Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
CORI
He’s reckless, and he’s dangerous. He’s everything I told myself I didn’t need when I moved here. Everything I needed so desperately to stay away from.
Staring at his black cast and the line of girls waiting to “make it all better” makes me sick. It’s almost like he enjoys the pain, like he will physically hurt himself to overpower the pain he can’t see. The pain that won’t heal like his broken arm.
I want to hold him, to bury my head into his chest while we both just sit. No talking, no fighting, just allowing ourselves to feel each other. It seems like we say the most when we are silent anyway because the second he opens his mouth, he says things to hurt me and push me away.
He infuriates me. He pushes every one of my buttons, and right when I open up just a smidge with him, he makes me regret it. Every time.
The worst part about it all is that I was falling for Carson. I wanted a friend, but the truth is that Carson is so much more than that. He is a safe place for me, just like he is for Nash.
I round the corner of the hall, between the lunchroom and vocational, and I hear Nash calling my name.
Shit.
I can’t do this right now. He didn’t want me there the other night, so he doesn’t get this conversation now. I see Ms. Mason standing down the hallway outside her office, so I move a little faster to get there, pretending I don’t hear Nash calling my name.
I’d know it was him by his voice but what really sets him apart is the fact he is calling me—insert eye roll here—Corinne.
I barge by Ms. Mason into her office, pulling her by the hand and closing her door, locking it. I release the air from my lungs, relieved.
“Cori, are you okay?” she chirps, rounding her desk, motioning to the chair in front of it for me to sit. Her strawberry blonde hair hangs by her shoulders. She’s pretty and young, and something about her is comforting to me. She gives off big sister vibes or something.
“I’m fine. Sorry about that. I just have had enough of the Legacy shark tank for one day.”
She chuckles, “That bad?”
“Yes, no… I’m fine, really. I just needed to get away from him.”
“Him as in Nash Langdon?” she raises her brow in suspicion.
“That’s the one.”
“What have you done to get on his bad side?”
Oh, nothing besides kissing him when he had a girlfriend years ago, blowing up his family, coming back to his town, and kissing him again. I think to myself, but instead, I say, “Nothing.”
“So he’s chasing you down the hall for no reason?”
“Yep,” I lie.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the little show he put on in the cafeteria a couple weeks ago, would it?”
Right. The whole standing on a table and telling anyone who was thinking of talking to me that they would regret it.
“He’s a narcissistic sociopath.”
She stares at me, waiting for me to continue.
“He’s arrogant and reckless!” I finish. “He… ugh, he’s just… I hate him!”
She leans back into her chair with her arms crossed, a smile flirting with the edge of her mouth, causing it to tilt upward.
“What could possibly be funny?” I spit.
“Nothing,” she smiles. “Except sometimes love can look a lot like hate.”
I roll my eyes, “I do not love him.”
“Okay,” she agrees.
That’s it? She says something like that and then just says, okay?
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know much about you, but you don’t seem like the type to be so bothered by someone you hate.”
I think about the other night, how I felt lying next to Nash, waking up in his clothes. She’s right.
“You’re right,” I sneer. “You don’t know anything about me.”
She sits forward in her chair, “I do know about boys like Nash.”
I glance around her office, painted pictures lining a bulletin board, along with photos of her and a little girl on her desk. She doesn’t look old enough to be a mom.
“Is that your sister?” I ask. “She’s adorable.”
“No,” she smiles, picking up a gold frame, staring at it. “That’s my daughter, Ellie.”
“You don’t look old enough to have a daughter,” I blurt.
“Well, sometimes fate doesn’t care how old you are.”
I want to ask where the father is and why he’s not in any of the photos, but I don’t. Maybe that’s what she meant when she said she knew boys like Nash. Boys that will make you crazy, get you pregnant, and bolt.
No, thank you.
He’s probably gone by now, but I hesitate to leave. There’s just something about Ms. Mason that I like, something that I trust.
“She dances,” she smiles. “She likes to dance.”
“I used to,” I admit. “It doesn’t feel right anymore. Not without my friends.”
