Free The Love Story (The Things We Can't Change Book 4) by Kassandra Kush Page B

into action, as well as into the realization that I should have had weeks ago: something isn’t right here.
    I reach out and grab Evie by the shoulders, pulling her against me in a sudden movement. It’s a little rough but I don’t have the presence of mind to be careful or gentle at the moment. I just want her to shut up. I stroke her hair with one hand, inhaling the scent and letting it wash over me. It calms me more than drawing all morning did. She finally stops talking and I feel her take a deep, shuddery breath.
    “Stop apologizing,” I say firmly. “ I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have treated you the way that I did. It was inexcusable.”
    “But I-I snapped at you!” Evie says shakily.
    I draw back a little and look at her quizzically. “You used to snap at me all the time and not think twice about it. So… relax, okay? Everything’s fine, all right?”
    She sniffs and wipes away a single tear and I’m glad I was able to get her to stop before it became full-on crying. “Really?” she checks.
    “Really,” I confirm, wondering where this dithering Evie came from. “Come on, let’s go eat.”
    “Okay.”
    She follows me obediently and barely speaks all through lunch, keeping her eyes trained mostly on me. I ask her a couple times if everything is okay and she smiles and nods.
    But more and more, I’m getting the feeling that everything is far from being okay.
     
    For the first time since my dad kicked me out, since I started getting the notes, I pull myself out of my misery. I quite feeling sorry for myself, quit spending all my time trying not to feel anything and just start watching.
    Watching Evie.
    I spend a week, a solid week, trying to be there for her, standing next to her in the mornings and between every class that I’m able. I stand guard, arms crossed over my chest and glaring at anyone who dares to so much as look our way. The bullying toward me has mostly stopped since my fight with Josh in the parking lot, but that leaves me worried by a consequence that I hadn’t even considered: what if twice the effort of their bullying was now directed at Evie?
    And as I stay silent and watch, I worry that’s the case. Two more mornings that week, I see Evie scramble to catch a note and pretend not to notice. I don’t know if I can handle reading another one. I’m relieved when Evie doesn’t even bother to read them either. She just crumples them up and tries to discreetly throw them away before I can see. But I still see it all.
    For the first time in a while, I listen to the jeers that follow us everywhere, and realize that most of them are about Evie now. I’ve established that I won’t be pushed around, that people should think twice before saying anything to or about me. But if Evie ever wants some peace, she’s going to have to do the same thing.
    For the most part, Tiffany and her crowd are controlled at lunch and in Speech when I’m around, but Evie told me at the beginning of the year that she has several classes with them earlier in the day and I worry about that. More than once when I meet her outside her classroom door, she rushes out like a scared cat, her eyes glassy with unshed tears, and I wonder what went on in the last few minutes of class, when words are easily concealed from teachers by the sound of everyone getting their things together and the bell ringing.
    But despite the bullying, despite the fear, the thing that suddenly starts worrying me the most is Evie’s behavior with me. She seems to liven up a little bit whenever she sees me and whenever I ask her what’s wrong or what happened, she tells me that it doesn’t matter now that I’m around. Every time she throws away a note from her locker, she takes my hand and squeezes it, as though wanting reassurance. And I realize that Evie is depending solely on me as a lifeline through all of this.
    Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about something like that. Looking at it abstractly, it makes perfect sense; Evie was