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I stop.
I’m breathing hard, and it’s not as if I was running. Her hold on me seems to be the only thing preventing me from sinking into the ground.
“What’s wrong?” she whispers. “Talk to me. You’ve avoided me for days. You have hardly ever come to class. What’s going on?”
Although I don’t want to, I shake her hand off me. “Nothing.”
I can’t tell her. Can’t tell her of my fears, the bouts of panic that wake me up in a cold sweat and keep me up all night. I’m afraid... afraid I’ll lose everyone.
So I can’t have anyone. You can’t lose what you don’t have, right?
“You shouldn’t miss so many classes,” she’s saying. “Were you sick? There’s this bug going around, the one Merc caught last week. Were you—?”
“I’m fine.” I shove a hand through my hair. “Look, I’m not good at anything. There’s no use in my coming to school, I fucking suck at it. I’m not sure I’ll finish.”
“I’m sure you can do it.”
I glance at her, surprised. Nobody has told me that since Connor. Sure, the Lowes keep nagging at me to study and work harder, but this trust...
It distracts me.
She distracts me. All the time.
I wish I could let her, but right now it’s all I can do to keep breathing.
Forcing air into my lungs, I set off again, my only thought to get off the school grounds, maybe hop on a bus and go into town, or out of town even, out into the unknown. Why the hell not?
It’s not until I’ve made it to the school gate that I realize she’s followed me. I swear, this girl doesn’t know how to quit.
“Now tell me.” She nudges me with her bony elbow and shoots me a faint smile. “You know you can talk to me, right? God knows I talk your ear off on a daily basis. I can be a good listener.”
I grunt at her. Doesn’t she get that I don’t wanna talk?
But of course this is Gigi, and she blinks at me with those ridiculous, big eyes of hers, sticking her tongue out a little, and the words just rush out of me, and I’m fucking helpless to stop them.
“It’s just that... It’s a bad time, and Mrs. Lowe has been acting weird, and I’m so damn worried.”
Fuck. I rub a hand over my face and snap my mouth shut.
That’s stupid. She’s fine. Everything’s fine, even the dark mood Mr. Lowe seems to be in lately, and Sebastian’s tantrums.
“Acting weird, how?”
“Know what, forget it.”
“Just tell me, Jarett. We’re friends, or we aren’t. Friends talk to each other, okay? Take it from me.”
Again that friends thing. I’m friendzoned, it seems, and instead of being shocked she still wants to be my friend, to be around me when I’m such an asshole, I want more.
Goddammit.
“She’s forgetting stuff, and insisting she doesn’t, and I just...” I shove my hands into my pockets, roll my stiff neck. “It’s nothing.”
“It bothers you.”
“Jesus, Gigi, lay off it.” She flinches at my angry bark, and I... fuck, I don’t know what to do with the twisty feeling in my chest. “Look, it’s just that... it’s the anniversary of the death of someone I used to know.”
“Who? I’m sorry, Jarett.”
