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Kaleb’s face flashes before my eyes. The adult version of him that I’ve made up in my head. It barges into my consciousness unannounced, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

His harsh golden eyes. How his jaw ticked that morning in the courthouse. His lips set in a tight line.

Full-body shivers rack through me, tightening my throat.

Fucking Octobers.

They remind me of the month that Kaleb was taken from me. It was the month after the two boys from school assaulted me.

The sound of the lock clicking on the school’s bathroom’s door had me crying out in terror.

I pressed myself against the wall. Put as much distance as I could between them and me.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Lee was the bigger of the two.

The one the girls in my class would whisper about whenever he walked down the hall. In my eyes, the blond boy was as ugly as they come. It was his eyes. Brown and cruel.

He crowded my space. There was no escaping him.

“We’re going to have fun, the three of us.” Connor, the one who secured the door, sauntered closer.

He stood shoulder to shoulder with Lee. Shorter and skinnier than him. As he scratched his head, dandruff flakes fell from his curly brown hair. They dotted the front of his navy school uniform shirt and his striped tie.

I would’ve been disgusted if my heart hadn’t been racing a million miles a minute.

They’d been giving me strange looks for weeks. Since the school year started. Two sets of brown eyes that had been following me around wherever I went.

No place seemed to be safe from them, even in our private school, where they had cameras everywhere.

Almost everywhere. Not inside the bathrooms.

I’d been avoiding these two as much as I could.

That day, I failed.

They got me.

And it was up to me to stop them.

“No.” I raised my hands, balling them into fists. Imagining I was as big and strong as Kaleb. For the past four months since my stepbrother had been living with us, he did that whenever Daddy started screaming or was about to slap me. “Stop. Go away.”

Warmth surged through me as I thought of what Kaleb would say if he saw me right now. He would be so proud of me for standing up for myself.

He hardly ever talked, but I knew he would’ve wanted me to beat them up. To not be scared or call someone for help.

Me.

I was going to make Kalebsoproud.

“No chance in hell.” Lee slammed his hand on the wall next to my head. “We’re done chasing you.”

My uniform shirt was buttoned up all the way to the top. My blue blazer was open, but it hid most of my chest. His dirty eyes were on me, anyway. On my breasts that grew over the summer. I hated that.

It was like he could see right through my clothes.

It felt icky. It feltwrong.

“Fuck you.” I gathered every bit of strength I had left. Despite being shorter than the two boys—five-foot-two, same as today—inside my head, I was taller. Leaner. Meaner. I was Kaleb with his broad shoulders and serious scowl. With his mask on. “Fuck both of you. Let me go.”