I nearly stopped walking. “Sorry?”
“Harper Bennett? She’s in the Math and Physics Club with me,” Xander said as we crossed the threshold into the Academy’s bustling halls. “Do you know her?”
“Yeah, I know her,” I muttered, my words lost under the tone of the first bell.
“Gotta run.” Xander chucked me on the shoulder. “See you at practice.”
I stood in the center of the maelstrom of students, some jostling me on their way to class, while the disappointment sucked at my heart, dragging it down to the vicinity of my ankles.
You waited too long, you bloody moron. You waited too long.
“Yo, Orion!”
Brent Reynolds, erstwhile bow seat from crew, was waving me over from a row of lockers. I wandered over.
“Hey, man! Been a while since we hung out,” he said, an eager, almost desperate smile on his face. “Not since that Ford fucker took my seat.”
“What do you want, Reynolds?” I asked dully.
“Nothing, just…what are you doing Saturday before the festival? Maybe we could hang out at Cassidy’s? Tucker and the rest of the crew don’t really talk to me much anymore…”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Fuck me. She’s going with Xander? Are they an item? Just how late is too late?
“Oh, hey.” Brent whacked my shoulder. “Did you hear? I pulled off the senior prank.”
My head snapped up. “What did you say?”
“Yeah, so Tucker and those guys said they’d given up on it for some reason, but Rhett told me it’d be funny if I did it anyway.”
My teeth clenched. “Did what, exactly?”
Brent frowned. “The senior prank? You know…move some Bender’s car? But that shit was too heavy for just me and Jason. We didn’t get very far—”
His words cut off with a choke as my hand shot out and gripped him around the collar, slamming him against the locker. Brent’s eyes widened with shock at my sudden ferocity. It shocked me too, the rage that boiled up in me, as if it had been waiting…
“You did that?” I seethed, my face inches from his.
“I thought…I mean, Rhett said—”
“You fucked up her car,” I snarled. “Nearly a grand in damages.”
“Shit, I didn’t know, I swear…”
Brent was staring at me as if I were a stranger. Someone he’d never seen before. I sucked in a breath, forcing the red haze to retreat. Slowly, I let go of his shirt and backed off.
“Jesus, Orion,” Brent gasped, jerking his collar back into shape. “What the hell, man?”
I leveled a finger in his face. “You don’t go near her, you hear me? Don’t talk to her, don’t touch one fucking thing that belongs to her. Never again.”
“Okay, okay, but—”
“Never again.”
I turned and stormed down the now near-empty hallway, inhaling over and over, willing the anger back down as I headed to period one, English. A class where my teacher believed I was cheating because my book reports were exemplary but my exam scores were shit.
My footsteps echoed on the polished floors, and one thought echoed in my messed-up brain.
