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He stared at me for the longest moment before exhaling a heavy sigh. “Because I want to.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “Do you have a coat?”
“A coat?” I croaked out, feeling helpless as I stared up at this beautiful boy.
“Yeah, it’s hammering down with rain outside.”
“I, uh—” I pressed my hand to my forehead, striving to gather my thoughts. “It’s on the coat hook,” I finally managed to say. “In the science building.”
With wide eyes, I watched as Johnny unzipped the black coat he was wearing and draped it over my shoulders.
“Come on,” he said in a coaxing tone as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, tucked me into his side, and led me out of school. “I’ll take care of you.”
25Trouble
JOHNNY
I unintentionally hurt Shannon Lynch.
Again.
I knocked her on her ass at school.
Again.
And then she went and almost gave me a bleeding heart attack. Honest to god, I’d never felt fear like I did when I saw her collapse on the floor next to her locker.
I knew it was a stupid idea to follow her back into school, but I needed to check on her. To be honest, I was afraid of Bella intercepting her.
Finding her on the floor like that was beyond terrifying.
My heart literally seized in my chest when I saw her and only kick-started back up when I got to her and realized that she was okay. She was mortified, but she was okay.
I didn’t care about puke. Everyone puked. Even girls.
Apparently, this girl did it a lot.
I remembered exactly what was written in the file.
She threw up a lot.
That worried me. More than it should.
What worried me further was why this happened. Shannon was clearly an anxiety puker. It was as good as written in her school file. For Christ’s sake, she brought a toothbrush to school with her.
I was burning with my own form of anxiety from the need to know what had upset her. I didn’t want to push my luck though, or make the situation worse, so I kept my mouth shut.
Putting her in my car probably wasn’t my best idea, given the fact that she didn’t seem to want to speak to me ever again, but I wasn’t leaving her here to take a shitty bus.
She didn’t speak a single word to me the entire drive to her house—with the exception of apologizing a million fucking times for something she obviously couldn’t control.
I didn’t know what to do or say to put her at ease. I kept telling her it was okay, but she wasn’t hearing me. It was like she was stuck in her own head, worrying herself to death over something I couldn’t see.
I felt helpless. I wanted to help her, but it was an impossible thing to do when I couldn’t see who she was up against.
“I’m sorry,” Shannon told me when I pulled up outside her house, after I spent a solid five minutes trying to coax her into telling me which one hers was. “I really am so—”