“Do you want to talk about that?” she asks.
“Not really. I just wish things could go back to how they used to be. You know… before.”
She sits back in her chair, “Cori, I’m not going to tell you it’s okay or tell you that it gets better. You don’t need any more of that. What I will tell you is that there is no more before, and now you have to focus on after.”
Is that what she did?
“That’s easier said than done.”
“Maybe you should start doing things that used to make you happy and see if it makes you happy here too?”
She slides a post-it note across the desk at me that she’s scribbled on, with a woman’s name and phone number on it. It’s not ugly and yellow like a regular teacher would use; instead, it’s pink. Happy.
“What’s this?”
She smiles, “A little before mixed in the after.”
Unsure of what she means, I grab the note and shove it into my pocket to avoid being rude. Even though I want to dance again, not even this lady on the post-it note can ease the pain I feel when my body moves to the music, each movement more excruciating than the last.
I can’t dance anymore.
I stand to walk out of her office, practically charging the door. Pausing with my hand on the knob, I turn back to her, “Tell her to enjoy dancing while she’s little. When you get older, it just keeps getting harder and harder to walk.”
Before she can respond, I exit. The sorrow behind her eyes for what she thinks happened makes me sick. I feel my heart start to race as my lungs try to keep up with it, the tears stinging my eyes. Why can’t he just leave me alone?
Just ruin someone else’s life, Nash Langdon. I’ve done a pretty great job at ruining my own.
Unable to breathe, I feel my feet start to pound against the tile floor as I run to the bathroom. I break out into a cold sweat as I push the stall door open to vomit, the contents of my stomach filling the toilet.
I finish, sitting back against the stall door. Growling, I stare at the ceiling. I regret even helping Nash the other night. I felt led to help him, and all he wanted to do was hurt me.
Make me off-limits to everyone, so I can make no friends.
Almost drowned me just so I didn’t ride home with Madden.
Allowed me in his bed, just so he could flip the switch the next day.
And, still, after everything, I can’t stop thinking about him.
Sometimes hate looks a lot like love.
I hear the door swing open, and footsteps approach the stall door as I try my best to control my breathing.
I can feel him.
I wait for him to speak, but he remains silent. Sitting on the opposite side of the door, I can feel his back against mine beneath it, and all I can hear is his breathing. His hand searches for mine on the floor.
I feel his warmth, his rough hand against my much softer one. The bile rises in my throat as I think about how he yelled at me to leave his house that morning. How I felt that he wanted to be with me, so stupid.
Two years, two long, stupid years, and I still held on to the hope of what might have been. I feel my breathing start to calm just by the touch.
“Why are you here?” I ask. “I don’t need you, you know?”
I feel him shift behind me, his head leaning into the door like mine, but he still doesn’t speak.
“I lied when I told you I was sorry. I wanted to kiss you back then. I would do it again, Nash. Even if it cost us both everything all over again.”
I feel his grip tighten on my hand, but I don’t look at it, my eyes still trained on the wall, stinging with tears.
“I lied for months. To everyone. My parents, my friends, myself. I kept telling myself it wasn’t a big deal,” I pause, finally telling the truth. “And you were right before, I am responsible. If I had just told Aspen the truth, she would’ve known it wasn’t Zander in the video.”
I stare ahead, the white wall getting blurry from my tears. I wait for him to talk, to tell me “it’s okay,” to say anything, but all I hear is the commotion in the hallway.
“Why are you like this?” I beg. “You push me away because you think it makes you look weak, but the truth is, you’re afraid. You’re afraid because you know that you could love me one day.”
His hand slips from mine, and like a flash of lighting, he’s gone.
And just like every other time before, just when I start to get too close, he finds a way to escape.
As awful as it is, I think part of me likes that he feels threatened by Carson, likes that he’s jealous.
I realize that is toxic as hell, but I’m just as hopeless as he is when it comes to playing games.
I want to blame him for pushing me away, but the truth is, I don’t trust him with my heart either.
But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to give it to him, anyway.