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“I always loved you, and if one loves any one, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be”

-Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Part One

Chapter One

Riley

14-years-old

As I ae, I adjust the heavy backpack threatening to leave a permanent indent on my shoulder

My backpack broke earlier this school year, but my mom stitched the strap back on It has held up just fine for a while, but today Mom had to work so she couldn’t pick me up from school That means I have to walk home

Apparently, all the extra jostling popped the threads, because about athis heavy sack of books on just one shoulder and that shoulder isn’t thrilled about it

Move the backpack strap instinctively

So over the edge, pal down into the water, not paying ins to slon

Normally, there’s no one else on this path, and I feel uneasy that someone is now Like they’ve found a place that was supposed to be secret and shown up uninvited

I guess since I stopped walking—or er on the bridge Only when he turns his head to look at er at all

Hunter Maxwell is the intruder sitting on e

We go to school together, but we’ve never spoken He’s kind of a popular jerk who co out with his friends, and I’m kind of a quiet bookho actually shows up to learn I can’t i to say to one another

He nizeswater beneath the footbridge

So unpleasant turns over in my tummy It feels like rejection, but that’s silly I don’t care if Hunter Maxwell dismisses me I didn’t want to talk to him, anyway

Lifting noring hiht back I ht past him

Before I e and onto the dirt path toward home, his low tone interrupts the mutually held silence “Don’t tell anyone you saw me today”