Chapter 3 #2
I sling my bag over one shoulder and move between the beds, careful with every step. My eyes stay low, locked on the floorboards instead of the faces around me.
The hallway smells like mildew and teenage despair. I pass the chipped mirror by the front door without glancing at it. I don’t want to see my face. Not today. Not when I already know I look like shit.
Outside, the sun is too bright for the way I feel. It slams against my eyes and turns the world harsh, a spotlight I never asked for.
Cassie waits at the gate. She leans against the chain-link fence with her hips cocked and her head tilted, the picture of someone daring the world to try her.
The lollipop juts out of her mouth, bright red against her smudged lipstick, the stick resting between fingers stained with ink from drawing on herself. Her eyeliner is thick, smeared at the corners, more war paint than makeup.
Her hoodie hangs open, showing the black tank top underneath, the faded name of her obsession stretched across it.
Broken Oasis. The four guys she never shuts up about, the only band she claims actually gets it, the ones she swears saved her life one song at a time.
Black combat boots on her feet are scuffed to hell, laces trailing loose, threatening to trip her but never quite daring.
She has been my friend since I was ten.
We met in a different foster home, one where fists spoke louder than words. The walls there carried bruises the same way we did. We learned early that survival meant silence.
We have been through enough shit together to skip the small talk. We don’t do it. We don’t talk about feelings either. That is our rule. We keep it sharp, keep it shallow, because going deeper means bleeding and neither of us can afford more scars.
But she is here every morning, waiting at the gate, lollipop between her teeth and eyes scanning the world for trouble. That is her version of love, and it is worth more than every empty promise I have ever been handed.
“You look like shit,” she says, the words muffled around the candy stick. She pushes off the fence and falls into step beside me.
“I feel worse,” I mutter, tugging my sleeves down over my hands until only my fingertips show.
“Late night?” she asks, her voice flat, no judgment in it, just curiosity.
I shrug. I don’t give her anything else, and she doesn’t press. She never does. That is part of why she is still here.
We pass the liquor store. The metal grate is halfway down, the sign in the window still buzzing weakly. An old man is slumped against a wall, a bottle in his hand, chin resting on his chest. He isn’t dead, not yet, but the smell rolling off him says he’s close enough to dream about it.
We keep walking, past the corner where two girls we know used to turn tricks until one of them didn’t come back.
Cassie tucks her hands into the pocket of her jeans, shoulders hunched against the morning air. “I saw Rivera last night.”
My spine stiffens before I can stop it.
I keep my eyes fixed straight ahead on the cracked pavement. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says again, drawing it out this time. “On Main. With that Samantha bitch who still thinks I give a shit about her opinions.”
My mouth goes sour, a bitter taste coating the back of my throat.
I try to swallow it down, force it into silence the way I do with everything else, but it sticks and refuses to move.
He was with someone else. After talking to me on that rooftop. After the laugh I swore I wouldn’t let matter.
I don’t know why I let myself believe it meant anything. One scrap of honesty under the stars. That’s all it was. Nothing more.
He probably does that with every girl. He talks just enough to make them think they matter, drops a grin sharp enough to convince them they’re special.
That is Zane Rivera.
Always chasing something he will never keep, always restless, always reaching for the next warm body to distract him from whatever ghosts won’t let him sleep.
Still, it stings. It shouldn’t. But it burns straight through me all the same.
“Don’t worry,” Cassie adds, her tone dry, the words rolling out slow as if they might soften the blow. “He looked bored.”
I grunt. The sound barely passing for a response.
My eyes stay locked on the cracked sidewalk. A weed has forced its way up through the concrete. I press my boot down on it until the stem snaps and the leaves crumple.
She changes the subject without warning, steering us away from danger as if it never existed.
We trade cheap shots at Mr. Dalton’s teeth, the way they are stained the color of old paper.
We roll our eyes at the fact that Liza still drenches herself in perfume so strong it lingers in the hallway long after she is gone.
We bitch about the vending machines that never stock what they promise, spitting out stale Cheezels and disappointment in equal measure.
It is better this way. The petty complaints. The pointless noise that keeps the real shit buried where it belongs.
