet her eyes. “I didn’t have a choice,” I admitted with not even a hint of strength or poise.

Cassandra bit out a bark of laughter. “Well, isn’t that just nice for you.”

Cammie took a step towards me. She was tiny and petite but packed with muscle. All these girls were. And even though I wasn’t helpless if it came to a fight, I knew without a doubt I wouldn’t fight back. This was a punishment I wanted, I felt like I deserved and I was going to take it.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” Cammie threatened in a menacing voice. “Nobody wants you here, nobody wants to watch you ruin someone else’s life. You’re a cheap skank that destroys people. You make me sick.”

My heart started hammering in my chest so loud I was positive they could hear it, hear my fear and self-loathing. Hot tears stabbed at my eyes and I shut them quickly to stay that weakness. I didn’t mind being the target for all their insults, or even their punching bag, but crying in front of them seemed too pathetic even for me.

The bathroom door opened and surprise of all surprises Kenna Lee walked in. She had her purse in her hand and seemed to be in a hurry, but when she stumbled into the trinity of hatred she paused, her head snapping back and forth between me and them.

“What’s going on, Ivy?” she asked in a hesitant tone.

Damn it, why did this stuff always happen in the bathroom? And why was it always freaking Kenna Lee?

“Nothing,” I whispered, but even I heard how tragic I sounded.

“Cassandra?” she questioned instead.

“We’re just leaving,” Cassandra said in a bored tone. She looked me up and down one more time, taking in all of me, my hunched shoulders, my nails dug painfully into my palms, my hair that seemed to be everywhere at the moment, my forehead that had started to sweat and my wild eyes that couldn’t escape the guilt and shame for what had happened to Sam. “I hate you,” she confessed in a mean, ugly voice. “I have never hated anyone like I hate you.” She paused for several moments, seeming to compose herself. “But he still asks about you. Not…. he can’t…. it’s in his eyes. It’s how he watches the door. The least you could do is pay him a visit. Ease his suffering some.”

Her words floored me. I felt like she just punched me in the heart. The wind was knocked all the way out of me. I stood their trembling, shaking from head to toe while she and her friends gave me one more disdainful look and then they turned as one unit and left the bathroom.

Kenna disappeared into a stall and all the while I stood there staring at the door, not able to move or react. She reappeared in front of me, washing her hands and then pulling some paper towels from the dispenser. While she dried her hands she looked me over with the kind of pity that was reserved for abused circus animals. Like her shame for me was so strong it bordered on disgust.

“Ivy, this is the second time I’ve rescued you…. in a bathroom,” she sighed, sounding somewhat exhausted. “So you’ve made some enemies? So what. Life goes on, it has to and you can’t stop it. Learn to stand up for yourself for God’s sake.”

I jumped at her words. There was a time not that long ago that I knew how to stand up for myself. I knew exactly what I was and even if I didn’t want to accept my future, I could at least accept my reality. But now? Now the guilt ate away at every good, strong piece of me until I didn’t want to stand up for myself, until I wanted someone else to tell me exactly what I already knew.

“You’re right,” I mumbled instead. No need to belittle her efforts.

“Listen, it’s not like…. Ok, you and me are never going to be friends, right?” I nodded weakly, hating that her words were truth. “But, I care about Ryder. I mean, even though- I care about him despite how we ended things. I just don’t want to see you hurt him, alright? Can you at least try to be gentle with him?”

“Wait,” my heart slammed against my chest and then dropped to my stomach. “What?”

“Oh, I thought Ryder would have told you. I thought Ryder had a thing- I guess, never mind,” Kenna looked thoughtful for a moment and then waved her hand in the air as if swatting away the idea.

“Ryder broke up with you? And you thought it was because of me?” I squeaked out, feeling suddenly very sick to my stomach. The world kind of reeled around and my vision started spotting. This was very bad news.

“What?” Kenna asked abruptly. “No, I broke up with Ryder. I had a thing- Hayden and I have been talking for a while and I didn’t think it was fair to Ryder.” She looked at me closely. “Although I don’t know why I’m telling you that.”

“Oh,” I started, feeling completely disoriented.

“Sorry, he always said you guys were just friends. But I don’t know, I kind of had a feeling it was more.” Kenna looked thoughtful for a moment before straightening. “Guess, I was wrong.”

“Uh, yeah, we’re just friends,” I confirmed, feeling a little flattened. Which made no sense. “Um, can I ask when you guys broke up?”

She looked at me sharply and then the pity was back. Oh great, she thought I had a thing for Ryder. Good grief.

“It was the beginning of last week, like maybe Tuesday?”

“But I saw you guys sit together at lunch every day?” I demanded. A righteous anger was building up inside me, I felt lied to. Manipulated.

“We’re still friends Ivy. Not every break up ends badly,” she patronized but then shot me a sidelong glance. “At least for me.”

“Huh,” I mused, ignoring her jab. “I thought you guys, I don’t know, I thought you were really into him.”

“I did too, but I think I was more into Ryder the musician,” she confessed, her lips pouting thoughtfully. “You know what I mean? Ryder as the boyfriend can be…. boring.”