“They were trying to get me on lithium,” I say, feeling a little breathless. “All those kids who were on that shit were like zombies. It causes seizures and everything. One of the counselors, the one I really hated—this white girl—she tried to force me to take it and...I don’t know. She wasn’t even my counselor. She was just miserable. I snapped. I pushed her off me. She tripped and fell down some stairs, then said I attacked her and—”

I have to stop to keep my voice from shaking. I can’t believe I’m saying this right now. It sounds worse than what it is. “I just remember waking up in a cell.” I’m whispering now. “It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her, I was just...done with that whole place.”

It hurts to say all of this, to feel the weight of my confession slip over my lips, to have it exist in this world, alive and breathing and absolute.

I take a breath, air hissing out of a balloon, and finally look at Nate. I have to. “I ran from the cops because I didn’t—I did nothing wrong—I didn’t do what they were trying to say I did. They were trying to make me seem like I was crazy.” The words tumble as they fall from my mouth, land on their backs, broken and wrong. I pause, feeling winded again, like someone has just punched me in my gut. “Do you believe me?”

I watch Nate, his eyes, his expression, wishing I knew what else to say to get him to stop looking at me like I’m some kind of stranger. Something. Anything. But I have nothing.

Nothing more than the truth.

“Why did you keep this from me?” His voice is quiet, withdrawn. I can’t tell if he’s angry, hurt or just confused.

My shoulders go up in a limp shrug. “I don’t know. It never came up.”

But that’s not entirely true.

This is why I never told him. This moment exactly.

I didn’t want him to look at me differently. Didn’t want him to decide the total sum of my character based off my past, off one mistake, one attempt to cling to my dignity that was blown way out of proportion and landed me in juvie for six months. I’d thought about telling him before. I’d come close, multiple times. But I just couldn’t go through with it. Telling Nate would make it more real than I wanted it to be.

Like it is right now.

His expression wavers slightly. “Is there anything else?”

“What do you mean?” My voice sounds hollow.

“Are you hiding anything else?”