First message
The satisfying thud of Jade’s body against the cold metal of the locker sent a thrill through me. I leaned in close, my voice a silken whisper against the slats. See? This is where you belong, Jade. With the dust and forgotten things. I could smell her shampoo, the same cheap, fruity kind her father must smell when he hugs her goodnight, and the thought made my fingers curl tighter around the handle. But the sharp, sudden gasp didn't come from inside the locker. It came from behind me. My spine went rigid. I turned, my perfectly practiced mask of indifference already slipping, and my world fractured. There he stood—, his face a devastating portrait of horror and disbelief. The flowers he’d been carrying—the ones he’d so charmingly told me he was taking to a sick colleague—dropped from his hand, a splash of color on the grim linoleum. In that one, silent, earth-shattering second, I saw it all crumble