Chapter 33 #2
“You dumbass.” Juliet laughs, using her head to direct my eyes. “Ten. O. Clock.”
I follow her line of sight as we approach the quad, finding that she’s directing my attention to the three boys sitting under the big oak tree at the edge of the building. Cigarettes hang in between their lips while they stare out into the day and talk quietly.
What I would give to kiss those three sets of lips again.
“Oh…” I breathe out, admiring them from afar before I get too close that I have to look away.
Right before I make the decision to turn away, Beckham lifts his eyes, and his gaze connects with mine. My stomach burns with nerves and need and fear, but I can’t get my gaze to let go of his—we’re like two magnets, fighting that natural pull keeping us together.
When he smiles, I smile back, feeling the caress of his gaze from across the quad, and another shiver runs down my spine. Not from the cold this time.
The other two Hallows Boys don’t look up from what they’re doing, Kaiden on his phone and Vinny scribbling something in a notebook. Beckham doesn’t bring their attention to me, giving us the intimate connection we both need after not speaking for almost a week.
I finally rip my eyes away from him when I reach the doors for the cafeteria, and follow Juliet inside to get some breakfast, feeling more alone and hungrier for them than I’ve been since the first moment I saw them.
I arrive at Creative Writing before anyone else. The teacher is the only person in the room, and I’m thankful since this is my class with Beckham. I haven’t fully decided I miss the boys enough to let them back in yet, even though I feel them in my skin like scars too deep to heal.
Juliet walks in just as I’m finding my seat, following behind me and sitting down at the desk at my right, then the classroom slowly fills with students, setting me on edge.
Biting down painfully on my cheek, I twist my fingers together and focus on them.
“What’s wrong?” Juliet asks.
“Anxiety,” I mumble through my teeth, looking over at her.
She leans down and slips her hand into her backpack, pulling out her flask and holding it out to me. But I shake her off, not wanting to make myself even more vulnerable.
Beckham still hasn’t arrived as the professor steps up to the board and welcomes us. My mind grows busy with disappointment and serenity all at once as my anxiety calms, except there’s a part of me that wanted to see him, to smell him, to talk to him.
Just as the professor starts the lesson, and I’m digging around in my bag for a notebook and pen, the classroom door bangs open, and Beckham appears.
“Sorry, we’re late,” he says, a grin tugging at his plump lips up. I find his gaze across the room at the same time he finds mine, and a burning pit opens in my gut, and then the other two Hallows Boys are walking through the door into the classroom as well.
“Find your seats, please,” the teacher says with a sigh, and I barely register the words as the three boys who haunt my mind walk across the room, right toward me.
Kaiden leads the other two up the aisle close to where I’m sitting, then he taps his knuckles on the top of the desk in front of mine, signaling for the guy sitting there to get up.
Beckham and Vinny do the same, removing the students from the desks next to me and behind me, and sitting in their places.
Once they’re surrounding me, each seated, I expect them to say something, but they don’t. They just face forward and listen as the teacher begins talking again.
Turning my head, I look over at Juliet, who’s pressing her lips together to keep herself from laughing, and it makes me snort.
A few seconds go by, then I feel Vinny lean into my hair and whisper against my ear, “Something funny?”
Chills travel down my back, and I shake my head in response, making him lean away again.
I swallow over my dry throat, and when the teacher turns around to write something on the white board, I lean forward into Kaiden’s nape and breathe him in. He stiffens, and I find the confidence to speak. “What are you guys doing here?”
He turns his head slightly, and I pull away to look at him better.
“Sit down and pay attention to the lesson, Sage,” he says quietly, then he picks up his pen to start taking notes in his notebook. I feel breathless and dizzy from their proximity as I sit straight back down and glance at Beckham, who’s staring at me from my left.
His mouth curves into a smile as our gazes meet, and it makes my lips twitch into a happy expression as well.
He looks down at the paper on his desk, scribbling something with his pen. After a moment, he turns the paper upwards so I can read what it says.
I miss you.
I smile wider and look down at my desk, where my fingers are still twisting together from painful anxiety.
I don’t want to be that cliché girl who relies on a guy—or three—to cope with her shit, and maybe that’s the reason I pushed them away in the first place.
Or maybe it’s because loss is so prominent in my life, and I can’t risk getting attached to them.
It's too late, though. I’m attached. They consume my mind like pieces of me that were always missing.