“I’m not a retard!” Flynn yelled back.

This was going to explode quickly if I didn’t shut it down.

“Stop it, Dania. Calling Flynn names is immature and juvenile. Don’t you think we’ve grown beyond high school bullshit?” I asked, trying not to lose my own temper. I had always been able to control it with Dania. As much as I have wanted to tell her what I really think, I had always swallowed my tongue.

Not now. Not when she was trying to tear down the one person I had ever cared about.

Dania drew herself upright. “You stupid, f**king bitch! You’re dropping me because you want to feel up the town nut job? Seriously? Did you forget how much you hated him high school? How it was you that made up the name Freaky Flynn? That you were the one…”

“Enough, Dania!” I yelled before she could finish her sentence. I could tell Flynn had gone inside himself.

I put my hand on his shoulder but he threw off my hand. “Don’t touch me!” he yelled, stumbling backwards. “Don’t touch me ever!” he screamed, turning to run down the sidewalk.

My heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces as I watched him flee from me.

I whipped back around to stare down the girl I had thought was my friend. “Are you happy now? Did that make you feel good? God, Dania, you are the most selfish, hateful and nasty person I’ve ever met. I can’t believe I’ve defended you and justified your shitty behavior for as long as I have! Leave me alone! Just leave me the f**k alone!” I hissed into her face, satisfied when I saw her eyes widen and she took a step backwards.

But she quickly collected herself. “You can stand there and act like you’re better than me. Just because I’m the one that’s knocked up and you’re swapping spit with the freak. You think that makes you compassionate or something? Give me a break, Ellie! You say I’m hateful and nasty? What about you? What about the things you’ve done? It’s so easy judging everyone else but you forget that I know you. I’ve been there for every fight. For every lie. For every house burning to the ground. I’ve seen it all.” Dania shoved me squarely in the chest and I stumbled backwards, catching my foot on a broken brick and almost landing on my ass.

“And I have never judged you, Ells,” she spat out once I regained my balance.

“Too bad I can’t say the same about my best friend. Well I hope you’re happy up there on your high horse. I hear it hurts when you fall from that height,” she jeered, pivoting on her heel and storming off.

So much for my new beginning.

So I stood alone on the sidewalk.

Alone.

It was the most familiar thing I knew.

21

Flynn

Many years ago…

I didn’t talk to Ellie anymore.

I still saw her every day at school. She didn’t turn around to say hi in English. She ignored me when I said I liked her hair. It wasn’t colored now. It was yellow. I liked it yellow. It made her look really pretty.

I told her that but she ignored me. It made me mad. I threw my pencil at her and it hit her in the head. She kept it. I yelled at her to give me my pencil back.

Mr. Goodwin made me leave. He said I was distracting the class. I knocked over a trashcan and had to go sit in the principal’s office. They called my mom. She was sad.

I told her Ellie wasn’t my friend anymore.

She hugged me. I didn’t like it when she hugged me.

I liked it when Ellie hugged me.

But she wouldn’t hug me now.

She was mean. She called me Freaky Flynn again. And she never gave me my birthday present. She said she got me something special. But she never gave it to me.

I tried to ask her where my present was. She pushed me hard. It hurt. I hit a locker and it made me mad. I yelled at her and called her a bitch. I threw my book bag at her.

She didn’t laugh this time. She picked up my book bag and handed it to me.

Her mouth had done that funny thing again.

I walked home alone now. I walked for eighteen minutes. To the red barn. Then to the stream with the four rocks. To the purple mailbox and then to the wooden bridge.

“Flynn,” I didn’t like people coming out of the trees when I couldn’t see them.

“Don’t do that!” I yelled.

Ellie handed me a gift.

“It was for your birthday,” she said. I took it. I liked gifts.

I opened the paper. It was an Aqua Teen Hunger Force notebook.

“For you to draw in. And you know, because you like that show. Even if it is weird.”

She was smiling but I didn’t like it.

She had been mean to me today. Now she was giving me a birthday present.

“Are you my friend again?” I asked, folding the wrapping paper into a square and putting it in my pocket.

“No,” Ellie said and I didn’t understand. She just gave me a present. Friends give each other presents. She gave me a notebook. It was smooth and I liked to rub it with my finger.

“We’re not friends, Flynn. I’m sorry about the way I treat you. I’m sorry for being mean. But I’m not going to hang out with you anymore. I won’t walk you home. And you can’t talk to me in school.”

Her words made my stomach hurt.

“You gave me a present,” I said, holding the notebook out for her to see.

Ellie frowned. Was she mad?

“I got it for you; I wanted you to have it. That’s it, Flynn,” she said.

“That’s it,” I said. Ellie put her hands over her face. Why was she doing that?