A heavy weight pinned me to my bed on Tuesday morning, like a dumbbell pressing down on my chest. My mouth was dry and cottony, my eyes crusty with sleep. Which was ironic, considering how little I had slept the night before. One sweaty arm was crossed over my chest, stinging with pins and needle, and the other hung off the side of my bed. Behind my ribs, the cavity of my chest ached. I wasn't failing Biology so excessively that I knew that it wasn't really a broken heart, but the hollow feeling had remained since Caleb had abandoned me in the rainy carpark.

I had determined that I would never move again. No matter how many times Reece knocked on my door.

He thought I was a drama queen? He hadn't seen anything yet.

The first thing I'd done upon returning home – the walk from school to my house was forty minutes, and in the rain, it should have been horrendous, but I'd barely felt it go by – was wipe my life clean of Caleb Proust and everything that came with him. That meant blocking and deleting his phone number and, upsettingly, Lauren's as well. I blocked his account on Instagram – as if it made a difference since he wasn't following me in the first place – and dug out the clothes I had never returned to him, after that first night, and throwing them in the bin at the curb.

An unknown number had rung a couple of times that night, but I had ignored it. Lauren left me a voicemail at six pm, to which I had only listened to five seconds.

"Hey, Miles, are you with Ca –"

And, delete.

I felt bad ghosting her, but thinking about her brother made my body shake. And I wasn't about to make her choose. Family always sided with family.

You're not my type.

Had I not felt the way I did about Caleb, that sentence would have meant nothing. But it did, because I did. He knew that. He knew it would break whatever we had clean in half. Maybe he didn't know it would leave me in the state it had, but my situation was a consequence of his vindictiveness, whether he knew it or not.

Memories of the kiss blended messily with his blank expression, his harsh words, and left me wondering if any of it had been worth it.

All I wanted to do was crawl into my closet and smother my feelings in makeup until it was an inch thick, masking everything ugly from the word. But Sephora was in hibernation. She was crouched over in a cave somewhere, licking her wounds, and cursing the name of Caleb Proust under her breath. I knew if I drew her over my current expression – brow pinched, lips quivering, eyes glassy – she'd come out looking all wrong. The only thing worse than not having Sephora available to me was having a deflated, miserable version of Sephora, lacking her confident aura and glow. I didn't want to look in the mirror and see the Sephora who had come out of my mother's death.

I had curled up on my bare mattress, legs tucked into my chest, and waited out the night. The tiny part of me that wanted to shrug off the entire conversation as inevitable and the best thing for me was choked out by the overwhelming sense that I had been broken up with and gaslit into believing I'd never been in a relationship in the first place.

Heavy boots paused outside my door. Reece negated knocking and went straight for opening the door. Usually, I would have snapped at him, snatching my covers over my bare chest, and telling him I would be out when I damn well felt like it. I couldn't even make myself sit up.

"It's seven-thirty," he informed me. He was wearing his work uniform, brown shorts smeared with grease but ironed.

"Yep," I said absently. "I think I'll stay home today."

"Oh yeah?" he leaned up against the door frame, brow furrowed. "Whose call is that?"

I rolled onto my side, and trace my finger along the crease in my stomach that formed when I hoisted my legs up. "I have a migraine. I won't be able to focus at school. I'll get more work done here."

He stayed put in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. "Don't you have tutoring tonight?"

Tutoring made me think about Lauren, and being at Lauren's house, and how nice it had been to have a family dinner again. I squeezed my eyes shut. "Yeah, I'll just have to cancel. I'll need to find a new tutor anyway."

"I thought you and Lauren ended things mutually."

I frowned. I hadn't remembered telling Reece about Lauren and me breaking up.

"Yeah. But still..." I cleared my throat. "It'd be awkward."

Reece made a humming noise in the back of his throat, one I didn't entirely trust. No, I definitely hadn't told him about Lauren and me. I would have remembered his look of disappointment.

"My attendance record is perfect this year," I bargained. "I haven't missed a day."

"Yeah, because you missed so much last year, they sent a truancy officer to the house," Reece said darkly. "I'll give you a lift in."

I thought about rolling over and pressing a pillow against my ears. It wasn't as if Reece could drag me to school. Complacency was what kept getting me into situations in which I was way over my head. I could do with some stubbornness.

"Fine."

