Lucy Lahey trusted the man she was dating, and it turned out to be her biggest mistake. Reeling in the aftermath of a rape that stole not only her virginity, but her confidence, her love for MMA, her clarity and more, Lucy now finds herself in Jerse...
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I finished The Hate U Give last night. Dad didn't come down and see me, the reason for that was clear when I heard him letting a woman out this morning. There was a twenty on the kitchen counter when I went upstairs after I knew he'd gone to work. It seems like an overkill for one lunch. I could make one twenty last the week but whatever, I'll hang onto it.
At school, the cafe has sandwiches, fruit, fries and some bagels with various spreads. I spend five dollars on food I don't feel like and find a seat at the end of a long table.
I'm in the middle of scrolling Instagram. Coen has a page dedicated to his skits and the latest upload is a rendition of Tom Holland's spider-man scene in Far From Home when Happy picks Peter up in a plane and Peter has a break down, missing Iron Man, feeling like a failure.
It's incredible. Coen captures the emotion so well I almost end up in tears. It's got a few hundred positive comments and I leave a middle finger emoji on the few negative ones. There're trolls all over the internet.
I share the video on my story and startle when there's a clatter of trays in front of me and two girls slide into the opposite seats. Florence and Arlette smile and tear straight into their sandwich wrappers.
"There's a ninety five percent chance we'd be more than willing to kiss your feet after that performance yesterday," Florence says. "Bradley didn't come to school but he's been posting snapchats of his broken nose all night."
"It was probably the most arousing thing I've ever seen," Arlette stares at me while she bites into her bagel.
I put my phone down and lean an elbow on the tabletop. I'm not in a position to turn down friends, and these girls seem sweet. "Let me guess, I've made a mortal enemy and my high school experience is about to go downhill from here on out?"
Florence wipes a smear of mayo off the corner of her mouth and shakes her head. "No. Bradley is an asshole but he's harmless. No one likes him enough to have his back even if he did retaliate. You're new, right?"
"Yeah, I moved here from Colorado."
"Oh cool," Arlette says. "My cousin lives in Colorado with her husband. She loves it there."
"Which cousin?" Florence asks with a full mouth.
"Jen, the one that came to Christmas and she was going on and on about how her promotion came with a company vehicle and then her husband drove it into a semi when he fell asleep at the wheel."
"Ohhh," Florence nods. "Yeah. He was the one filling his coffee cup up with rum."
"He has a problem."
"Where in Colorado do they live?" I ask, watching a group of girls take selfies on the next table over. There's a lot of activity in here, it's loud, it echoes, and the teachers table doesn't seem concerned that there's a football being thrown from one side of the cafe to the other.
