"April has left me on read for three days straight and hasn't been to a meeting in two weeks." I threw myself down on to the grass beside Gage. "I'm worried about her."

"Hey, she's probably just upset she lashed out at you. Or maybe she has crap going on outside of support group." Gage touched his hand to my shoulder with a small smile. "She's okay."

I shook my head, pulling my knees to my chest. "You didn't see the texts, Gage."

"Here, I'll text her. Maybe you're right and she's just upset with you." he pulled his phone from his pocket and sent a quick, nonchalant text asking if she was okay before setting it face down on his lap. "You need to breathe. You're shaking."

I glanced down to my hand, currently clutching the cold grass, and watched as my fingers trembled. I took a deep breath and held it before releasing it slowly and repeated the process a few times to calm myself. It ended up being for nothing, as a familiar laugh sounded nearby and my heart was racing all over again. I didn't have to look up to know that Louis, and likely his entourage, were nearing us, I could feel it. I could also feel the tension that was radiating off of Gage beside me. Within seconds of hearing the awful sound, Gage rose to his feet. I slowly stood beside him, needing to push up from the short brick wall to keep my knees from giving out.

"Does your mom know you're still ditching?" Louis was luring me, that much I was sure of just by the look in his eyes. "Or that you're spending your day fucking this dickwad behind the school?"

I opened my mouth, millions of things threatening to leave my mouth, but nothing did. I could barely breathe, and with every step closer he took, the more I felt as if I were back on that bed beneath him, the life slowly draining from my body.

"Snitching on her will bite you in the ass," Gage said with a scowl. "since your Daddy will probably beat your ass into tomorrow if he knew what you did to her."

Louis closed the distance between himself and Gage, ready to respond with his fists, but instead whispered, "You better shut your mouth, Griffin."

Gage straightened himself so he and my stepbrother were eye to eye and spat, "I'm not afraid of you. There's no amount of pain that your pathetic ass could inflict on me that I haven't already felt."

The sadistic look that entered Louis' eyes was enough for me to piece together what he meant by the words that left his mouth before Gage had even blinked. "Yeah, I know."

I tried to take a step back and dodge my stepbrother's outstretched arm but he grasped my arm roughly and pulled me closer to him, grabbing a fistful of my hair as he looked back to Gage.

"But hurting her? That'll drive you nuts, won't it?"

Gage, careful with his words, snapped, "Let go of her."

"Mmm, I think she needs to learn a lesson."

To my surprise it wasn't Gage who responded, but one of my stepbrother's friends glancing around them, then back to us as if he were afraid he'd get in trouble.

"Come on, Lou. Leave her alone."

"You don't want to stay and watch get the fuck out of here." Louis snarled without even glancing in his friends direction. His friend didn't need to be told twice and started back up the hill to campus, and with him went Louis' other two friends so my stepbrother was left with nobody behind him.

"You shouldn't even be here." Louis growled, giving my hair such a hard tug that I yelped in pain and he threw me to the ground at his feet. "You should be dead with your father. Nobody wants you here. All you do is screw shit up for everyone. Look how much you're hurting this asshole by just existing."

Gage started forward, the look I'd seen enter his eyes in my bedroom returning. "Shut your Goddamn mouth."

"She's not worth it, you know." Louis said as if he hadn't heard Gage's warning. "A useless slut with stretch marks and scars lining every inch of her body. Who would want that shit?"

Gage's eyes flickered to me, and he shook his head. "Don't listen to him."

"I'm just telling her what everyone else is afraid to." Louis said with a shrug. "She'd be better off in the ground."

I knew what he was doing, and I think somewhere deep down Gage had too, because he'd restrained himself for a while. But the moment the last sentence left my stepbrother's mouth, Gage threw the first punch and within seconds they were both wrestling on the ground. Standing, I tried to move toward them but stopped midway when I saw Gage had the upper hand as he continued to beat my brother's face in. He deserved this, he deserved so much more than a mutilated face. I should just let Gage finish him off.

But Gage didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve the repercussions that would come for him after this. The guilt if something actually did happen.

"Gage." I said, careful not to get in his way and end up his target. "You're going to kill him, you need to stop."

The amber eyes that glared up at me didn't belong to the sadistic, but sweet comforting boy I'd spent the last couple months with. They were the empty, cold eyes of a killer.

