NINE #3
That comment forced her eyebrows to inch towards her hairline. “And that’s one of the problems. Kieran Rook is no one’s knight in shining armour.”
Stepping back, I leaned against the stone wall of the main building, suddenly feeling hot and bothered. “What do I do about it?”
Halo gestured with her hands as she watched me with a hint of sympathy. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Great.
Noticing my deflated expression, Halo perked up. “Look, Kieran will shut it down if he isn’t happy about it. I just thought you should know. When we walk into the canteen, you’ll probably be stared at. Although, as the new girl, surely you expected that anyway?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ve been there and done that, and I moved here from a different country. When I first arrived, I was treated like I was from another planet, but now I belong here, just like you will.”
Her nice words didn’t make me feel any better. My head was a mass of unanswerable questions. Everything was so uncertain. Part of me missed my old life, the filth and the chaos. Yes, it wasn’t normal or pleasant, but it was familiar and predictable.
Halo stepped towards me; her head tilted at that angle I had seen far too much over the last few days. “Are you sorry I said anything?”
Pushing off the wall, I shook my head. “No, I’d rather know. I can be prepared, I suppose.”
“And you will be. I think we’re going to be the best of friends, Amelie.”
The girl was genuine, I was good at reading people, and I felt thankful that we met at the party.
“I’d like that.”
“Come on then, I’ll take you to Miss Hanson’s class. She’s a great music teacher. And at lunch, you can tell me how it went.”
“OK. I said I’d meet Jessa too.”
“The more the merrier. Maybe she can fill in the blanks about a rumour I heard the other day about her brother.”
“Another one?” I said, feeling dread pump through me.
“No, not about Kieran. Lincoln. Have you met him?” Halo said her cheekbones flushed with excitement. The girl liked to talk about people, it appeared.
“Yes, many times.”
Falling into step beside her, I braced myself for her next words.
“Well,” she began, tucking into my side again. “I heard that Lincoln has been shagging Miss Hanson.”
Yep. Halo Dumas was most probably the school gossip. And what did I know about people who gossip from the psychology books I had read?
Gossips live by the sword and die by it. They spend so much time talking behind other people’s backs that they naturally assume everyone else is doing the same to them. They are the catalyst for creating constant anxiety and paranoia.
Two emotions I was attempting to steer clear of.
And it was only day one. Shit.
KIERAN
After seeing Amelie staring at me through the door, I couldn’t concentrate on maths, and the next two lessons were a bust. Everyone was acting cagey, and I didn’t know why until the bell went off for lunch and I checked my phone.
WEST: Dog, everyone’s talking about you going all caveman and carrying some rando from my house on Saturday.
I didn’t reply and scrolled to the next. It was from Tanner.
TANNER: The sharks are out for your little housemates' blood.
The sharks were the mean girls at our school
TANNER: Aaron Blake told Carl Gibson that he’s met the girl of his dreams.
Fuck.
I’d spent all of Sunday at Weston’s house, clearing up the party and strategising how I intended to concentrate on getting my house in order.
After my actions during and after the party, keeping my distance from Amelie at school was paramount. It sounded like her arrival had already fractured the social hierarchy, triggering instant hostility from the girls and feral desperation from the guys.
The entire campus was in speculation mode.
Gossip about me carrying her out of Weston’s party was spreading like a virus, and I needed to nip that in the bud pronto.
I approached the school's second biggest gossip (Halo Dumas being the first), feeding her the exact lie I’d sold my friends: Amelie Thorn was just my stepmother’s niece, crashing with us for a few weeks.
The lie didn’t stop the feeding frenzy as people blatantly discussed it during breaktime.
I continued to bat any comments off with an eye roll here and there, but by lunchtime, that shit still hadn’t settled.
“So, that’s the girl living at your house? Fuck me, dude, you lucky bastard,” a guy in my form class said when Amelie walked into the lunchroom with Halo and Jessa. I didn’t even know his name. I purposefully didn’t look at her as the girls joined the back of the lunch queue.
