She turns back to look at me now. Her eyes look tired. “I’m not going to leave him, okay? Drop it.”

Frustration claws at my chest and I try not to shake her. Kaitlyn’s not my friend, and probably never will be, but I will never ever be okay with standing by and letting someone get walked all over. I’m not wired that way.

“What the hell happened to you, Kaitlyn? You’re not the fierce girl I met when I first transferred to this school. That Kaitlyn ran the school. That Kaitlyn started a war with me over bumping into the guy she liked. That Kaitlyn would destroy a boy for looking at her the wrong way. But now? Now you’re letting a guy treat you like garbage. You’re letting him put his hands on you and hurt you. You don’t have to be with him, Kaitlyn. You deserve better than him and you know that.”

“Just mind your own fucking business, Amelia. You don’t know anything about my situation.”

“I don’t have to know anything about your situation other than the fact that he’s abusing you and that you don’t have to put up with it.”

“Yes, I do,” she quickly snaps back. The air around us grows colder with the setting sun, with the chill of her words.

“No, you don’t!”

“Yes, I do!”

“No, you don’t!”

“You don’t get it!”

“What don’t I get? I get it perfectl—”

“He’s all I have!” she explodes, tears welling in her eyes as the anger turns to sadness. “Happy? He’s all I have.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you deaf? He’s the only person I have; my only friend, really.”

“But what about Makayla? And Krista and Alexa and Br—”

She waves me off. “They’re all just yes-men. They just agree with whatever I say because they’re scared of me. You don’t think they don’t turn around and talk shit about me the second I leave the room? I can guarantee they do. They don’t care about me, they’re just friends with me because I’m popular. Hell, even you, the girl I hate more than anyone, know what my boyfriend is doing and my ‘best friends’ have no clue.”

I don’t know how to reply to that. I can barely even process what she’s saying. “If you know that your friends aren’t real with you, why not just try to make more friends? Why just settle for fake friends?”

She runs her good hand through her hair as her shoulders slump. She seems completely and totally drained; no wonder she’s telling me all this. “I liked the way things were. Everyone was scared of me, and I was fine with it because I got to run the school my way. I could do whatever I wanted, decide who was cool and who was invited to parties. Girls wanted to be my friend and I could have any pick of the guys. I was even finally getting attention from the one boy everyone else wanted. But then you came along. You stole the boy I liked without even trying, and you showed the whole school that they don’t have to be afraid of me. I lost the guy, I lost my rule over the school, and I’m barely holding on to my popularity.”