“Great. Of course it’s you.” She looks away from me and continues marching forward. “Go away.”

The devil on my shoulder’s talking to me now. See? She doesn’t want your help. Just leave her. It’s karma.

I shake the thoughts from my head and take in a steadying breath.

I’m better than this.

I pull over on the side of the road and turn off my car. Kaitlyn doesn’t slow her pace, so I hop out and jog to catch up to her. “Wait up!”

She glances back at me then looks straight ahead again. “Do you not understand English? I said to leave me alone.”

When I catch up to her my legs match her stride, but she still doesn’t take her focus off the horizon in front of her. I say, “I understand English perfectly. I just have a history of not doing what I’m told.”

“So if I told you not to jump off that bridge over there?”

“Ha-ha.” I jog around to stand in front of her and force her to stop by blocking her path. “Are you okay?”

She rubs the back of her good hand over her eye, smudging her makeup even more in the process. “Do I look okay? Wow, how does Aiden have a conversation with you?”

She shoves me to the side and continues walking, and I stand there staring after her.

I get it. We’re not friends and I’m probably the last person she wants to accept help from. But she’s hurting and lashing out. Well, actually, who knows if this is her lashing out? So far it’s been a pretty standard Kaitlyn interaction. But either way, I’m going to at least try to help.

“Okay, you don’t need to talk to me. But I can at least drive you home.” I chase after her again, matching her stride.

She scoffs. “I don’t need your help.”

I glance at the limp she’s trying to hide. “You were literally just pushed out of a moving car.”

She stops walking and turns to face me. The perfect version of herself she shows the world has cracked. I can tell she’s trying really hard to hold it together and muster up as much bitchy energy as she can to intimidate me, but it’s kind of hard when she’s all scraped up and her makeup’s running down her face.

“Why won’t you just leave me alone?! Does this make you happy? Seeing me like this? Are you getting off on seeing mean old Kaitlyn all beaten up?”

“What? Am I here making fun of you? I’m trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help!” she practically yells in my face. She turns away from me, but the tears she’s trying to hide are clear to me.

“Kaitlyn.” I don’t know where to start. “You don’t have to go through this alone. You don’t need to stay with Ryan.”

“Ryan is my boyfriend.” She sniffles, still not looking at me.

“And? He’s hurting you! Just leave him. Tell someone. Anything is better than putting up with that.”