That was the broken record playing for the rest of that day, and it started to grate on my nerves.
As I spotted Amelie a couple of times during class changes, I couldn’t ignore the fact that she was drawing attention, especially from the boys.
I even saw Anthony Knox carrying her bag between lessons.
They had no idea how close they were to the edge of seeing me lose my shit.
Every time Amelie’s name slipped past another guy's teeth, my knuckles fisted, a sickening urge dragging me toward painting the hallway walls with their insides. It hadn’t been easy, but I choked the rage down.
I had to look utterly unfazed by the girl consuming my every waking thought.
The fact that the same girl had attempted to capture my attention, and I ignored her, raised a few eyebrows.
If anything, my coldness probably fed the fucking fire.
Saturday night had changed everything; Amelie Thorn saw me as her saviour now.
It was a lethal title and one I couldn’t afford to keep.
I was already obsessed with her, and the speed of my interest was alarming.
She was like a chemical high; the emotions she evoked were better than anything I’d ever smoked, a beautiful illusion that would inevitably crash.
Just like all things that were too good to be true did.
No good would come from giving in to the weakness I felt.
Amelie was also the type of girl who would need to be loved, and that wasn’t something I was capable of.
Not romantically anyway. Girls were a means to an end for me as I was for them if they were brave enough to admit it.
I wouldn’t allow anything to tie me down, stop me from leaving and starting new somewhere else. Fuck, maybe I’d travel, see the world.
Thankfully, different year groups meant different timetables—my only saving grace. It would allow me to continue to avoid her. Well, except for the daily minefield of morning break and lunchtime.
When I arrived home later that evening after basketball practice, everyone was eating supper at the kitchen table.
I wasn’t a complete dick; I exchanged a few words here and there and answered Vanessa when she asked about my day.
Amelie smiled at me between mouthfuls of whatever shit they were eating.
I just grabbed an apple and made my way up to my room.
After going over the questions from the maths lesson I choked on, I had a shower, and then went to check on Maisy.
And there she was, sitting on the edge of my little sister's bed, reading her a fucking story.
Annoyance pooled in my gut as I stepped back so neither of them saw me.
Amelie Thorn was everywhere. There was no fucking escape. And now she was in the process of stealing my sister’s attention from me.
When I went downstairs later that night, I could hear Vanessa and Cameron talking about Adam Thorn, Amelie’s brother. Their voices were muffled, but when I heard my father mention the pool house, I was inside the kitchen like a bullet.
“Everything OK, son,” Cameron said from his slouched position against the work units. Vanessa turned and faced me with a smile. Or was it a smile? Her lips were curled at the sides, but her expression hinted at something. But what? Guilt?
“What are you guys talking about?” I questioned as I went to open the fridge.
The atmosphere in the room got heavier.
Cameron cleared his throat as I withdrew a bottle of water and slammed the fridge. “Nothing much, Vanessa was saying that Amelie’s first day went well.”
“Good for Amelie,” I replied as I cut him a look. Twisting the cap off the bottle, I threw it into the bin and gave them both my full attention.
“Don’t be like that, Kieran.”
“Be like what?”
“A little prick,” my father huffed without batting an eyelid. Vanessa looked at her husband in horror.
“Cameron!” Yep, my dad, ladies and gentlemen, what a man.
“It’s fine, Vanessa. I’m used to it. He’s hardly parent of the year.
” Lifting the bottle to my lips, I drank the entire thing.
How I didn’t choke was anyone’s guess. The motion allowed me time to think.
My father hadn’t called me that in a while, and although I’d sell my left nut before I admitted it to anyone. It hurt.
And then came the lecture. I pretended to listen for the time it took Cameron to offload his usual rant, then left the house for a run.
I needed to work that entire day out of my system before I said or did something I would surely regret.