One Slap Away From Goodbye

When the argument peaked, he snapped. In front of the entire hallway, my childhood best friend swung his hand and slapped me across the face. That same afternoon, I wiped his existence from my phone—blocked, deleted, gone. Nobody could fathom it. Austin Cole and I had grown up on the exact same cul-de-sac. I had loved him since I was three years old; I had spent nine solid years trailing behind him like his own shadow. ""Why, Sadie?"" he asked later, looking completely bewildered. ""Just because of one slap?"" ""Yes,"" I told him, looking straight into his eyes. ""Exactly because of one slap."" 1 When Austin’s palm cracked against my cheek, my brain went completely numb before the pain even registered. It was a dull, heavy thwack. My neck jerked sideways, my sneakers skidding on the linoleum, and a high-pitched ring tore through my ears. For a second, the skin went cold. Then, like an open flame held against flesh, the heat flared up, blistering and violent. I pressed a trembling palm to my face, staring at him through the blur of my own disorientation. Austin Cole—the boy who used to share his Pop-Tarts with me over backyard fences, the boy I believed would catch me if the sky fell—had just slapped me in the middle of our high school corridor to defend a girl who had transferred here less than three months ago. For a heartbeat, Austin froze. The shock rippled across his own features, as if he couldn't believe what his hand had just done. But just as quickly, the embarrassment curdled into defensiveness, his jaw hardening into that stubborn, arrogant line I knew all too well. ""Can you stop making a damn scene, Sadie?"" he barked, his voice loud enough to echo off the metal lockers. ""Get back to your seat!"" Around us, a few guys in varsity jackets let out low, amused snickers. Most of the crowd simply lingered, quiet and avid, drinking in the spectacle. Kendall Drake was standing half a step behind him. She twirled a lock of her loose, auburn curls around a manicured finger, letting out a theatrical, sympathetic click of her tongue. ""Oh, Austin, come on, don't be so harsh,"" she said, her voice dripping with that breezy, effortless sarcasm she wore like perfume. ""Can't you see your little princess is about to burst into tears?"" Austin’s expression tightened at her words, his tone dropping into something icy and unforgiving. ""Sadie, if you want to throw a pity party, go cry in your own bedroom. This is school. Nobody here has the patience for your royal tantrums."" The humiliation hit me first, followed by an agonizing wave of betrayal that burned hotter than the blow itself. Big, hot tears spilled over my lashes before I could stop them. The guys by the lockers erupted into muffled laughter. I didn't say a word. I turned on my heel and bolted down the hall. I didn't care about the attendance office, or my backpack, or fifth-period French. I just needed to put walls between myself and the suffocating heat of that classroom. Austin had always been impatient with me. He had spent years rolling his eyes at my quirks, scolding me for being soft. But he had never raised a hand to me. In fact, in my entire life, nobody ever had. 2 Austin and I were the kind of childhood friends people write lazy songs about. We met when we were three. Our fathers were college roommates who ended up buying adjacent suburban colonials in Oakridge, sharing a driveway and summer barbecues. I fell in love with him somewhere between kickball games and scraped knees. In elementary school, I was small and terribly shy, which made me easy prey. There was one boy in particular, a bully named Marcus who sat behind me in third grade. Marcus yanked my pigtails, smeared chewing gum across the plastic seat of my chair, and once slipped a pack of novelty snapping poppers into my pencil pouch so they exploded when I unzipped it. I went to the teacher crying. Mrs. Gable gave Marcus a token reprimand, then patted my shoulder with an indulgent chuckle. ""Oh, sweetie, boys only pull your hair when they like you."" I hated that answer. Marcus didn't stop. That evening, I sobbed to my parents at the kitchen table. My dad’s face went red with fury; he was already reaching for his coat to march over to the school board. Mr. Cole, who was over having a beer in our kitchen, heard the whole thing. He stepped out to the porch, whistled for Austin, and told him plainly: You watch out for Sadie at school. You hear me? Austin and I were the same age, but we were in different homerooms back then. The next morning during morning recess, nine-year-old Austin marched into my classroom, grabbed Marcus by his flannel collar, and dragged him behind the tetherball poles. Austin had always been broad-shouldered and fierce; he pummeled Marcus and two of his friends until they were bawling into the woodchips. Before Austin walked away, he pointed a bruised finger at every boy standing by the swings. ""Anyone else touches Sadie, you