“No, he’s not!” The pink in her cheeks has morphed into a bright red color. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Addie, I’ve lived a lot longer than you, and I’ve known Nate a lot longer than you. And I’m telling you, he—”
“No!” she screams at me. “You don’t know him at all!”
Oh my.
I take a deep breath. I can’t let myself lose my cool because Addie is getting hysterical. She needs to know that this “relationship” has to end. “Addie,” I try again, “I think the best thing to do would be to talk to Principal Higgins on Monday. I wanted to avoid that, but I think it would be for the best.”
I didn’t want to do it to her, but I can see now it’s the only way. Her mother and the principal need to know what has been going on, because she clearly needs help. I wanted to spare her the embarrassment, but there’s no other way.
Addie’s face is now purple. “You can’t do that! You can’t tell the principal!”
“I have to,” I say quietly.
Addie lets out a heart-wrenching scream. The sound of it chills me to the bone—it almost sounds inhuman. I take a step toward her, reaching out a hand to attempt to comfort her, even though I recognize I’m the last person she wants near her. But just before I can touch her, she snatches the frying pan off the counter.
It all happens so quickly, I couldn’t react if I wanted to. Addie brings that frying pan down on my head with all the force in her young teenage body. It connects with my skull with an eardrum-shattering impact. And a split second later, everything goes black.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Fifty-Five
ADDIE
EVE BENNETT GOES DOWN the second I hit her with that frying pan.
It’s heavy, and I got in a good whack. She crumples and collapses to the floor, her eyes rolling up in her head. But even after I hit her, I still feel the rage coursing through my fingertips. So I hit her again.
And again.
After the third impact, she’s very still on the floor. I look down at the back of the frying pan, still caked with the remainder of a meal cooked last night. Now there’s blood caked on the back of it too. It’s trickling out of Mrs. Bennett’s head onto the kitchen floor.
Oh no.
I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t come to this house with the intention of bashing my math teacher on the head with a frying pan. I just wanted to talk to her. But then she started saying all that awful stuff about how Nathaniel is taking advantage of me and lying to me. How could she say something like that? She had no idea what she was talking about.
But one thing was clear. She was never going to let me be with Nathaniel. Whether she wanted him or not, she did not want me to have him.
I crouch down beside Mrs. Bennett on the floor. She isn’t moving at all. I squint down at her face, trying to figure out if she’s breathing. I’m not sure she is.
Oh my God. She’s not breathing.
Did I kill her?
I didn’t want to kill her. I swear I didn’t. I know Nathaniel said that thing about how if she were dead, we could be together and it would solve all our problems. And maybe for a split second, I thought… But not really. For real, I never considered trying to hurt her. But I was having an angry moment. I just needed her to stop talking.
It feels like déjà vu from what happened with my father. Except this is so much worse. Also, back then, I had Hudson with me to help. Now I’m all alone. If they find out what I have done, I’m going to jail. Not kid jail but real adult jail, maybe for the rest of my life.
There’s only one person who can help me.
I don’t have Nathaniel’s phone number. He wouldn’t give it to me. And even if I had it, it would probably be a bad idea to call from my phone. Then there would be a record of the call, and my mom has access to my phone records. But Mrs. Bennett’s phone is right on the kitchen counter. I could use her phone to call him.
I snatch the phone off the counter, but of course, it’s locked. It seems to have fingerprint unlocking, so I gently lift Mrs. Bennett’s finger to the pad, and miraculously, it unlocks. Now I have access to her entire phone, including her list of contacts. Nathaniel’s name is listed as one of the favorites, which gives me a little pang in my chest, but there’s no time for that. I click on it without hesitation.
It rings for a long time, and I start to worry he’s not going to pick up. After all, she threw him out. He’s probably mad at her. But then just when I’m sure it’s going to go to voicemail, I hear his angry voice: “What is it, Eve?”