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“Why?” I asked, getting furious, feeling betrayed by them all. “Because I spoke the truth?”
“Question,” Toby said. “Why did you say that when you don’t even like having your own background thrown in your face? You did to her exactly what you hate having done to yourself. That’s unfair.”
Everyone fell silent and stared at Toby in complete shock. Holy shit. He just went all smart and shit.
His head whipped around as he looked from one person to another. “What?”
“When the hell did you get all smart?” Paxon asked.
“Seriously?” He looked offended. “I’m capable of saying something good every once in a while.”
We laughed it off, breaking the tension that had been building between us and suffocating me. Being in opposition with the guys always stressed me out.
“Fine.” I sighed, because Toby was right. I’d done to her what I didn’t like people doing to me. It had rankled and hit too many spots when she asked about Seth getting help from his parents. “I’ll apologize, just don’t expect anything else from me. I only stated the truth. She wears nice clothes. I saw her fancy car and her new fancy house. Shit, just look at the neighborhood. Half the houses there aren’t cheap.”
Paxon smacked my back. “Good, you can do it first period, since you have calc with her.”
I grumbled just as the bell rang, and we split up to go to our classes.
Walking through the halls was like fighting through a warzone. There were so many people trying to make it to their lockers or classes on time because no one wanted detention on the first day of classes. And our school really was too big. There were well over a thousand students who attended.
The moment I got to class, I spotted Cadence. She sat near the back by the window. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared out the window, not even paying attention to the other students filling up the seats around her. The longer I stared at her, the more I was sure she had been in some of my other classes in the past.She did nothing to stand out. She didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t smile or meet anyone else’s eyes. She was the quiet girl in the back of the classroom, wrapped up in her own little world.
No one noticed her. No one cared about her existence. She was practically a ghost.
Regret welled up.
If her life was anything like my own, it wasn’t as easy as people thought it was. There were expectations on top of expectations with no room for failure. I was only sane because the guys refused to leave me alone, even when I did my best to disappear from the world. I had them at least.
Who did Cadence have? When she was stuck in her own little world, who was there to pull her back out of it?
I slowly walked over, trying to come up with an appropriate apology but unable to think of one. Apologies weren’t something I was used to making.
I set my bag down in the seat next to her and turned to face her, taking in a deep breath. My palms had turned sweaty with nerves. How did the idea of saying I’m sorry to her turn me into a nervous wreck?
“Cadence,” I said in a low voice.
Her body stiffened, and her gaze snapped back into focus. She turned and winced when she realized it was me. Her mouth parted, and I watched the movement, noting the sharp intake of breath.
“Bryan.” Her musical voice breathed out so softly, I barely heard her. My first assessment of her yesterday was that she was one of those quiet types. She watched, observed, and only said enough to get away with not talking much. She was almost like Justin, but where Justin was just a quiet dude, Cadence was more of a chameleon, trying to disappear in the background.
I swallowed and glanced around the classroom, noticing others watching me. I had purposely made myself standoffish at school to keep the others away and for the most part it worked. But everyone knew who I was and what I had to offer them. Unlike Cadence, I couldn’t disappear. My neck prickled at the unwanted attention, and I had to shove down my irritation. I ignored them and settled into the chair next to her. Opening my mouth to do my spiel for forgiveness, she interrupted me.
“Unless you mean it, don’t,” she said. I snapped my mouth shut.
Well, shit. My anger boiled, and I glared at her. “I don’t understand why I need to apologize for speaking the truth.”
She snickered, actually snickered, and I had to reassess her.
“The truth? You mean what you perceive the truth to be. Let me guess, you made all those assumptions based on your past experiences. What are you, a trust fund baby? Did people hurt your feelings because you have what they want so they use you?”
My lip curled into disgust. “What do you know about being used?”
She scoffed and turned her focus back out the window. Her next words were low, probably not meant to be heard, but I heard them all the same. “I know more than you think.”
I was going to respond, not even sure with what, but then the bell rang and the teacher decided to start homeroom without wasting another second. And no matter how hard I tried to catch her attention, she refused to look at me. She easily dismissed me like my own parents often did, and it pissed me off even more.
Chapter Eight
