boston {h.s.}

trente-huit.

Dear Reader,

I hope you can recall, with perfect clarity, the previous interjection in which I earnestly proclaimed to you: I should hate him. I imagine you scoffed when you read those words; perhaps you were shocked that I didn't already. How is it possible that I didn't hate him? How is it possible that after everything that he put me through—and everything that I put him through—that I was still so willing to find extensive avenues of forgiveness? I was eager to look past what had happened; all I ever wanted was to shy away and pretend that none of it had happened in the first place.

So now, I tell you this.

In crafting this story, I was meticulous. I knew I could provide this information even a second too soon. This is my hook; this is the moment that you bought this book for. I'm not so naïve to think that you cared to find out the lesson plans that I used for any of my books, or about my relationship with my brother and his friends. You came into this book to find the words that I had never spoken before, never written before, and never acknowledged legitimately—save from a small crevice tucked away in my very own brain. I loved him.

I loved him when he degraded me.

I loved him when he was cruel to me.

I loved him when he drunkenly crashed a car with me in the passenger seat.

I loved him when he denounced me to save his own image.

I loved him when he ruined my relationship with my brother.

I loved him when he ruined my life; I loved him through it all. I loved him from that very first time that he looked at me and told me that he found my French sexy.

Despite what you may think, I am not so guileless as to think that there was ever any sort of happy ending for me. I'd done nothing to deserve it. I've never lied to you. That is my truth. From the first page I told you that there was no happy or easy ending. Surely, you can understand that now.

Allow me the chance to appeal to you on a more personal level now. Let me provide you with the information that you certainly want to know. The what happened next? What happened after those infamous pictures of me leaving the hospital—tears running down my face, the neck brace on, with Rooney by my side. What happened then?

True to his word, Jack gave me ten days to move out. It took two to move into Rooney's apartment; into the spare bedroom there. Rooney helped me carry boxes of books without complaint. It became a routine. Fill the boxes, fill the car, fill his apartment, repeat. Again and again. We made trips when we knew Jack wouldn't be around. He punched Rooney when he found out that I was staying with him. Rooney just got real tall on him and asked if Jack meant to do that. Jack grumbled and left.

We still haven't spoken.

Wheeler and Bracken were okay. Unaffected, really. They offered their condolences but stayed a respectable distance. Kind words for me, distance for Jack—the person that they had to see at practice every day. I was fading out of their group, fast. I was both heartbroken and surprisingly okay. The accident proved to me that I needed to move on. I needed to develop my own life. One that wasn't dependent on my brother. Even if, in a way, I was still dependent on my brother seeing as he was the one who introduced me to Rooney in the first place.

Asher left me. That much we knew. He's still at the school to the best of my knowledge. I don't know what he told our students. I prefer it that way. I don't know what he's up to these days. He prefers it that way.

The rest kind of tumbled out. The story caught on quick. A hot affair always does. Especially when there is undeniable proof as there was in our scenario. My school politely suggested that I quit. Quietly. Parents wouldn't respond well to me teaching their kids. Regardless of my qualifications and my dedication to teaching, it still stands that my public life was dissected and ridiculed. Put on display for everyone to see. At the beginning, I told you what a Google search of my name from before would have looked like.