I just needed to be there. To sit by her bed while she slept, even if she was barely aware of my presence. To make sure the fever wasn’t too high, to watch her chest rise and fall, to make sure she wasn’t slipping away from me.

At least she didn’t have to go to school for three weeks. She didn’t have to see Mason. He was out of the hospital, walking around like nothing happened, like he wasn’t a predator who deserved to be put back in the dirt where I’d left him that night.

If it were up to me, he never would’ve gotten out.

The days dragged on. Time didn’t heal anything, but Beverly got better. Slowly.

She changed, too. She stopped eating meat. I caught her staring at her plate during lunch, picking at the food like it was something she didn’t recognize.

When I asked her what was up, she shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

She dyed a few strands of her hair pink, too, like she needed something new, something to mark the time before and after. I didn’t ask why. At first, I thought it was some fever-induced decision she’d regret, but when she saw her reflection, she smiled. A small, real smile. A smile I hadn’t seen in a while.

So I told her it suited her. Because it did.

Meanwhile, I was doing whatever I could to stay busy, to escape the thoughts that kept creeping in, reminding me how useless I felt. I got a job at the local cinema, working long shifts for minimum wage, smelling like popcorn oil every day. It was a crappy job, but it was something. Something that meant I could actually buy Beverly that ice cream I talked about that night in the car instead of just running my mouth like an idiot who had nothing to offer.

Because, really, what kind of guy was I if I couldn’t even buy her an ice cream?

I started going to the gym too.

When I wasn’t working, I put my body through hell, lifting weights until my muscles screamed, running until my lungs felt like they were being ripped apart. Every time I wanted to give up halfway through, all I had to do was think about Beverly being taken advantage of—about how I wasn’t there to stop it, how it could happen again, to her or to someone else, and I wouldn’t be strong enough to do a damn thing about it. The anger that came with that thought, it was like a fire inside me that wouldn’t go out. It just kept burning hotter, pushing me harder, driving me until I couldn’t feel anything but the ache in my body and the need to be better. Stronger. For her. For me.