Page 93 of Under the Influence

Avery

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

CORI

He’s reckless, and he’s dangerous. He’s everything I told myself I didn’t need when I moved here. Everything I needed so desperately to stay away from.

Staring at his black cast and the line of girls waiting to “make it all better” makes me sick. It’s almost like he enjoys the pain, like he will physically hurt himself to overpower the pain he can’t see. The pain that won’t heal like his broken arm.

I want to hold him, to bury my head into his chest while we both just sit. No talking, no fighting, just allowing ourselves to feel each other. It seems like we say the most when we are silent anyway because the second he opens his mouth, he says things to hurt me and push me away.

He infuriates me. He pushes every one of my buttons, and right when I open up just a smidge with him, he makes me regret it. Every time.

The worst part about it all is that I was falling for Carson. I wanted a friend, but the truth is that Carson is so much more than that. He is a safe place for me, just like he is for Nash.

I round the corner of the hall, between the lunchroom and vocational, and I hear Nash calling my name.

Shit.

I can’t do this right now. He didn’t want me there the other night, so he doesn’t get this conversation now. I see Ms. Mason standing down the hallway outside her office, so I move a little faster to get there, pretending I don’t hear Nash calling my name.

I’d know it was him by his voice but what really sets him apart is the fact he is calling me—insert eye roll here—Corinne.

I barge by Ms. Mason into her office, pulling her by the hand and closing her door, locking it. I release the air from my lungs, relieved.

“Cori, are you okay?” she chirps, rounding her desk, motioning to the chair in front of it for me to sit. Her strawberry blonde hair hangs by her shoulders. She’s pretty and young, and something about her is comforting to me. She gives off big sister vibes or something.

“I’m fine. Sorry about that. I just have had enough of the Legacy shark tank for one day.”

She chuckles, “That bad?”

“Yes, no… I’m fine, really. I just needed to get away from him.”

“Him as in Nash Langdon?” she raises her brow in suspicion.

“That’s the one.”

“What have you done to get on his bad side?”

Oh, nothing besides kissing him when he had a girlfriend years ago, blowing up his family, coming back to his town, and kissing him again. I think to myself, but instead, I say, “Nothing.”

“So he’s chasing you down the hall for no reason?”

“Yep,” I lie.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the little show he put on in the cafeteria a couple weeks ago, would it?”

Right. The whole standing on a table and telling anyone who was thinking of talking to me that they would regret it.

“He’s a narcissistic sociopath.”

She stares at me, waiting for me to continue.

“He’s arrogant and reckless!” I finish. “He… ugh, he’s just… I hate him!”

She leans back into her chair with her arms crossed, a smile flirting with the edge of her mouth, causing it to tilt upward.