too complicated. I just wanted to rewind back to the time when we’d just been Lucy and Sam, and everything had been good and simple. I’d been there for him and he’d been there for me. We’d been like one mind sharing two bodies, I’d always known what he was thinking and feeling. He was a mystery to me now, a stranger. I didn’t like it and I didn’t really know how to deal with it.
“Lucy, wait,” he said.
I hesitated but didn’t turn back.
“I just wanted you to know…”
I sensed him get up, move toward me, but I still didn’t turn back.
“I’m working really hard to get myself under control, to control my powers, so that we can be… So I can be your friend again. I know I haven’t been there for you but I'm trying my best.”
I could feel the heat from his body, and I wanted to lean back into it, but I couldn’t. I had to be strong. He wasn’t ready and I knew that part of me wasn’t either. I nodded to show him I understood and then fled the clearing.
Chapter 5
Seeing Sam had given me a sense of perspective on things. It didn’t matter what all those vultures thought, if they believed I’d lie and manipulate and whore myself. If I let it get to me, I was letting the bullies win. I mean, I couldn’t help my initial reaction or feelings, obviously, but I could control my own thought process and actions moving forward, and I wasn’t going to spend any more of my time on this BS. I messaged my brothers to warn them and then I went to class. I really wanted to talk to Hannah. I was sure after she thought about it, she’d realize I’d never say those things about her, but I could understand her being upset and wanted to straightened the whole mess out.
Mr Porter barely looked up as I snuck in late to English class. I could probably not even show up to class and still get top marks, after everything that had happened, but that would do me no good in the long run. Hannah was hunched over her desk in the back corner. She didn’t look at me as I sat down, even when I tried to catch her eye. Mr Porter was talking about Jane Austen and her “feminist principles”, which I had very strong opinions about, but my friendship with Hannah was more important. I ducked my head, trying to get her to look at me, but she turned away. I twisted around in my seat, but she wouldn’t look at me, not even when I waved my arm out right under her nose.
“Yes, Miss Connor?” said Mr Porter. “Did you want to share something?”
I looked up, half out of my seat and limbs sprawled everywhere.
“No,” I said. “No, I really don’t want to share anything.”
“That’s not what your Twitter profile says,” somebody muttered.
I had a Twitter as well? Man, who even has time to make multiple fake social media accounts? If they have that amount of spare time, they should do something constructive. Get a hobby or go to Africa and build a well or something and leave me alone, sheesh. These people made me so sick with their judging me even though they had never even worked a day in their lives and just sponged off their parents.
Hannah still wouldn’t look at me, and the class settled down as Mr Porter went on with the lesson. As I sat there, silently disagreeing with everything Mr Porter said, I began to get super angry. I’d shared a room with Hannah for months, surely she should know me well enough to know those posts weren’t by me. I didn’t see the point in shortening “you” to “u”, for one thing. I mean, how much time did you save with that? If you used predictive text, it was exactly the same, probably less because automatically you’d type the “y” and then have to backspace. Man, it drove me crazy when people wrote “u” instead of “you” because they were just trying to look as if they were all nonchalant when they were in fact full of chalance. They were chalant all over the place. Posers. It seemed as if she knew me at all, she would know that, it was like representative of