Reta used to cry a lot when she was younger.
She was sitting in the principles office, across from the girl who, despite mocking Reta's tears, was now sobbing pathetically while holding her swollen eye. Their parents sat next to them as the principle explained the situation, and Reta watched her mother's hands as they squeezed her purse until her knuckles were white.
"Why did you do that?"
Reta lifted her eye from the hole they were burning in the ground, and was surprised by the weariness in her mother's voice. She flinched when her mother returned Reta's gaze with a scathing glare. "Mummy, b-but she said-"
"I don't care what she said. Y