All of Me

fifteen • think again

• • •

I don't know what to do with myself. I'm completely frozen in shock, staring at the screen as Gray scrolls through Davis's pictures. Annika's in several; Liam's in ever more. It doesn't look like they're roommates who don't get on. It looks like they're best friends.

In most of the photos of the two of them, their arms are around each other's shoulders, grinning for the camera, often with a drink in hand. They're at parties, football games, pep rallies. They're hanging out everywhere. I feel like such a goddamn idiot for never thinking to check Liam's Facebook page.

If I had, I'd have seen that the creep – Davis – is in half the photos Liam's posted in the past year; there are pictures of them together on what looks like a frat trip to the Keys. The evidence is sprawled all over the internet and I never thought to look. I can't believe how stupid I am. I spend half my life overthinking and I never thought to search his name.

This is all too much.

I can't deal with this morning, from the news about Maggie to whatever the hell all this means. It feels like life is playing some kind of sick joke on me, seeing how much crap I can balance on my shoulders before I fall apart.

"It's a sick joke," I say, slowly teasing out the only words in my relentless narrative that make sense.

I didn't think it was possible to feel any worse but in the moment, I really wish I was dead. For a fleeting moment, I'm sure that there's no coming back from this, that I've taken all I could manage and this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I just want to stop existing.

"What?" Gray asks through a mouthful of cake.

"He asked me out as a joke, didn't he?" I'm already frozen but my skin gets even colder. I feel lightheaded, as though I'm trying to swim against the tide at thirty-two thousand feet. "It was a dare. Davis probably dared him. Oh, God."

Gray abandons his cake when I cover my face to hide my ugly crying. He pulls my hands away and stares straight into my soul when he meets my eye. I know I'm a mess but I can't look away. He doesn't either. It feels like he's reading my thoughts.

Gray may be the most accomplished reader I know but there's no way even he could make sense of the crap that swirls in my head. It's like a sandstorm in there.

"Don't let this control you," he says, holding me by the shoulders. "You don't know the truth so it's a major waste of energy to get so upset without having the full picture. He wants to talk – maybe it's about this. If not, you can make it about this.

He taps the picture of Davis with his knuckle. "This isn't ok," he says, "but you shouldn't do anything until you know everything."

I nod because that always seems like the right thing to do when Gray gives me advice. I'm fairly certain he absorbs all the rational characters he reads, spitting out their advice when I lose sight of any rationality I ever had.

He gives me an encouraging smile and takes my phone, snapping a photo of the picture on the screen, a grinning selfie of Liam and Davis, and he shows me the message he just typed out.

what the hell??

When I nod he hits send.

"I don't want him to be an asshole," I say, rubbing my fingertip over my thumbnail until a red line appears. on my skin. I dig my fork into the cake that Gray has nearly polished off. "I really like him. I thought he really liked me too."

"I think he does," Gray says. I nod at the screen. He lifts a shoulder. "Annika said they're on and off. Maybe Davis really was being a jerk. Maybe Liam really did step in to help you."