"You don't have to leave."

            For a fraction of a second I thought I'd imagined the mousy voice. I'd spent four years of my life holding on to the picture perfect image of our friendship. We'd be those friends, the ones in all the cheesy chick flicks. We'd get an apartment and attend the same college, eventually find the one, and then move into houses across the street from one another so we wouldn't have to go far when we had a juicy piece of gossip to talk over.

            Those thoughts had been lost with the rest of me.

            The Monday I'd been shown the video, I had looked up and found Natalie's eyes across the cafeteria. She wasn't near Louis because she knew that it was him in it; she'd been there, screaming and thrashing in Shawn's arms for my stepbrother to stop. Her words hadn't phased him and eventually she'd given up and the jock restraining her carried her away from the room and likely back down the stairs.

            Though she continued to watch me from the back of classrooms and would send me sympathetic looks every time passed one another in the hall between periods, it was never beyond that. I'd lost everything and when I had needed my best friend, she had become one with the shadows on the wall, not wanting to draw the attention to herself. Or maybe she was terrified of what my brother and his friends would do if they saw her near me.

            "Mars, please." she continued when I didn't budge. "Stay here. Don't let him do this to you. You're not going to graduate if you keep ditching like this."

            I wanted to brush her off like the pesky bug she was and head for the doors, but my body had a mind of its own and the familiarity of her voice filled the empty abyss in my chest with warmth was enough to keep me from running.

            Seeing her, one might have thought she'd been the one who suffered through the trauma that night and lived in the horror every waking second of her life. Her untamed blonde hair was thrown into a messy bun that bordered on careless opposed to cute. Eyes, once so green and full of life that boys would flock to her, were dull outside of the layer of tears over them. Her lips, like my own, had been bitten raw to a point of no return. She didn't even bother to dress up anymore and wore a red sweater that was a couple sizes too big and baggy jeans.

            "I miss you." she said, touching her hand to my shoulder. "I know. . . I know everything is different now, but you're still my best friend."

            "I'm not." I tried to keep my voice even but it started to waver, "I needed you, Nat. So fucking bad. But you just sat there and watched."

            She dropped her hand to her side and shook head repeatedly from side to side, strand after strand of her hair falling into her eyes. "I tried! What was I supposed to do? There were three of them in that room. What was I going to do, rush three football players?"

            "I mean after that!" I yelled, backing away from her. "I needed my best friend, but you pretended that I didn't exist. While everyone pushed me around, touched me, talked about me, you just laughed and looked all pretty so they'd accept you."

            "That's not—"

            "That is what you always wanted, isn't it, Natalie? To be popular?" she fell back and averted her eyes. "That's what I thought. Leave me the hell alone."

            I stalked away from her and out of the building before she could muster up enough courage to chase after me. To my relief Gage was already laying at the bottom of the hill, arms flexed behind his head as he stared at the overcast sky, not allowing even a ray of light through.

            "Hey." he greeted as I approached, but he sat upright when he turned his head in my direction. "What's wrong? Is it Louis?"

            "No." somehow almost as bad, though. "Can we get out of here?"

            He eyed me, lips parted. I could tell by the look in them that he wanted to know what had happened, but was afraid he'd send me over the edge if he tried to push or pry at it. Shutting his mouth, he swept his backpack up in a quick, graceful movement and slung it over his right shoulder. He dropped his free arm over my shoulder and led me up the hill, halting to a stop as soon as we were at the top. I followed his intense look to see exactly what had caused such a dramatic stop. Louis and one of his friends were walking from the parking lot toward the front of the school, my stepbrother in the middle of shoving an entire half of a cheeseburger in his mouth. His friend must have said something because he smirked and though we were almost in the clear, he caught us in his peripheral when he turned back in the direction of the school. The smirk that touched at his lips was sick, and I bowed my head, staring at the asphalt beneath my shoes, praying that maybe one of these days I'd get luck and a gaping hole would open up and pull me under.

