"I want to give you all the love you deserve."
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Hadley Carter has struggled with her sexuality ever since childhood. She keeps her feelings hidden out of fear of judgement and not being accepted by oth...
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"Where have you been lately?"
The question is a very typical Delaney Woods greeting. I don't bat an eyelash as I turn away from my locker to find Delaney standing next to me. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she stares me down with a stone-like gaze, one eyebrow raised pointedly. Once upon a time, Delaney shooting me this look would send me running. However, now I am in no mood to deal with her bullshit.
"What do you mean? I've been at lunch with you and the girls every day."
Delaney narrows her eyes. I can tell I have only managed to further irritate her.
"You know what I mean," she hisses. "You haven't hung out with us after school in days. You stopped going to parties with us. What's that about?"
I open my mouth to respond, only to be cut off by Delaney.
"I talked to the girls earlier. Bianca told me you've stopped hanging out with her during gym. And I've heard that you and Devon Parker have started to spend a lot of time together. When you're not with us, you're not home. Wanna tell me what's going on?"
I panic. An alarm goes off in the back of my mind, triggering my fight or flight. My heart rate spikes. Heat gets trapped in my cheeks, staining them red.
Delaney seems to take my silence as some sort of confession. She steps closer to me, moving in like a snake, cool and calculated in a malicious way.
"I just find it awfully weird that you've suddenly started hanging out with the school's biggest dyke, Hads. Especially considering your . . . recent past. It would be a real shame if rumors started going around school about you, wouldn't it, Hadley? It'd be an even bigger shame if everyone found out the rumors were, well . . . true."
I grit my teeth, unsure of what to say to Delaney in response. If I were to tell her off, I know she would make good on her threat. It would be the talk of the school—how Hadley Carter is a lesbian. Word would get back to my parents. I'd have to repeat the summer . . . and I can't go through that again.
Yet I'm not willing to stop seeing Devon. After all I've had to go through, I've been needing something to make me happy and to remind me that life is worth living. Devon is that person for me; the force that keeps me going. I can't lose her.
"Just think about it," Delaney mumbles. She must be able to sense that I don't know what to say to her. She must know that she has me caught right where she wants me. "Remember where your loyalty lies."
With those icy words and a tight-lipped smile, Delaney turns her back on me and sashays down the hallway, her golden hair swishing past her shoulders as she walks.
As I watch her go, I think about one expression I now know to be true: The worst gifts really do come in the prettiest wrapping.
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a/n: i'm on ft w my girl while she takes a nap bc she is tired from student-teaching and she is so cute 🥺
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