deal with me."" That was the exact moment my heart decided it belonged to him. From then on, I was his shadow. I trailed behind him to baseball practice, sat on his front porch while he tuned his mountain bike, brought him ice water when he mowed the lawn. Austin complained, of course. He had an innate, old-fashioned streak of machismo; he thought spending his afternoons with a quiet, fragile girl made him look soft in front of the neighborhood boys. But I didn't care. I followed him anyway, calling his name with an eager, stubborn devotion that wore down his defenses. Over the years, the resistance melted away. He got used to me. By eighth grade, I started noticing how his eyes would linger on me when I wasn't looking. When our gazes collided across a crowded living room, he would freeze, blink rapidly as if jolted by static, and stammer through some clumsy change of subject while the tips of his ears turned bright crimson. Once, during a joint Fourth of July cookout, Mr. Cole took a sip of his IPA, looked at the two of us sitting side-by-side on the lawn chairs, and teased, ""Look at them. At this rate, we might as well save up for a wedding down the road."" Austin didn't say a word, but his hand found mine under the picnic blanket, gripping my fingers so tightly they ached. His neck was burning red. My chest swelled with an intoxicating, dizzy sweetness. ""Fine by me!"" I announced to the adults, grinning. ""I'm marrying Austin anyway."" Everything began to unravel sophomore year. Near the end of the fall semester, our homeroom got a transfer student. Her name was Kendall Drake. Her father was an executive who had been reassigned to the corporate branch in our county. She was sharp-featured, effortlessly pretty, and carried herself with an easy, dismissive confidence that drew every eye in the room. On her very first morning, she stood by the whiteboard, tossed her loose reddish-brown waves, and gave the teacher a lazy smirk. ""Don't bother checking dress code on the hair, Mrs. Albright. It’s natural—the color and the wave."" Then, her gaze drifted lazily across the desks. When it landed on me, she stopped. She stared for three long, agonizing seconds, and then she threw her head back and laughed. ""Oh my god... somebody call the paramedics... what aisle of Toys 'R' Us did you escape from?"" She gestured toward me, shaking her head in theatrical disbelief. ""Head-to-toe pastel pink? Honey, we're in high school. Who are you baby-talking for? The secondhand embarrassment is killing me."" Every single pair of eyes in the classroom snapped directly onto me. The blood rushed to my face, so hot my vision swam. I loved pink. I had always loved it. My canvas backpack was dusty rose, my Hydro Flask was blush, my hair clips, my oversized cable-knit sweaters, my phone case, the leather tassel on my keys—everything was some shade of pink. It was my armor, my comfort, my favorite corner of the world. Kids had made side comments before, sure. In middle school, boys called me girly, and some girls whispered that I tried too hard to look sweet. But most girls were kind; they would compliment my manicures, tell me my stationery was adorable, ask where I bought my pastel cardigans. I had never in my life been singled out and dismantled so bluntly in public. The shame was a physical weight pressing down on my lungs; I wished the floor would crack open and swallow me whole. ""Kidding, kidding,"" Kendall added, catching my expression and offering a cheeky, theatrical wink. ""I just don't have a filter. Don't take it personally, Princess."" ""That's enough,"" Austin’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and irritated. I looked back; he was scowling at Kendall from his desk, arms crossed over his chest. ""It's your first day, Drake. Sit down and shut up."" Kendall arched an eyebrow, her gaze locking onto him with sudden, predatory amusement. ""Oh? The knight in shining armor arrives?"" ""What the hell is your problem?"" Austin snapped, his palms hitting the wood of his desk as he half-rose. Mrs. Albright intervened immediately, rapping her ruler on the podium and ordering everyone to settle down. She directed Kendall to the only empty desk left in the room. As fate would have it, that desk was directly in front of Austin's. 3 I don't know the exact day the shift began. It happened like water seeping through drywall—invisible until the stain was already set. It started with small things. Every morning, Austin’s dad would make sure Austin grabbed two cartons of milk from the corner deli on the walk to school. For years, mine was always strawberry milk. It was a silly, comforting ritual. Then, one rainy Tuesday, he dropped a carton of plain whole milk onto my desk. ""I hate plain milk,"" I said, staring down at the blue-and-white carton, my brow furrowing. ""You know it makes me nauseous."" ""Come on, Sadie,"" Austin said, reaching out to ruffle my hair with an offhand sigh. ""You only drink the