I took long enough in the shower that I would be late to the first period, but at least it meant I wouldn't risk seeing Caleb or Aaron or Jake or Aidan McCaffrey, who was returning from his suspension on that day, in the hallways. The hot water bought clarity to my mind, but when I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror I grimaced. My body was grossly underweight, no muscle to speak of, and unattractive blotches from untreated acne up my back. I was a pale as a sheet, a canvas to display the shadows under my eyes, and the pressure burns from the shower and the stretch marks at the base of my spine. The fresh gauze over my eyebrow had a tiny patch of dried blood in the centre, splitting my eyebrow in half with an ugly square of tape. My hair stuck up in unruly tendrils, uncooperative as I tried to comb them into cohesion. I clenched the porcelain sink with both hands and glared into my muddy eyes until they glassed over again.

I was hideous like this. No wonder Caleb wanted nothing to do with me.

Caleb's type was spectacular. Sephora Utah at her best. The only way he would ever be tempted into kissing me was when he was too drunk to see straight.

I tugged on my uniform, leaving my hair wet enough to make the collar damp, and trudged down the driveway as Reece muttered at me to get a move on. I slumped over in the front seat of the pickup as he fiddled with the radio. He'd pulled a frayed jacket over his work shirt, sleeves littered with burnt holes from stray ash.

Thunderstruck was playing on one of the community radios, and I tapped my knee against the glovebox as he drove us silently across the bustling neighbourhood. It was later in the morning than I usually had to get up, to catch the bus, and my sleepy suburban slice of limbo was alive. Reece honked to Mrs. Letterman, walking her kids to primary school on leashes.

"Your History teacher gave me another call yesterday," Reece broke the silence mildly. "Said you'd forgotten the homework. She wanted me to keep an eye on you, make sure you weren't falling into old habits."

Damn Miss Riley and her continued commitment to my education. Damn her to hell. "What, I'm not allowed to have one bad day?"

Reece turned the radio up as if he hadn't started the conversation to begin with. I huffed and turned my head out the window. The trees were looking refreshed after yesterday's storm. Mr. Martin's front lawn was looking especially spongey.

"Is your headache to do with Lauren?" Reece asked, and his voice hardened. "Or Steph?"

My hands went clammy, but I immediately began to babble.

"Steph doesn't exist. She's an inside joke with Lauren because she didn't want her parents to know we were..."

"I cannot believe you."

I turned my head at his incredulous tone. Reece's eyes were on the road, but his face was red, and his jaw was pulsing. He looked more furious than I'd seen him in a long time. Tired, disinterested, distant... those were expressions I associated with Reece. His knee bounced as he turned a tight corner, throwing me against the door.

"Do you think it'll make you feel better, treating the people around you as expendable?" he demanded. "Does it make you feel like a man?"

My eyebrows bunched together. Fear took a sharp turn into bafflement. "I have literally no idea what you are talking about."

Reece nodded sharply, disbelieving. "I cannot believe I have to have this conversation with you. I thought better of you, Miles. You know I do. Do you like proving me wrong, or something?"

He waited for me to talk, but I had nothing to respond to. He finally sighed, and hit the cigarette lighter, reaching across me to fish a packet out of the glovebox. I clenched my knees to avoid brushing against him.

"Selene came into the shop yesterday."

It took me a second to remember who Selene was. Once I did, my fingers tightened around my bag straps and I felt my tired heart drop completely out of me, dropping out in between my ankles. Reece knowing about Lauren and I suddenly made sense.

"She told me her old mechanic was ripping her off whenever her husband wasn't with her, and she trusted me to give her a good price," he clarified. "We got chatting. She's been having real trouble with your friend, Caleb, apparently. She says she's seen a side to him she didn't know lately."

I remained rigid in my seat. Reece was the type to trade 'troubled child' stories, but I wasn't much in the mood to hear which ones he'd shared with Caleb's mother.

"She said he's been lying to her to see this girl she's never heard of," Reece tapped the steering wheel. "Sneaking out. Disappearing without a word, staying the night god knows where. The poor woman is at her wits end about it. And Caleb won't tell her any details, won't even bring Steph around to meet her."

The human body could survive a loss of five to six pints. Anything else was supposed to be fatal, but I supposed I was a medical marvel because I could have sworn all my blood left me at that moment. That, or it had all been directed to my tongue, which was suddenly too heavy to answer him.

"Steph's a common name, I thought, but considering everything else going on with you, I won't be surprised..." Reece trailed off, before coming back with a vengeance. "Does Caleb know? I assume not, or he wouldn't have let you anywhere near his sister."

