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“No,” I said. “I think that you can feel all of that stuff about him at once.” I thought of your quote, about how with real friends you can feel however you do.
“Hold on one minute,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I wanted to do something nice for Ha
I brought them down to Ha
She sat up in bed and stretched the elastic over her shoulders and smiled. “I love them.”
Yours,
Laurel
Dear Jim,
As we were getting ready for school this morning, Ha
I’d texted Natalie, and she agreed to meet us in the alley at lunch. Ha
Finally Ha
Natalie looked back at her. “Really?”
Ha
“What? He hit you?”
Ha
“It’s not okay. I hate him. I hate him so much. I hate anyone who hurts you. I love you.” Natalie rushed over and put her arms around Ha
Then Ha
When we stopped hugging, I looked at them and asked, “What are we going to do?”
Natalie turned to Ha
Ha
“I’ll just tell her that you need somewhere to stay.”
“But what if she wants to know why? What if she wants to talk to my grandparents or something, or what if she finds out about Jason?”
“Someone has to find out, Han. He’s hurting you.”
“But what if I get sent away somewhere?”
“We won’t let that happen. No way I am losing you. My mom won’t want me to, either. She, um, she more or less knows about us now, because I more or less told her, after the party when I got super depressed. So you might have to stay in a separate room or something.” Then Natalie added, with a little smile, “But you know, there are always her date nights.”
Ha
“Yeah, I promise.”
So after school, we went to Natalie’s house to talk to her mom. Ha
She offered to talk to Ha
“This is a bad idea,” she said, breathing fast.
“You can do it,” Natalie said. Then she got out of the car, and I followed, and finally Ha
We went in, and after Ha
“Jason did it,” Ha
“What?” he said, and turned up his hearing aid.
Ha
Ha
Ha
Her grandpa’s face turned pale, and he nodded, bewildered.
“Will you make sure to take care of Buddy and Earl? While I’m gone?”
Her grandpa promised that he would.
After Ha
When we were done, we carried Ha
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
Ha
“Like hell you are. I told you not to see her,” he said, glaring at Natalie.
Ha
Jason’s face turned a little bit pale. “Is that so?” He tried to sound angry, but there was a tinge of fear underneath his voice. “And on what fucking grounds would you do that?”
“On the grounds that you hit me!”
“Oh, come off it. It’s called discipline. Obviously no one else around here is taking care of that with you. Someone’s got to watch out.”