strawberry stuff because the box is pink. You're sixteen years old; drinking artificial syrup out of a cardboard carton looks ridiculous. Plain milk is better for you anyway."" Kendall turned around in her seat right then, a matching blue-and-white carton balanced between her fingers. She gave me a faint, pitying smile. ""Sorry about that, Little Miss Pastel. I told Austin this morning that strawberry milk is basically liquefied sugar and dairy cream, so he grabbed plain for both of us."" She took a sip through her straw, tilting her head. ""I mean, seriously, do girls your age actually still drink that stuff? It’s so cloying."" I set the carton down on my notebook and met her gaze dead-on. ""Does it physically hurt you not to give people passive-aggressive nicknames?"" Kendall’s smile stiffened for a fraction of a second. Then she sighed loudly, throwing her hands up in mock surrender. ""Whoa. Why are you turning a breakfast choice into a federal lawsuit? It was a joke. God, you are exhausting to talk to..."" ""Whether I'm exhausting or you're just looking for an excuse to be nasty is pretty clear to everyone in this room,"" I said quietly. ""Okay, Sadie, stop,"" Austin interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he were refereeing two toddlers. ""Kendall just speaks her mind. She didn't mean anything by it. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill."" My eyes stung with a sudden, furious heat. I shoved Austin’s chest, hard enough to make him stumble back against the chalkboard ledge. ""If you don't know how to talk like a civilized person, Kendall, keep your mouth shut!"" I spat. Austin caught his balance, alarmed by the sudden flash of venom in my voice. Instinctively, his arms reached out, catching me by the waist to steady me. ""Hey, hey, okay, I’m sorry,"" he muttered quickly, his voice softening into the old, familiar cadence. ""Don't be mad. I'll get you the strawberry one tomorrow, alright? Just breathe."" Across the aisle, Kendall didn't say a word. Her eyes were fixed on Austin’s hands resting on my hips, cold and calculating. 4 After that morning, Kendall turned me into her personal project. If I pulled out a pocket pack of cherry-blossom tissues, she would lean across her row and announce to the room, ""Look at that! Even her snot has to be brand-coordinated. Are you trying to get sponsored by Mattel?"" During lab cleanup, when I took an extra Lysol wipe to sanitize the greasy black counter before setting my binder down, she would elbow the guy next to her. ""Watch out, boys. Her Royal Highness needs a sterile operating room."" Every two weeks, when we shifted rows, I’d pause halfway through pushing my heavy oak desk across the floor to catch my breath. Kendall would instantly cup her hands around her mouth: ""The princess needs assistance! Can we get a couple of strong men over here before she faints from physical labor?"" The guys who hovered around her would burst into loud, performative guffaws, treating her like the funniest stand-up comedian in the county. At first, Austin would scowl and mutter, ""Leave her alone, Kendall."" But Kendall would merely punch him playfully on the bicep, her voice bright and unbothered. ""Oh, chill out, Austin! I'm just teasing her. Sadie walks around with her nose in the air like she's made of spun glass. I'm doing her a favor, helping her loosen up and join the real world."" Austin would look at me, then back at Kendall, his jaw slacking slightly in thought. ""I mean... she is pretty high-maintenance. Are girls always like that?"" Kendall grinned, giving him a sideways shove. ""Don't look at me, Cole. I don't speak high-maintenance. Don't lump me in with the sorority rush."" Austin laughed. A dull, persistent ache settled in my ribs. I knew Austin thought I was delicate. I knew he hated that I wouldn't hike through muddy trails in his boots, that I hated the smell of motor oil, that I couldn't open tightly sealed pickle jars without running them under hot water first. To boys like him, wanting things clean and soft was a character flaw. The explosion happened the second week of September. Over the late summer, my family had spent two weeks in the Outer Banks. I burn easily, so by the time we returned, my fair skin was tanned a deep, golden-brown. Usually, staying indoors through September restored my natural pale complexion, so I hadn't thought twice about it. That Friday, I wore a light, blush-pink linen shirt under my denim jacket. Kendall walked into third period, took one look at me hanging up my jacket, and gasped with dramatic flair. ""Sweet Jesus, Sadie! You're tanned like an old leather sofa and you decided on baby pink? Do you not own a full-length mirror?"" She turned to the guys lounging on the radiator, laughing until her shoulders shook. ""No, seriously, I can't breathe. What happened to the porcelain fairy? You look like a golden retriever rolled in strawberry frosting! It’s hilarious!"" The boys dissolved into howling laughter. I turned around to look at Austin. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, tossing an eraser between his hands. The corners of his mouth were curved upward in an easy, amused smirk. He was laughing with them. In that single, quiet second, something snapped inside my skull. A blinding heat rushed behind my eyes, deafening and absolute. Without thinking, without calculating the cost, I grabbed the metal tumbler of ice water off my desk, unscrewed the lid, and hurled the entire contents straight into Kendall’s laughing face. Kendall’s laughter choked into a wet, horrified gasp. She stumbled backward into a row of chairs, her hands clawing desperately at her dripping hair. It turned out she wasn't quite as ""all-natural"" as she claimed. The deluge washed right through her heavy foundation, leaving streaks of beige sludge running down her chin, and her double-eyelid tape loosened, peeling halfway off one eye like a piece of dead skin. ""What the fuck?!"" she shrieked, sputtering water, her voice shrill and unhinged. ""Are you insane?!"" ""Oh, my god,"" I said, mimicking her exact patronizing cadence, my voice ringing clear and venomous over the hushed room. ""Look at you. Two layers of primer, liquid eyeliner, and eyelid tape just for third-period history? No wonder you act like one of the boys. You’re not a girl's girl; you're just an insecure clown working overtime for male validation."" The classroom went dead silent. Two guys scrambled forward to pull Kendall away, and then Austin was there. He stepped directly between us, towering over me. His face was dark with an ugly, suffocating rage. He reached out and ripped the empty metal tumbler out of my grip so violently the rim grazed my knuckle. ""Sadie. Apologize,"" he commanded, looking down at me through narrowed eyes. My eyes burned, but I refused to let a single tear drop. I stared right into his face. ""Did you not hear what she called me? She called me a dog, Austin."" ""And you just tore into her looks and soaked her clothes,"" he said coldly, his voice flat and authoritative. ""One thing has nothing to do with the other. You don't get to act like a violent lunatic because your feelings were hurt. Own up to what you did. Stop acting like a spoiled brat."" He leaned in, his tone dropping into that condescending, parental voice he used whenever he wanted me to fall in line. ""Apologize right now, Sadie. Kendall’s not going to hold a grudge if you just say you're sorry."" A bitter, hysterical laugh tore out of my throat. ""Apologize to my ass."" Austin’s eyes went wide. And then, his right arm blurred through the air, and the crack of his hand across my cheek split the silence of the room. 5 I didn't stay for fourth period. I didn't stop by the office to sign out. I walked out the double glass doors of the high school and didn't look back until I reached my front porch. The house was empty. My parents were still at work. I walked straight up the stairs into my bedroom, kicked the door shut, and dragged a heavy cardboard moving box out from the back of the linen closet. Then, I tore through my room like a woman possessed. I ripped open the nightstand drawer, the floating shelves, the cedar chest at the foot of my bed. Every birthday card Austin had ever written me; the silver charm bracelet he gave me for my thirteenth birthday; the wooden bird he carved with his pocketknife during seventh-grade camp; the varsity jacket he had let me wear during the homecoming game last autumn; the framed photographs of us on the boardwalk with cotton candy—I tossed every single scrap into the cardboard box. Nine years of memories filled the box to the brim. Not a single trace was left behind. I dragged the heavy box down the stairs, out the front door, down the long asphalt driveway, and heaved it straight into the black municipal trash bin at the curb. I slammed the plastic lid down with a heavy, final clack. Back inside, my hands were shaking so hard I could barely unlock my phone. I dialed my mother’s office line. ""Hey, honey,"" my mom answered, her voice warm against the hum of corporate office noise. ""Everything okay?"" ""Mom,"" I said, my voice steady, stripped of all inflection. ""When you come home tonight, please go next door and tell Mr. and Mrs. Cole that Austin and I are done. We're completely done."" I took a sharp breath. ""And from this moment on, Austin Cole is never allowed to step a single foot inside our house. Tell him to stay the hell away from me."" When my mother arrived home forty minutes later, she took one look at my left cheek and gasped. The swelling had already darkened. The distinct, purple outline of Austin’s four fingers and palm stood out against my skin like a brand. I told her everything. Not just the slap, but the months of Kendall’s relentless micro-aggressions, the jeering boys, the way Austin had leaned against the classroom wall and smiled while they made me the punchline, and finally, how