CHAPTER 13
ZANE
12 YEARS OLD
My head pounds in time with my heartbeat as I lean back on my knees, trying to catch my breath. The court spins for a moment, the distant laughter of my teammates blending with Abby’s soft voice, closer now.
“Zane, I’m sorry.”
I look up at my friend, who’s staring at me with wide-eyed guilt, a bottle of water held out like an offering. The sun catches on her flushed face, her hair sticking to her temples from exertion. She looks like she’s about to cry, and it makes me sigh.
“That was a good throw.” I grab the bottle, squinting as the pain in my forehead intensifies.
“It was an accident,” she insists, stepping forward as if to examine me.
“I know.” I straighten, blinking to dispel the discomfort. “I’m going to the Nurse’s Office.”
She looks like she wants to follow me but hesitates when the teacher catches her eye from across the court. With one last worried glance, she turns away.
The walk to the Nurse’s Office is short, but my head grows heavier with every step. By the time I push open the door, the fluorescent lights make me wince. The nurse—a woman with a watchful gaze and a forced smile—looks up from the counter.
“Mr. Hill,” she says, like she’s been expecting me. “What’s wrong?”
“Dodgeball,” I murmur, pressing my fingers against my temples.
She watches me for a moment before motioning for me to sit on the stretcher. Her movements are too meticulous as she examines my head, her fingers pressing into tender spots that make my heart clench in discomfort.
Then she smiles.
“Were you distracting yourself by kissing boys again?” she asks, her tone too casual.
“No. Like I said, I was playing dodgeball.”
“You could have lied.”
Her hands find my chin, tilting my face toward her as she moves closer—so close that, for a second, I think she’s going to kiss me. But she doesn’t.
"Don't kiss any more boys," she murmurs, her fingers brushing over my chest in a way that makes me freeze. "It doesn’t look good on a boy as pretty as you."
I’m imagining things. I have to be.
The comment doesn’t faze me—I don’t care about kissing boys or girls. After Abby and I talked about it, I stopped restricting myself. I do what I want. I always have.
That day, I decided to plan a class just to kiss the exchange student. He was a terrible kisser.
Not worth it.
I don’t care about the closed minds of adults. They’ll think whatever they want, and that says more about them than it does about me.
“Looks like you hit your head pretty hard,” she says. “It might swell. Take this.”
She hands me a glass of water and a small, unlabeled pill. I hesitate for a second, but the persistent ache makes me give in. I swallow the medicine, waiting for relief that doesn’t come.
Just exhaustion.
My limbs grow heavy. My blinks slow, like a thick fog is settling in my brain.
The nurse is still watching me, her expression shifting—not worried anymore.
Just… attentive.
I try to speak, but my tongue is too heavy.
The last thing I see before the darkness swallows me is her faint smile.
When I wake up , I’m dizzy and disoriented. A sick feeling coils in my stomach, like something inside me is wrong, unclean. My body trembles, my head still throbbing, but it’s the nurse’s smile that makes my skin crawl.
Panic comes before understanding. A cold, electric jolt rushes through my chest, my heart racing too fast to breathe. The sheets cling to my skin like they’re tainted, as if I’ll never be clean again. My throat is dry, my mind torn between the relentless pain in my skull and the echo of her honeyed voice.
“I’ve taken care of both of your problems.”
The words make my stomach turn.
My body knows before my brain does. A violent shiver runs down my spine, an instinctive recoil from something I don’t understand yet—but the fear… the fear is absolute.
I force myself to move. My limbs are sluggish, my blood a drumbeat in my ears, but the need to get out drives me. I ignore the fog in my head, swinging my legs over the side of the gurney. My body sags, almost collapsing, but adrenaline keeps me upright.
The nurse is still smiling.
Too sweet. Too wrong.
No. No.
My mind screams that something is very, very wrong.
I stumble backward, reaching for anything to steady myself, but my only escape is the door. I run.
Staggering, almost falling, my unsteady legs carry me forward on instinct alone. The door creaks as I shove it open, the narrow hallway stretching before me in sharp fluorescent light. My insides churn. My breath is short. I don’t know if I’m alive or just existing in this feverish desperation.
My feet slap against the cold floor as I hurl myself down the hallway, the thick air clinging to my skin like something unseen is pressing down on me. My heart pounds so hard it hurts, every pulse screaming at me to keep going. My lungs burn, my vision flashing between blurs and jagged bursts of light.
I push through the bathroom door and crash against the sink, my fingers clutching the cold ceramic as a suffocating lump forms in my throat. My stomach twists violently before I can stop it.
I vomit.
Hard.
My body writhes, expelling something that isn’t just physical—it’s a dirty despair, a revulsion from deep inside. My arms shake, my legs barely holding me up, and the bitter taste in my mouth only makes it worse.
I drag myself home, every step heavier than the last, my body already protesting against the thought of what waits inside. When I open the door, the sound hits me—her moans, raw and guttural, filling the air in a way that makes my skin crawl. It’s too familiar, too painful, but it doesn’t stop. She’s sprawled across the couch, barely conscious, while a stranger touches her like she’s nothing more than an object, a shell of the woman she used to be.
The sight makes my stomach lurch, a twisted knot of disgust and helplessness tightening in my gut. I can’t breathe, can’t think. Everything about this moment feels wrong, like I’m drowning in something I can’t escape.
I stumble back out the door, desperate to get away, to escape the suffocating weight of it all. But I can’t. My body rebels, and I throw up on the sidewalk again, the bitter taste of nausea burning my throat. It’s like I can’t get away fast enough from the nightmare that’s my reality, one that keeps coming back no matter how hard I try to forget.
I can’t tell mom. I can’t tell anyone.
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel clean again.