Sending her away that night below the tree was a feat of strength—an amount of sheer willpower that I had no idea I possessed. I’d wanted her so desperately that it was borderline masochism the way I kept pulling back. I’ve jerked off ten times since then using the memory of her pressed up against that tree. The way she felt, warm and frantic up against me, the scent of her, the sounds she made. What I’d said to her was the truth. I wanted more than a quick bang in the shadows of the quad. I wanted to take my time, do it right, take and have everything, and that required self-control.
At first, we ignore one another like usual. We slide into our assigned seats without meeting each other’s gaze. We avoid one another in the hall. I continue hanging out with my friends, keeping Reagan at bay. My interest in her has dropped to zero, maybe even less. Her touch does nothing for me, and my excuses are growing shorter and increasingly flimsy as the days pass. I just don’t care. After having something I actually want, the thought of Raegan is just disappointing. My focus is on something bigger, brighter. Something addictive.
I’m doing my best not to stare at her in the cafeteria, where she sits at her usual table with Tyson, when Campbell walks in and tosses a stack of tickets on the table.
“What’s this?” Ansel asks, picking one up. He pulls a face. “A dance performance?”
Campbell shoots daggers at him. “My sister is in it and she has to sell a dozen tickets. My mom bought those, but we have to fill the seats. I need everyone to come,” Campbell explains, sitting diagonally from me. “Just show up, clap, and she’ll let us have a party at my house. My dad will provide the alcohol and everything.”
“Can we use his boat?” Heston asks. His jaw is bruised and swollen. He’s been treating me so coldly that we haven’t spoken to one another in days. This is just fine by me. As far as I know, no one has asked about the bruise or my red knuckles. Some things are best left unsaid.
“Not if you’re drinking,” Campbell replies, “but he did install a new hot tub, and that’s fair game.”
Heston picks up a ticket and tucks it in his jacket pocket. “I’m in.”
The others grab their tickets while I’m distracted by Gwendolyn’s fingers, lazily scratching just above the hemline of her skirt.
“Ham!”
I jerk my eyes to Campbell. She’s holding the last ticket in my face. I take it from her with a long-suffering sigh. “Sure, I’ll go.”
Her gaze darts over to Gwendolyn and then back to mine. “You know, her little brother is in the program. He’s got the leading role. My sister was so pissed about it. She’s pretty sure he only got it out of pity.”
I give her a bored look. “And you’re telling me all of this because…”
She shrugs. “You just seem so focused on her lately, I thought you may want to know.”
Every stare at the table lifts to me. Everyone but Reagan, who is fastidiously interested in her salad. Heston watches me more closely than any of them, the muscles of his bruised jaw hard and tense. “I’m not interested in her. Between swim and detention, she’s making my life miserable.”
I suspect most of them don’t buy it—Heston and Campbell, especially—but at this point, what can I do?
The gods seem to be on my side, because the cafeteria is filled with the sudden shriek of the fire alarm. A collective groan rumbles down the table.
Xavier mutters, “Fucking stoners in the bathroom again. Why can’t they smoke up behind the dumpsters like a civilized person?”
He’s probably right. This happens once a quarter and is almost always traced back to someone hotboxing in the third-floor boys' room. It makes it pretty hard to take any alarm seriously, except...
Dean Dewey stands at the front of the room, announcing in a strained, but artificially calm voice, “I need everyone to follow directions. Please proceed to the nearest exit, this is not a drill.”
“Definitely the stoners,” Ansel sighs. Emory’s already standing, eyes skimming the room. No doubt he’s looking for his sister. The instant he locates her across the room, he’s bolted from the table, taking off to make sure she’s okay.
I glance at Campbell and she shrugs. “You know how protective he is.”
“Overprotective,” I add. Sometimes I wonder if it’s less about the injury she sustained in the accident and more about keeping his increasingly hot sister away from the degenerates at the school.
Whichever, I use the distraction to break away from the others by just hanging back. They’re almost instantly swallowed by the crowd, giving me a much-needed reprieve. We’re squeezed into a narrow line as we exit the cafeteria, bodies bumping into one another. Some idiot sophomore wearing a gallon of Axe elbows me in the side, and then cringes away at the heat of my glare. With the cloud of bad body spray, it takes me a moment to catch the scent of smoke—something woodsy and plastic-bitter. Definitely not weed.
That’s when I see the top of Gwendolyn’s head, bobbing along in the crowd. She’s far ahead of me, to the west of the room, and I track her with my eyes.
Then, she disappears.
One second, she’s there, and the next, she’s gone.
I surge forward, pushing past people who mutter curses at me.
“Everyone stay calm,” a teacher announces, “head to the nearest exit. Don’t panic. Everything is under control; you just need to follow protocol!”
That just makes it worse, and I’m caught in a throng of increasingly nervous students, the air around us growing denser with smoke with every passing second. People start to push. A few girls cry out in panic, and I don’t recognize any of them.