The next evening, she was lying on her side facing her bedroom door, when she heard Gabby calling her name from the other side.
“Hadlee, let us in. Shamia is here too.”
“Go away,” she didn’t move. She kept herself locked in her room since the afternoon before. Despite her mother trying to coax her down for dinner and her father begging her to come out, she’d remained silent.
“Girl, you can’t cut us off too.”
“I can’t look at either of you right now. It just hurts.” She called out angrily. “You are everything I can’t be, and I don’t want to be around you. Please leave.”
“Hadlee,” Shamia’s voice betrayed the hurt in her comment. “We love you.”
“I love you too but go away. You don’t understand and you never will.”
“That’s not fair. It’s not our fault.”
“No, it’s not but I can’t bear i
