When I’d told my father, who, when he was home was glued to the TV, and he had just muttered "Your mother's going through stuff. Ignore her." He left on another work trip days later, abandoning me to the monster my mother had become.

From there, it only got worse. I survived on toast and whatever else I managed to prepare for myself, while my mother confined me to my room most days. No outside except school, but now I walked to and from alone without Jameson beside me. Our family photos began vanishing during Mom's drunken rages. Then, when I was ten, I needed stitches after catching a frame to the cheek. Mom lied to the hospital about our cat causing the scratch, her hand squeezing my shoulder like a vise, daring me to contradict her. I sat silent through the stitches, not saying a word. The faint scar is a constant reminder I often trace in thought—a mark of the rot that I feel spreading inside me.

The bell rings for lunch. I line up in the cafeteria, grab my tray of food, and sit at my usual table—by myself.

At twelve, I started to develop breasts and hips, and the boys took notice. I found the uniform kilt and polo hid nothing, so I began layering them with tights and sweaters, even in warm weather, to shield my curves. The layers also help to hide the marks left from my mother's abuse, which has only escalated with time.

I fork some salad into my mouth. A shadow stretches onto the table beside me. The weight of a hand on my shoulder is an immediate violation, a stark intrusion into my quiet space. I freeze, my fork hovering in the air. A body slides onto the bench beside me, the leather of their jacket creaking. Steve. Then another body on my other side, until I'm boxed in by him and his jock buddies. They're a loud, unwelcome storm invading my quiet lunch.