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“You know a lot, don’t you?” Trent narrows his eyes.
“Someone told me.” Reese shrugs, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s not a big deal.”
Yeah, right. He knows that’s a goddamn lie. I’m well aware he wants Trent to drop his vendetta against Emma, but bringing up her dad is the wrong
damn way to achieve that goal.
“I bet her dad got her into this school. There’s no other fucking way she’d be here.” A muscle in Trent’s jaw ticks as he speaks.
“You don’t know that for sure.” Reese glances at me, seeming to realize he’s been poking the bear, but I just shrug.
You brought it up, man. You’re on your own.
“What are you doing, defending the intelligence of Emma Holloway?” Trent says with a laugh. “Do you see the way she takes notes in class? That’s the look of desperation, not intelligence.”
As Trent returns to the bag, Reese rolls his eyes and laughs the conversation off, and I walk over to the fountain to refill my water bottle.
Mostly, I just want to escape into my own thoughts for a moment as Emma comes to mind. And when I say she “comes to mind,” I guess that’s putting it lightly. Really vivid thoughts of her flood my memory constantly.
There was some time after high school, after Emma went away, when I was able to think about other things. When I was able to fucking breathe. But ever since seeing her again, thoughts of her will not leave my mind. That’s probably why I’ve been going to the gym sometimes twice a day.
Most guys might like being around a girl who brings up these intense kinds of feelings, who stirs up old memories, but not me. I want Emma out of Clearwater University so I can move on with my life and own my thoughts again. I keep plotting ways to get her out, but it all comes back to the same shit we did in high school.
We’re not in high school anymore, and I don’t know what the hell it’s gonna take now.
I drink my water and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. And then it hits me like a ton of fucking bricks—thoughts of Emma’s perfect white skin, her small but shapely breasts in my hands, the feeling of sliding inside of her, how tight and warm she was. I can remember the way her hair smelled, the beautiful expression on her face, and the little noises she made.
The last bell rang twenty minutes ago, and the hallways are pretty much deserted. Two weeks from the end of the semester, nobody wants to stick around Amundsen High any longer than they have to. Everybody’s stir-crazy, ready for summer.
It occurs to me that I don’t hate the place like this. I like the quiet. I like the peace.
Trent and Reese are popular, and I’m popular by association, but really, I couldn’t give less of a fuck about any of that.
I shove open the classroom door on the far west side of the building and immediately see what I came for—my cell phone is sitting on the edge of my desk right where I left it. But before I can make a move to go pick it up, a soft noise draws my attention, and I freeze.
Emma.
She’s still at her desk in the back of the room, right where she was sitting when class let out twenty minutes earlier. Her arms are crossed on her desk, her head bent over them, and her shoulders are shaking with quiet sobs.
I can guess what caused her tears. Trent’s been ramping up his campaign against her, and this morning when she showed up to school, she was greeted by the sight of students gathered around their phones, laughing uproariously. We hacked the school website and swapped pictures of Emma in embarrassing and compromising situations for all the old bland pictures of kids studying or whatever. We also changed the captions to say shit about her too.
She’s been silent and resolute all day long, but I guess now that she’s finally alone, she couldn’t keep it together anymore.
I hesitate for a second as the door closes with a quiet click behind me. The strangest impulse comes over me, a desire to stride across the room and pull her into my arms. To protect her from anything that tries to hurt her, and to promise her it’ll be okay.
But of course, I can’t do that. Not when I’m the one trying to hurt her.
Still, my body is moving before my brain gives it that message. I’m halfway across the room, my gaze still trained on her, when Emma’s head snaps up. Her tear-streaked face shows a moment of panic at being discovered like this, and then her features morph into something I haven’t seen on her face in a long time.
Fury.
Pure, undiluted hatred.
She’s out of her chair so fast it’s like she fucking teleported, and then she’s barreling toward me, throwing herself at me before I can react. Her small fists pound against my chest, and her voice is raspy and ragged.
“You fucking asshole! You awful, heartless asshole! I hope you fucking die!” Every word is punctuated by a strike to my chest, and even though she’s too little to do any real damage, I swear I can feel my heart rattling in my rib cage with each slam of her fists. “Goddamn you! What the fuck is wrong with you? With all of you? Why are you so fucking cruel?”
Without thinking, I snatch up her wrists, enclosing them in a tight grip and holding her arms out to the sides to make her stop hitting me. She doesn’t stop trying though, writhing and struggling in my grasp, trying to free herself so she can keep hitting me.
