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The weeks that follow our trip to New York are some of the happiest of my life. Sebastian has shown me the kind of love I only thought existed in romance books and fairy-tales. He’s turned out to be the polar opposite of who I once thought he was and exactly what I had been missing in my life. But I’m also painfully aware that our days together could very well be numbered.
All I want to do is pause time, hold onto the moments with Sebastian while I can, but it seems like the tighter I try to grasp it the further out of my reach it slips. December turns into January and January into February with no signs of slowing down.
I’ve become one ofthosegirls. You know, the ones who are so wrapped up in a boy that everything else just kind of falls to the wayside. Yeah, that’s me. I know it. My friends know it. My mom knows it. We all know it, and yet there’s nothing I can do to change it. Every second that I’m not with Sebastian feels like I’m suffocating. He says it’s the same for him too, though sometimes I wonder if I’m holding on a little more tightly than he is.
“Hey.” Bree stops by my locker just as I close it, pulling me from the inner turmoil that haunts me daily.
“Hey. Everything okay?” I ask, concern lacing my voice. It’s not like Bree to just show up at my locker out of the blue, unless of course, something’s wrong.
“Yeah, fine.” She does a crap job of lying to me. “I just…”
“What?” I urge her to continue.
“I just ran into Blake.” She lets out a slow breath. “With his tongue rammed down Ava Balinsky’s throat.”
“God, that asshole,” I seethe, hating what he put Bree through and what he continues to put her through every day.
It’s bad enough that in just four months she is going to be having his baby, and he has yet to even acknowledge it since everything went down at Sebastian’s Halloween party. But to parade girl after girl in front of her face to purposely hurt her is low even for a guy like him.
He’s lucky he’s still able to walk around these halls freely after what he put Bree through. If it were up to me he would be in jail for putting his hands on my friend. But Bree being Bree, she insisted on letting things go. I think a part of her still loves him even after everything he did to her.
“It pisses me off that he thinks I even care who he kisses.” She crosses her arms in front of herself. “Stupid bitch can have him. Maybe she’ll get lucky, and he won’t knock her around like he did me.”
To someone outside looking in, Bree almost seems completely unaffected by the mess Blake has made of her life… Almost. She’s always been a good actress, always putting on a show for everyone. But over the past few months, I’ve seen the holes in her exterior. She’s still hurting over what Blake put her through, and then, of course, there’s the baby and the fact that she’s going to be a single mom at seventeen. If I was her, I’m pretty sure I’d have fallen apart a hundred times over by now.
“Who cares what he thinks.” I give her a reassuring smile, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “You’re way too good for him anyway, always have been.”
“Someone needs to tell his ass that, knock him down a few pegs.” She walks directly next to me as we make our way down the hall.
“Trust me, he already knows. Right now, he’s just throwing a temper tantrum, showing his ass because he knows how bad he messed up. He’s lucky Sebastian hasn’t killed him after what he pulled at Halloween.”
“You’re so lucky to have him,” Bree interrupts before I can say more. “Sebastian,” she clarifies. “The way he looks at you…” She trails off for a long moment, her right hand settling on top of her swollen belly. “What I wouldn’t give to have someone look at me that way.”
“Someday someone will,” I promise. “You’ll see.”
“I doubt it. Who’s going to want me after this?” She gestures to her belly. “I’m tarnished goods now.”
“Don’t say that. You are not. That baby is going to be an extension of you, and when you meet someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved, he’s going to love your child just as much.”
“You’re way too optimistic for your own good.” She rolls her eyes, stopping outside of her math class.
“I can’t help it. I just know things are going to work out—for all of us.”
“I hope you’re right.” She gives me a half-hearted smile. “I gotta go. Mr. Jenkins will have my ass if I’m late again.”
“Have fun.” I give her a half wave before picking up the pace, dipping into my Economics class just as the bell rings.
***
“Oh my god, Tess, I just heard.” Courtney slides down next to me at the lunch table where Bree and I are already planted. “LSU, that’s incredible.”
I’m instantly confused by her statement, but try to hide the fact that I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Sebastian must be over the moon right now,” she continues. “A full scholarship. God, that man really does get everything he wants.”
It takes several moments for her words to sink in and once they do, I feel like the floor is falling out beneath me. My chest tightens and suddenly I feel like it’s near impossible to pull in a breath.
“Tess?” Courtney looks at me, her eyes wide in bewilderment. It takes a solid minute for realization to dawn, and the second it does all the color drains from her face.
