Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

I draw in a deep breath and exhale. The school is more peaceful now. I’m
better. Clearer.
The shower comes back to me, and fuck, it felt good, but if anyone found
out, I’d be ruined. My friends might understand, but their parents wouldn’t.
My grandmother would send me to therapy, and my parents would break,
thinking they’d failed after so much loss already.
“Yes,” I hear Ms. Kirkpatrick say. “Come in, come in.”
I look up, the rest of the students filling their seats as a young woman
holds the strap of her backpack over her shoulder and hands the teacher her
schedule.
She leads her to a seat—Liv’s empty desk—and smiles, handing her
paper back to her.
“Class?” She says loudly. “This is Chloe Harper. She’s joining us from
Austin.”
The girl turns her head, offering everyone a smile with her shade of pink
gloss that could easily be mine. Her eyes land on me, and she hesitates on my
gaze, nodding once in hello, a beautiful, small smile grazing her lips.
She turns back around, and I shake my head, looking away. That’s Liv’s
seat. So quickly filled like she was never here at all, and sun streams through
the windows, making the world bright and beautiful as if everyone has just
moved on.
The talk has even started to die down. Most people have stopped
mentioning her.
She’s not in the locker room. The weight room. The lunch room. Her
desks don’t exist anymore. She was never here.
Classes end, and I head to practice, passing her locker and see something
drawn on it in red nail polish. I stop, reading Dyke written vertically down the
long locker.
And I straighten, glaring. Who did this? How dare they?
Even though I know I’m one of the culprits who’s been calling her that
name for years.
People wrote things on Alli’s locker too, I’d heard. I’m sure it was hard to
have someone be cruel—I can certainly dish it but can’t take it—but I finally
realize it was probably more painful to see the taunts in full view of everyone
who passed by. Hundreds of people are invited into your suffering.
I blink, charging off to the locker room to change into my gear. I throw
on my clothes, grab my equipment, and head out to the field with my friends,