"Boys! That's enough!" Principal Paxton shouted from the top of the hill. As soon as I lifted my head, I was met with a small army of school police marching toward us. Unfortunately neither of the boys heard and the only way to get Gage to stop was to tear him off of my stepbrother and physically restrain him.

It wasn't either of the boys that Principal Paxton was speaking too, but me, as his eyes narrowed and he said through gritted teeth and a beet red face, "My office. Now!"

**

I wasn't sure what was more agonizing; spending over an hour breathing the same air as my stepbrother without any outlet for escape. Or the fact that Gage and his parents sat opposite of mine as Gage laid with his face against the table and his arms folded on top of it, as if to block out all the noise-or the crap that the principal was spewing.

"Hold on." Alyssa held up a hand, silencing the middle aged man with a pointed look. "You're insinuating my son started to fight. Do you have evidence of that? Or does that assumption have something to do with that fact that Louis here is your quarterback?"

Gage lifted his head at his mother's words and my stomach sunk. He wasn't quite as unrecognizable as my stepbrother, but both eyes were nearly swollen shut, so much dried blood encased his mouth and upper lip that I wasn't even sure where it had come from. Even his knuckles were bloodied and bruised. I reached across the small space between us and rested my hand on top of his. He looked away form his mother conversating with the principal and to me and shrugged a shoulder, then winced in pain.

"I don't even know why either of us are in trouble!" Louis all but yelled. "It's that dumb bitch's fault."

"Louis!" my mother and Rodger shouted in unison. I started to retract my hand but Gage grasped it and shook his head.

"Marlene, can you please tell us what happened?" Alyssa questioned, which sent all eyes in the room to me. "Did my son throw the first punch?"

My eyes drifted around the room before I dropped my gaze to the table, afraid to face Louis as I answered. "Louis grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the ground. Gage did throw the first punch, but he was defending me. He didn't do anything wrong."

"Louis, is that true?" Rodger asked, but I could tell by the way he was looking at my stepbrother that he no longer recognized his own son, and that he had no doubt that he'd done it.

"She was provoking me." Was Louis' response.

Finally, Gage looked up and laughed emotionlessly. "How so? You literally came to mess with us and grabbed her. You were provoking me, asshole."

"Maverick." Mayor Griffin looked to Gage. "Enough."

"Well, with that being said, I'm going to give both boys a two week suspension." Principal Paxton said, then looked to me. "As for you, Marlene, if you don't start showing up to class, you're not going to graduate. That's definitely something to think about."

"That's not fair!" Louis whined, standing and slapping his hands against the table. "Do I still get to play Friday night?"

Rodger was the one who responded as he joined his son. "You should have thought about that before you hurt your sister and got yourself into a fight. Let's go. Now."

My mom watched them leave before looking to Alyssa across the table. "I am so sorry for his behavior. He's not. . . he's been acting out. They both have."

Alyssa looked my mother dead in the eye and ever the savage woman she is, said, "Well, maybe you should consider why that is. Maybe you should stop focusing so much on that problem child and more on your daughter."

*

My parents were so caught up in discipling Louis that they didn't even care that I went home with Alyssa and Gage. Unfortunately, I wasn't completely left out of being witness to scolding, as the minute we stepped into the apartment, Mayor Griffin slapped Gage hard upside the head and started yelling at him. Which ultimately led to Alyssa shouting for him to leave, and a door slam and a cry later, Gage was slamming his bedroom door shut and joining me on his bed. He fell back, pressing an ice pack to his right eye and groaning.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, wrapping my fingers around his own. "Maybe he's right. All I do is cause everyone around me harm."

"That bullshit and you know it." Gage leaned over and rested his head on my shoulder. "The only reason you even think that is because of him."

I wanted desperately to believe he was right. That I wasn't the one causing heartache for everyone. But I was. My mother was stressed out because I refused to walk the same halls as my stepbrother and his friends. April was avoiding me because I'd been too nosy and stuck my nose where it shouldn't be. And Gage was here, a broken, mutilated mess because he'd been standing up for me.

"Stop, okay?" he breathed, touching the back of his hands to my warm, tear-stained cheek. "I may not be able to see you right now, but I know you're letting what that piece of shit said get to you. Don't. It was crap. All of it. We're glad you're here, Mar. We need you here. Please don't let him get to you."

I nodded, and said, "Okay." Softly under my breath. Right now I would do my best to not let Louis' words affect me. I owed that much to Gage after what he'd done this afternoon. I just wasn't sure how long I could keep up the act.