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I can’t help the pang of anguish in my chest at the sinking realization. Understanding settling in. I guess my memories of Eli will stay just that. He is one of them now.
Still, I give Cole what he wants. “It’s clear, isn’t it?”
The tips of my mouth rise. His eyes sharpen, tracking my expression. Cole too calculating to play the fool.
“You got tired of being smarter than Finn all the time and needed some competition.”
Well, mostly give him what he wants.
Cole’s eyes stay hooded. He looks bored, like my presence means nothing to him. I feel a flutter in my chest and I’m not sure why.
Rolling his bottom lip between his teeth, he never breaks the connection. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Don’t you?” I fire back.
If he was taken aback by my comment, he didn’t show it. Instead, the edge of his tooth pops off his lip, a smile curving at the corner.
I had changed. Shedding my chrysalis like a butterfly and earning my wings. Speaking my mind, my second favorite hobby.
I have an itch in the back of my throat. Cole’s proximity too close. I was losing my edge with every passing second. The tension between us constricting.
“Don’t think that just because you’re back, it means anything’s changed. You will always stay the outcast.”
I don’t need the reminder; I know what I am.
Taking a step, I straighten my spine. The collision of everything building up. The storm in my head finally surging at his unnecessary warning.
He doesn’t move. We are less than a foot apart. His eyes are tracking my every breath, hovering over me.
“You think I like it here?” I spit out. Feeling like a living flame. “That Iwantto be here? That I enjoy being harassed,threatened? Any of this?”
His face goes hard as stone. He doesn’t share my excitement.
“So leave,” he grits out. “You did once, you can do it again.”
Cole is right. I left before, but it wasn’t of my choosing. I had been forced out after a single summer. Shipped back to my mother like I was a package being returned to the sender.
“Maybe try and be a little more creative this time.” Cole utters the words like the true devil he is.
I swallow thickly, a lump forming in my throat. He catches it, eyes darkening to the shade of his onyx-colored hair. Cole is in his element. Being cruel his favorite amusement.
I don’t bother explaining it was an accident. He wouldn’t care.
No one does.
Eli takes a sudden step, forcing me back.
“Go,” he tells me. It’s faint, but he stresses the single word.
Cole’s eyes flick from Eli to me and back. He doesn’t move other than the small tic that now settles in his jaw, his feet planting in his spot. Eli is firm in his stance, partially blocking me.
No one moves, a quiet battle of wills settling between the pair.
I startle, quickly recovering. A flexing arm directly in my line of vision blocks me when I attempt to do what Eli says. Ithadbeen the perfect excuse to leave.
Cole leans down, meeting me at my eye level. My insides turn uneasy, but he sees none of that. My exterior void. His hold solid on the wall, caging me in.
Blaming the pounding in my chest on his fast movements and nothing else. I am trapped in his fleeting glare.
