Dania and Stu were talking to me. It felt good. Ellie wasn’t talking to me and that didn’t feel good. Why wasn’t she talking to me? She always talked to me while we walked to my house.

She usually smiled a lot and she was pretty when she laughed. Then she’d hold my hand for a while and that made my body feel weird in a good way.

She wasn’t smiling now.

“There’s the bridge,” I said, pointing to it. I was happy to see the bridge. I wanted to take my socks off. Dania said she’d help me. She was my friend.

I bent over and started to untie my laces when someone shoved me. I fell over. It hurt. I was on the ground and it was cold. I hadn’t taken my socks off yet.

I tried to stand up but Stu pushed me over again and this time I slid down the hill. Dania was laughing but it wasn’t a nice sound like Ellie’s. “Get him in the water!” she yelled and then Stu pushed me into the stream.

I yelled. The water was in my shoes. My pants were wet. It was really cold!

I tried to stand up but my foot caught on a rock and I fell down again. I started to cry. Dania and Stu were laughing.

“Let’s get out of here!” Dania said and then they were gone.

I was wet. I hated being wet.

I sat there.

I was sad.

They weren’t my friends.

They were mean.

They hurt me.

I was really cold. My fingers and toes were starting to ache.

My pants and shoes were wet.

I needed to take them off.

I sat there.

“Come on Flynn, let’s get you home.” Ellie had come back and she was pulling on my arm.

My teeth were chattering and I couldn’t talk. I hurt badly. I was wet. I wanted to get out of my clothes.

Ellie put her arm around me and it didn’t bother me when she did it. I liked when she touched me.

But she had hurt me before. She had been mean. Now she was being nice.

She was my friend again.

“Stu pushed me into the water,” I said, my teeth banging together.

“Yeah, he did. He’s a dick,” Ellie said and I tried to nod. But I couldn’t.

I was wet.

I was cold.

Ellie got me home. My mom was upset when she saw me. She yelled at Ellie to leave. But I wanted Ellie to stay. She helped me.

“No!” I yelled at my mom. Ellie was taking off my shoes and socks and wrapping them in a towel. She was touching me..

“I want Ellie to stay!” I screamed. Ellie needed to stay! I wanted her there!

My mom said okay but made Ellie leave while she got me changed.

And then Ellie sat with me on the couch and we watched the A-Team. That was Ellie’s favorite show. I liked watching it with her. My toes and fingers were still cold. Mom said I could have gotten frostbite.

“I’m so sorry, Flynn,” Ellie said.

“You’re my friend, Ellie. You helped me,” I told her, not understanding why she was sorry. She had been mean but she had helped me. That was nice.

“I shouldn’t have let Stu do that to you,” she said.

“He’s mean. I don’t like him. I don’t like Dania either. They aren’t my friends,” I told her.

Ellie moved closer to me and took my hand. She always put her fingers between mine and it felt good. I liked it when she did that.

“No they aren’t. I don’t think they’re really mine either. You’re my only real friend, Flynn,” she said and then she put her head on my shoulder. And I liked that too.

I was her only friend. That made me smile.

I was happy.

15

-Ellie-

I was on campus finishing my homework. I was scheduled to have a meeting with Professor Au, my academic advisor to talk about possible class options for next semester. I had yet to make up my mind about what I was going to do.

I seesawed back and forth between excitement at the possibility and total denial that I could do it at all.

It had been a week since I had gone with Flynn to his house. I struggled with a glut of new feelings I hadn’t experienced since I was a child. I had felt more guilt in the past month than I had in the past fifteen years combined. Every interaction with Flynn brought with it wave after wave of emotion that threatened to rip me apart.

I had made peace with Dania, though it had involved considerable groveling on my part. She had been furious. Nasty words were hurled and I took them like I always did.

And even though I gave her the lip service that she expected, I was quickly growing tired of our vicious cycle.

Watching her attempts to humiliate Flynn last week had wrenched something loose inside me. I had been reminded of that day in high school when Stu and Dania had pushed him into the freezing stream by his house.

They had thought it was funny. I had gone along with it. I hadn’t stopped them.

I remembered the look on his face. He thought they were being friendly. He didn’t understand the calculated cruelty that they had planned for him.

I had played my part in it. I had been just as culpable.

But that had been the first time I had truly felt bad for my behavior.

By that point Flynn had become my friend. Sure, no one knew but us. I wasn’t willing to endure the wrath of my friends should it come out. But he had become someone important to me.

He was the only person who had accepted me for who I was and liked me anyway. He didn’t expect me to be anything but Ellie McCallum. And I had been such a messed up kid that his simple, unconditional affection became the balm for my tormented heart.

But my self-loathing was unstoppable. And it managed to destroy the only good relationship I had ever had in my life. It was my fate to push him away. To hurt him. To hurt myself.