A failure of such epic proportions, I deserve a special merit badge.
Then—and I hate to admit this even to myself—I flirted. I smiled. Ibantered.Not much and awkward as hell the whole time but I put in the effort. All my fear falling away in my bizarre attempt to attract him.
Like instead of wishing I never had to see him again, I wanted him to ask me out.
I need my head examined. The bite mark on my thigh itches and I rub it without thinking.
While standing in front of him, all my fear went away. The moment I leave, it floods back, twice as strong.
“Wait up,” Kari calls out from behind me.
That sounds like a terrible idea.
My stride immediately lengthens, but I soon reverse that decision and obey. Kingswood isn’t large enough to avoid her for long and I’m already trembling from the unexpected encounter with Lachlan. To have his girlfriend chase me around the school grounds isn’t ideal. My nerves are shattered enough without a stalker sending my internal drama alert system into overdrive.
I pull up after walking outside through the double doors, holding the left one open so she can walk straight through. “Yeah?”
She doesn’t speak, instead using the opportunity to give me a thorough once-over.
“Would you like a picture instead?” I ask in a voice made ten times snarkier through my still-mounting anxiety.
“Thanks to Lock, I’ve got all the photos of you I’ll ever need.”
Kari tilts her head as her words stab a shard of pure anxiety through my centre.Photos? What photos?At what point of the evening had he decided to take photos? My brain fizzes like an early morning Berocca.
“You know who I am, right?”
I nod, scratching at my thigh, my mind more occupied with the thought of what Lachlan might have captured on camera than it is about stroking his girlfriend’s ego. Still, when my gesture doesn’t appear to satisfy her, I say, “Yes.”
“And who is that?”
The bell for end-of-break goes and I turn toward my next class, but Kari reaches out, pinching the sleeve of my hoodie between her fingers to hold me back. I sigh and turn back to her. “You’re Kari Abercrombie. Your dad works with Creighton McManus.”
She calmly stares at me, perfect from head to toe. Her hair is casually styled, the long dark curls falling artfully over her right shoulder, pulled across from the left side.
I could spend thousands on clothing and never get it to look as simplistically elegant as hers. From the polished two-tone shoes with their mid-height heel to the cashmere scarf looped around her neck, there’s nothing out of place.
Standing next to her with my three hours sleep, dollar store makeup, and my hair scraped back into a ponytail because I just couldn’t this morning—reallyjust couldn’t—I must look like a different species. A thoroughbred mare standing next to a wart encrusted toad.
No wonder she and Lachlan are a thing. I bet he’d never dare to leave a bite mark on her toned body.
My head snaps down and I close my eyes, breathing in through my nose and trying to hold it. Desperate to abort my panic attack before it arrives.
I don’t know whether to poke and prod at the fragile memories, to see if they bring up more than they have already, or leave them alone, safer with blankness than I might be with whatever images it could scrape together.
“And…?”
The sharp note that enters Kari’s voice tells me what she wants me to say. “And you’re going out with Lachlan McManus.”
She steps closer to me, ignoring the students as they push past us, clumsy in their haste to get to class before second bell.
“I’m going out with Lachlan. That’s right. And what did you do last night?”
I flirt briefly with telling her the truth. That I don’t know. Not fully. That there’s a big scary gap in my evening and I don’t know if I ever want to fill it with the memory. Because what else is my forgetting but an attempt to protect myself? To stop myself from getting stuck in last night, stuck to the point I never move on. Never shake free of it.
The big scary blank space might be the only way I can go back to my normal life.
“If you have a problem with how your boyfriend treats you, maybe take it up with him. I don’t owe you anything.” I turn aside, my pulse racing so fast that I feel good. I feelpumped.I could run to the moon and back without needing to draw breath.