            *

            Inviting April to join us seemed like a good idea; it'd get her out of the cold of her car and she'd see that there were people out there who truly cared for her. Unfortunately, though she'd been friendly enough to Gage and his mother, once he stepped out of the room, she started scrolling through her phone over my head. I knew that she was trying to distract herself, from me, or more specifically the incident in the bathroom. Neither of us had brought it up since, the furthest we'd done is send dark humor memes back and forth over the last couple days, then she'd say she had to go and I wouldn't hear from her for hours.

            "You were so pretty." April's quiet voice breaks the awkwardness in the room. She was laying on her stomach across Gage's bed and though the phone in hand was inches from my eyes, I didn't glance in her direction. "I mean you still are, but your eyes. . . you looked so happy."

            She lowered her phone a little and tilted in my direction so I was forced to see it. She was on my Instagram and the picture she'd pulled up was one of the few times Natalie and I had gone all out and dressed cute for her father's wedding. Her stepmother had asked us to be bridesmaids and we were dressed in baby blue dresses, mine a little more body-hugging and forgiving than hers. On me, it stopped just over my knees and my curves filled it in all the right places. It hung off her loosely, but the bra she'd been wearing pushed her breasts up so they were nearly falling out of the dress. It had taken me all night to paint my face until I was unrecognizable. I'd broken up with my boyfriend of the time a week before and had wanted to show him what he'd missed out on. Hence why we were flipping off the camera in the middle of laughing and hugging one another.

            "It's just makeup." I reassured her. "But yeah, that was a fun night."

            "It's stupid, isn't it." April answered quietly. "How someone can just snuff the light out in our eyes and carry on with their life every day like they did nothing."

            I nodded in agreement and we both looked to the door as Gage stepped into the room, but at the same time April smiled and made some joke about taking as long as a girl in the bathroom, I stood and narrowed my eyes at him. There was a bright red rim around both eyes, and though he kept trying to play it off as he made a joke, my eyes lingered on his hand brushing underneath his nose. Though she didn't comment on it, I could tell April was trying to figure out what had me growing so tense. The icing on the cake was him continuously sniffling and touching the back of his hand to his nose.

            He had just snorted something in that bathroom.

            "I need to use the bathroom." I said as soon as he sat on the ground beside me. He looked  a little offended as soon as I stood. I didn't look back at either of them as I moved through the small gap in the bedroom door and out into the hallway. Checking over my shoulder that Gage hadn't followed me, I turned the knob and stepped in.

            For someone as intelligent as he was, I shouldn't have been surprised there was no residue anywhere along the sink or the floor. Opening the medicine cabinet, my hand quickly dropped to my side when I saw the rows of dozens of prescription bottles in it. A few looked to be empty, but most of them were definitely still full or half empty. One of the bottles in front of the bottom shelf had been thrown in, and the lid was still popped on one side, clearly he'd been in a rush to close it. I figured I'd be finding some sort of low dosage of antidepressants, but the second I lifted the bottle and turned to read the prescription, a tight knot started to furl in my stomach.

            Oxycodone. Oxys. Gage was snorting fucking Oxys.

            "You good in there, Mar?" Gage asked from the other side of the door. Raising my hand shakily, I stuffed the bottle back into the cabinet an flushed the toilet, then ran the water as if I'd used the bathroom.

            Throwing the door open, I was met with his amber eyes, curiosity lighting them. I stood there for a moment, blocking the door and he stood so I couldn't move passed him. It was a standoff, I suppose, as he continued to search my eyes. He was wondering if I was going to call him out on this shit, possibly if I'd seen it at all or had really just been going to the bathroom. I hoped my eyes were prompting enough that he would confess and not make me force it out of him. But we both just stood there, face to face, eyes roaming one another, until April called for us in the bedroom.

            He stepped aside so I could move passed him, but I couldn't shake the knot in my stomach, if anything, seeing him act as if nothing was going on made it tighten further and was making me nauseous.

            At one point in my life I may have called him on it, or maybe even pulled him aside to question what was going on. I just wasn't that person anymore; I was afraid to even look at someone the wrong way in fear that they would see right through me, or worse, do as Louis had. So I didn't say anything to Gage, I just lowered myself back down beside the bed and tucked my legs under me and pretended to listen to the conversation he was having with April.