By the time we reach the school gates, my chest is tight and my heart is beating like a fucking war drum.
We pass the cliques one by one, each group locked into their little kingdoms.
The cheerleaders cluster together with their glossy lips and sharper eyes, their whispers curling through the air sweet as poison.
The jocks with shoulders too broad and egos even broader, swagger dripping off them in waves that drown out what little sense they have.
The drama kids sprawl across benches in thrift-store jackets and scarves even though it is warm, reciting lines no one asked to hear, pretending every gesture is profound.
No one says a word to us. Their eyes do the talking, sliding over us with that mix of judgment and curiosity that never changes.
We walk straight through the middle of them, our heads high. Every step is its own middle finger, even if we never lift our hands.
Inside, the school hums with life.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, a high-pitched whine that worms into your skull until it feels like static under your skin. Lockers slam shut with the subtlety of gunfire, metal on metal rattling down the hall.
And then I see him.
Zane.
He is slouched against the vending machine.
His arms are crossed, shoulders loose, head tilted just enough to show he does not give a shit about anyone passing by.
A smirk is already forming on his mouth that promises trouble before he even opens it.
He doesn’t need an audience. The room bends toward him anyway, pulled in by gravity that no one can explain.
His eyes find mine across the crowded hallway. He just stares straight through me as if he already knows where the cracks are.
I shoot him a glare so sharp it could peel the skin from his bones. My eyes narrow, every ounce of fury sharpened, meant to cut him down.
He doesn’t flinch.
The bastard drinks it in, savoring the way I burn, twisting my fury to fuel that smirk of his getting wider.
I lift my middle finger high enough for him to see it clear and keep walking without breaking stride.
Cassie snorts beside me. “You two gonna make out or murder each other?”
We slide into our usual seats in the middle of the room, Cassie beside me, always closest to the door.
She says it is for the view, but I know the truth. Cassie always chooses the exit, always lines herself up with the fastest escape.
The desks around us are relics, covered in the ghosts of kids who probably don’t even walk these halls anymore.
Initials are carved into the wood in sloppy hearts with declarations of forever that probably ended the next week.
Black marker scars the surface too, one desk proudly screaming “suck it” in uneven letters, the ink faded but still legible.
Another has a crude dick sketched in blue biro, balls lopsided, lines overlapping as if the artist was laughing too hard to steady their hand.
Cassie drops her bag on the floor, slouching so far in her chair it looks like her spine gave up. She blows a strand of hair from her face and digs a pen out of her boot. It’s chewed and leaking ink. It leaves smudges on her fingers. She doesn’t care.
I pretend to organize my shit, dragging it out like a ritual that might make me invisible.
I pull my books from my bag and set them in a neat stack, the edges lined up with obsessive precision, as if order can disguise the chaos in my head. I pick up my pen and click it three times, the hollow sound filling the space where thought should be.
He is not here.
Not yet.
Maybe he is skipping this class today.
Maybe Samantha texted him and he is busy getting off with her, chasing the same easy distraction he always does.
I try not to care. That he is just another boy with a smirk and fists scarred from bad decisions.
But denial only gets me so far. Because I feel him before I see him.
The air shifts and my pulse betrays me. My body knows he has arrived before my eyes confirm it.
I lower my eyes to my notebook as if it holds the answer to something important. The page is blank, but I stare at it anyway. Staring is easier than looking up at him. Plus it’s safer.
He stops in front of our table.
His shadow falls over my desk, stretching across the empty page, but I keep my head down.
The toe of his boot nudges the leg of my chair. Then again.
A little harder this time, as if he is daring me to acknowledge him.
Still, I pretend not to register it. I let my pen hover above the paper.
Cassie stills for a moment beside me. Then her pen scratches across the margin of her notebook, but it is nothing more than a performance. She’s pretending to doodle, lines and swirls looping over one another. She lives for this kind of theater, the quiet chaos before the explosion.
Zane leans forward, invading my space without hesitation.
His voice drops low, carrying that weight that coils straight down my spine.
His breath ghosts against my ear. “Are you always this cold in the morning, or is it just me?” he murmurs.