he had stood in front of Kendall like a shield and struck me to force an apology. By the time I finished, the veins on my mother’s temples were throbbing. She didn't drop her purse. She didn't take off her heels. She turned around, marched out the front door, and pounded on the Coles' front door so hard the glass pane rattled in its frame. Mrs. Cole opened the door with a pleasant, puzzled smile. My mother gave her no time to speak. In a voice trembling with a mother's cold, lethal fury, she laid out every brutal detail of what Austin had done in that classroom. Mrs. Cole’s face went from pale to gray, and then to a mortified, sickly red. Our families had spent nearly fifteen years sharing holidays, spare keys, and backyard barbecues. In less than ten minutes, that lifelong bond fractured down the center, irreparable. When my mother walked back through our front door, she didn't question me. She didn't ask if I had provoked him, or if we could talk it out once tempers cooled. She pulled me into her arms, wrapping her coat around my shoulders, and stroked my hair. ""Nobody lays a hand on my girl,"" she whispered into my temple, her voice thick and fierce. ""Nobody. Whatever you decide, your dad and I are behind you one hundred percent."" The dam broke. The numbness shattered, and I buried my face in the crook of her neck, sobbing until my ribs throbbed with exhaustion. 6 Austin must have seen the box sticking out of the curb when his father dropped him off that evening. At seven o'clock, the frantic, furious pounding began on our front door. ""Sadie! Open the damn door! We need to talk!"" I walked over, unlocked the deadbolt, and pulled the door wide. Austin was standing on the welcome mat, his jacket unzipped, his chest heaving, his face set like concrete. ""Why the hell did you throw away every single thing I ever gave you?"" ""What business is it of yours?"" I looked at him, my expression blank. The mark on my face was worse now. The swelling had peaked; my cheekbone was a bruised, mottled plum, the fingerprint impressions unmistakable under the porch light. It looked horrific, like the result of an assault, not a high school spat. Austin’s furious posture faltered. His eyes dropped to my cheek, and the color instantly drained from his face. He stared, his mouth parting slightly. ""...How is it that bad?"" He took an involuntary step forward, his hand rising toward my face as if to touch the bruise. ""Sadie..."" I took two full steps back into the entryway, folding my arms across my chest, giving him nothing. I had always been low-threshold for pain in front of him. In the past, if a paper cut bled or I bumped my hip against a cabinet, I would run to him with watery eyes, dramatically showing him the scrape just so he would bandage it and comfort me. The truth was, I wasn't actually that fragile; I had a high pain tolerance when I was alone. The whining was just an excuse to lean on him, to be small in the arms of the boy I adored. And Austin, for all his grumbling about me being delicate, had secretly lived for it. He loved being the savior, the strong one, the boy with all the answers. That game was over. Austin looked at my flat, emotionless eyes, a flicker of panic bleeding through his confusion. ""I didn't mean to hit you that hard, Sadie. I swear to god I didn't. You were cussing like that in front of everyone, and I just lost my temper for a second—"" ""Since you're here, let's get this settled,"" I cut him off, my voice steady and quiet. ""From today on, we don't know each other."" ""Sadie—"" ""Address me by my last name if you have to. Don't speak to me in the halls. Don't look at me in class. And don't ever walk up this driveway to knock on my door again."" I reached for the brass handle to shut the door. Austin lunged forward, catching the edge of the wood with one hand and wrapping his other hand around my wrist, his grip frantic, tight enough to bruise. The guilt on his face warped into an indignant, desperate anger. ""Are you out of your mind, Sadie? If you're pissed because I hit you, fine—I'm apologizing! I'm saying I'm sorry! Don't you think you're being completely psychotic right now?"" He leaned in, his voice trembling with an underlying dread. ""Have you even thought about what happens when you calm down? What happens when you regret this?"" ""I will never regret this."" ""Why?"" His teeth were clenched, his breath hitching in his throat. ""Just because of one stupid, accidental slap?"" ""Yes,"" I said clearly. ""Exactly because of that slap."" Austin stared at me, his chest rising and falling rapidly. When he realized my eyes weren't softening, when he saw that the girl who used to melt under his gaze was gone, his defensive pride flared back up like gasoline on an ember. He gave a harsh, humorless bark of laughter. ""Fine. You want to throw away ten years over nothing? Be my guest."" He shoved the door frame, turned around, and stomped down the porch steps into the dark.