Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
SINCLAIR
T he past
I got invited to go to a football game with some of the girls from my English class and I’m so excited I could almost burst. This is what I’ve wanted since I started at this stupid school—friends. Acceptance. It’s been hard infiltrating their groups, but I think finally I’ve made some progress.
I’m meeting them at the front gates of the football field and I wasted so much time trying to figure out what to wear—it’s rough to come up with something when you’re so used to wearing the uniform all the time and never have to make that decision—now I’m running late. Jogging across campus with a Lancaster Lions T-shirt on along with my favorite jeans that fit me right and make my butt look good when a familiar voice stops me dead in my tracks.
“Jesus, watch where you’re going. ”
I skid to a stop, nearly running into the one person I hate the most on this campus. “Oh. I didn’t see you.”
He sneers at me like I’m a disgusting rodent who dared to run across his shoes, which would be gross, but yeah. I hate how he looks at me like that all the time. “If you’d look up for once, then maybe you wouldn’t run into people.”
I’ve never run into someone before on this campus and I definitely didn’t actually run into him either. And though it’s my automatic response for just about everything, I’m not going to say I’m sorry to him. August Lancaster can fuck right off, which is what he told me to say to him a few weeks ago.
“Are you going to the football game?” he asks when I still haven’t spoken.
I nod.
The sneer gets bigger if that’s possible. “It’s the stupidest sport ever invented.”
“You don’t like football?”
“It’s boring.” He yawns for good measure.
“You’re not going?” Why oh why am I making conversation with him? I can’t stand him.
“Of course not. We’re leaving campus and going into town.” He runs his gaze over me as usual. “Want to come with?”
“Absolutely not” is my automatic response. I’m not stupid. To go off campus with August is asking for trouble. He hates me.
And the feeling is mutual.
He laughs, the sound mocking. “Figures. A scared little girl like you wouldn’t know what to do anyway.”
I take a deep breath, ready to blast him with an insult, but he walks away, whistling like he’s cheerful and everyone knows— everyone knows he’s not a cheerful person. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if someone discovered he had devil horns sprouting out of the top of his head .
I keep walking until I’m at the gates of the football stadium, smiling when my new friends greet me with enthusiasm. Maybe it won’t be so bad here once I have good friends I can count on. They’ll make up for how I’ve been treated by stupid August.
The problem is, for the rest of the night, I kept thinking about him and how he asked me if I wanted to come with him. I still stand by my decision, but there’s the tiniest part of me that wishes I would’ve said yes.
Just to know what might’ve happened.