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My eyes found her a second before it happened. She was running two steps ahead of Dylan, his hand was reaching out in the space between them, trying to catch her. And he did catch her. His fingers grabbed her ponytail while it was flying left and right over her shoulders and he pulled.
It looked playful rather than harmful.
But she screamed.
Two seconds later I was next to them.
I knew she could handle anything on her own. I had seen her defend herself in school. She also held her own with her mother, who was the scariest woman alive, but I couldn’t help myself. I punched him anyway. Straight in the chin, just like dad taught me to.
It was my first real punch. I hurt my knuckles more than I expected, but I was proud of it anyway.
My mother, who was always keeping an eye on us, materialized out of nowhere. She didn’t scold me in front of my friends. Instead she helped Dylan, but I knew I wasn’t getting out of this one. She hated everything that could be qualified as violence.
Half an hour later Dylan and Hannah left with his grandmother. Amy and Chase went home too. Clem was still hanging around. She was more than just a friend in my mother’s eyes, so she explained to us both her idea for my punishment.
“You’re staying home for two weeks. No TV, no video games.”
I was so pleased with myself for what I did, I didn’t even try to feign remorse. And that punch was worth it. I wouldn’t mind adding two more weeks if someone gave me permission to make his eye blue too.
My mother noticed my smug face and that provoked her to add a little something.
“And no visitors,” she looked at Clem. “You’ll have to go, honey. I’m sorry.”
Clem’s eyes were huge at that moment. We both couldn’t believe it. She started walking away, but then ran back to me, grabbed me in a bear hug, and squeezed hard. I hugged her back and whispered in her ear a single word, but I knew she would get it.
She left, and I immediately got upstairs to my room and glued myself to the windows, waiting. Two minutes later, I saw her doing the same in her own room. Smiles formed on both our faces while we looked at each other.
Not seeing Clem felt unmanageable the moment my mother uttered it aloud, but those two weeks turned out to be the best time I had ever spent up until then.
We both stayed in our rooms every single day. We read the same book; played the same games. We wrote each other notes on big pieces of paper and pressed them against our windows.
One day, her brother Tyler walked in her room and saw me looking at them from my house. He pointed at me and asked her something. I saw her shrug while she answered him back. I waited for mom to come and move me to a different room. She didn’t. The next day Tyler installed a TV in Clementine’s room with the screen facing my windows.
By the time the punishment ended, Clementine had gone out zero times. Just like me. She had had zero visitors. Just like me.
And when my mother finally allowed me to invite my friends over and Hannah brought Dylan along with her, I didn’t mind him staring at Clem. Because now I knew she would choose me over him.
Chapter Six
Lucas
The present
My birthday party was wild. Good looking people doing ugly ass stuff. Except me. Not this time, anyway. I promised myself to stay away from girls and alcohol during the season. Nothing was more important than football and I never let anything compromise my performance.
And I also had a nagging feeling related to my neighbor and the new guy that prevented me from having a good time. I saw them on the field the other day. She was stretching and he was ogling her ass. He was in the track team now, and it crossed my mind that I might have done him a favor by refusing to accept him in my team.
I could have tortured him during practice and kept him away from Clementine. But now they had something in common. Something that would bring them closer.
Good work, Cole. Why don’t you offer him a condom with her name on it the next time you see him?
I scanned the room. Two girls were staring at me from different corners.
Amy was sending me inviting looks ever since she got here, and I ignored them all, as usual. Even if she wasn’t my best friend’s sister, I would still avoid her. I didn’t do relationships, and I had the feeling Amy would want one from me.
Hannah Spencer, on the other hand, was sending me hateful looks as she did for the past four years, and I was so used to it, I ignored them all too. She was the captain of the cheerleaders and the most popular girl in the fucking school, but still no match to me. She was in no position of putting me down. It was exactly the other way around and she knew it. She just didn’t care. She was so loyal to that liar.
The fact I wasn’t fucking anyone tonight, or any night in the foreseeable future, wasn’t going to stop me from fantasizing about it. I was imagining a girl a few steps away from me, in a very compromising position, trying as my life depended on it not to compare her with the brunette next door, when someone smacked my back.