I exhaled, half-relieved that Reece hadn't ended that anecdote with 'she showed me this photograph...'. Such was the state of my luck these days. "Did you... tell her?"

Reece laughed humourlessly, and I mentally prepared myself for him to say of course. "Of course not. Although it might not matter. Do you realise how small this town is? People are going to find out, and do you think anyone's going to sympathise with you? What is it? Are you insane, or just stupid?"

I could hardly believe what was happening. I was being lectured, the morning after my gay heart had been broken, about sleeping around with other people's girlfriends.

We had reached the main road, a straight line to Truman. I dragged my backpack into my lap, "I can walk from here. Pull over."

He lit the cigarette between his lips, breathing it in like a lifeline. "Jesus, what happened to you, Miles?"

My toes curled inside my shoes. "Is that a real question?"

"What you lost," Reece growled, "Doesn't excuse you hurting other people."

I laughed harshly. It stung the roof of my mouth.

"You have... you have no idea," I managed. "I can walk from here."

Reece didn't slow.

"Let me out of the car."

When he didn't respond, something snapped within me. Reece breathed out a cloud of smoke, which backed up into my face. The smell made my eyes water, and I saw red.

I tensed my resolve and reached to the centre console, pulling up the handbrake. The car screamed and jolted, throwing my shoulder against the dashboard. Reece yelled unintelligibly, dropping his cigarette from his lips as he moved to shove me back. His open palm connected with my chest and I flew back into the door, smacking my head against the window hard enough to see stars.

The car swerved between lanes a few times and Reece fumbled to keep control of the car. We pulled over diagonally in the emergency lane and the car around us blared their displeasure. Reece swore as he grabbed the lit cigarette with shaking hands, disposing of it out the open window. The end had burned a hole through the denim, leave a pretty grisly burn on his upper thigh. I could smell charcoal flesh from my seat, pressed against the door. That, and burning tyres.

Then he turned on me.

"Are you fucking insane?" he boomed. "You could have flipped the damn car!"

With quivering hands, I raised a hand to the back of my head. Reece was breathing hard, cursing, and wringing his hands. I cupped my neck, winching slightly when my skull stung under pressure. Reece, even in his furious state, noticed this. I watched his eyes widen, presumably in panic.

"Shit. Miles, I didn't mean..."

My hand found the door handle and I spilled out onto the road. I snatched my bag, refusing to meet Reece's eye. I heard his door open as I power-walked down the road, stricken, watery-eyed. Passing cars sent my hair whipping across my face, as I stormed alongside the thin white line marking the edge of the road.

"Miles!" Reece called from behind me, and I heard him run to catch up with me. The sound of his boots approaching made me want to break into a sprint. "Come back. You can't..."

I whirled around, stopping him in his tracks a good few metres from me. He had the decency to look ashamed. It didn't put a chink in my fortified, fully justified, iron walls of fury. "Can't what? Can't tell? Come anywhere near me, and I will."

His face broke into confusion. "Tell them what?"

I knew I was crying. Tears of righteous venom flowing through my eyes, humiliating and hot. The threat lingered in the air, and his question was left unanswered. Not by words, anyway. The implication hung heavy.

"Fuck off," I spat, turned on my heel, and walked away. My vision was blurred, and my bag jostled on my shoulders with every frantic stride. Reece didn't follow. When I glanced back, just the once, his car was gone.

The walk to school was longer than I expected, and by the time I arrived, there was hardly anyone lingering on the school ground. I was thankful for that because I was certain my face was red, and my eyes were puffy, since I'd spent the entire walk sniffling. I kept my head down as I trudged the steps, wiping off my face on my shirt as I shouldered through the doors.

My chest was tight as taut elastic. It was an eerily familiar feeling, and it made me pause on my trek to first period. I sipped in a few breaths to make sure I still could. I sidestepped into a locker, pressing my cheek into the cold metal until the groove bit into my skin.

I couldn't go to class in the state I was in. If anyone caught a glimpse of me, they'd ask what was wrong and then I would break. I should never have come to school.

I turned and walked to the door. At the very last minute, when my fingers were kissing the glass panelling, a hair's breadth from escape, I thought twice of it.

Running would do me no good. But I knew what would.

I took a hard right toward the admin block.

a/n: hey'a, EXOTIC has a Spotify playlist! it's linked in my profile. music was a big inspiration for this story and i think listening while you read will give you a good insight into my headspace ~