“Anyway, let’s forget about them. They’ll be gone soon.” I can’t stand this conversation anymore, it’s too much. I need to get refocused. “Let’s have a discussion about what we’re going to do for this project…”
“Oh my God, he’s looking at you,” Cindy hisses, pushing her glasses back up her nose in her excitement. “Kade. He’s staring at you like he knows you.” She cocks her head curiously. “Does he know you?”
I haven’t shared my history with Kade with anyone, because it’s embarrassing to go into all the details of it. I don’t want to admit to my mates that I actually had… have a crush on him. It’s humiliating. They’ll never see me in the same way, they’ll realize that I’m just as pitiful as those other girls draped all over him.
“Oh, well… sort of.” My cheeks flame a bright shade of red, probably giving me away. “I mean, we live near each other back at our home town, but that’s it. Obviously, we aren’t friends or anything.”
“You never told me that,” Cindy gasps and shoves me. I almost fall back off my chair as she does, I don’t think she knows her own strength! “That’s kinda wild, don’t you think? Did you go to the same school?”
Urgh, I don’t want to think about school, not in the same context of Kade. It brings all that tragic heart break floating to the surface again. “Yes, and he was just as much of a dick then as he is now.”
“Woah, alright, did he pick on you, or something?” Cindy chuckles. “Sounds like there’s something there.”
I shook her a glare, but she doesn’t seem to care about it. She’s found something to tease me about and knowing Cindy, she’ll ride that rain for as long as she can. It’s irritating, but whatever. I’ll just ignore it. I fix my head downwards and stare at the page in front of me. I want to focus on the words, but they’re swimming in front of my eyes. They won’t stay still on the page, mostly because I know that Kade is looking at me and I want to know why. Does he even remember me? What’s he thinking as he stares at me? Does he miss me?
“Are you okay?” As Harper asks me this, I notice that I’m panting like crazy. It’s almost as if I’m having a panic attack or something. “Do you want to go out and get some air or something?”
I don’t know what I want, I just want the scrutiny to stop. With everyone’s eyes upon me I feel like I’m under a police headlight and they’re firing unanswerable questions at me. I shake my head desperately.
“No, I don’t think I need air. I think I just need a drink. I’ll go and get one.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Harper moves to stand to support me, but falls back down as I shake my head no. I need to be by myself.
“No, thank you, I’ll be fine.”
I push my chair back, but I head in the opposite end to the bar and I got for the bathroom. I just want a little bit of time alone to calm myself down. This is madness, I’ve seen Kade around the campus before. It’s not the biggest place, even if we have different classes and opposite circles of friends, we can’t avoid each other, so I don’t know why I’m having this reaction now. Is it just because he’s looking at me?
It’s really challenging to keep my eyes fixed forward. The magnetic pull towards Kade is unbearable, I don’t know how I manage to resist it, but I just about get it. I don’t want to meet his gaze when I don’t know where his mind set is, especially when he’s surrounded by all those girls. They’ll laugh at me, just like the girls in high school. Maybe we’re college age now and supposedly grown up, but I haven’t seen much evidence as that. As far as I can tell, everyone behaves in exactly the same way that they did way back when.
What are you doing? I ask myself as I stare at my wide eyed, crazy reflection in the mirror. What the hell is going on? Why are you freaking out? I remind myself that he already made high school challenging for me, I don’t want to lose college too. Just get out there and act like a normal person.
I know Cindy and Harper will be talking about me, so I don’t want to make that worse. I don’t want them to assume that there’s more to this than there is. There isn’t anymore. I need to get my head screwed on and remember that I’m here to better myself, to push myself forward in life, to keep working towards my college education. I need this, and I want it too. I cannot allow Kade Roberts to take that from me. He doesn’t deserve that, he hasn’t been good to me for a very long time. He’s in my past, and that’s where he needs to stay.
3
Kade
I keep one eye on the bathroom door as Amber talks to me. Lucie looked a little pale as she raced in there, and I want to know what’s wrong. For the first time in a very long time, I want to be there for her again. As I see her looking like she’s in pain, I can’t believe I let our friendship slide. I want to get it back again but I don’t know if she’ll want me. All the confidence I usually feel ebbs away as I think about speaking to her. I fucked up, and I’ll have to apologize. What if she shoots me down in flames? I know that I’ll hate it.
“What are you staring at?” Amber insists in a pissed off tone of voice. “You’re acting weird?”
I don’t even bother to answer her because at that moment, Lucie flies out of the bathroom and she heads straight for the bar. She has a pair of skinny jeans on, clinging to her curves in a way that I don’t even think she recognizes, a loose fitting vest top, and her long dark hair is piled up on top of her head in a messy style bun. She’s much more natural and casual than any of the girls I’m sitting with, and she pulls it off in the most beautiful way. There’s a spot light on her, an aura that draws me in. I can’t believe I’ve ever pulled away.
“Where are you going?” Amber grabs on to my shirt, but I shove her off because I only have one thing that I need to do now. I need to speak to Lucie and somehow see what I can do to make this okay.
My heart hammers the nearer I get to her, I can almost feel a little lump forming in my throat. The nakedness of her neck is luring me in, for one weird second, I almost want to run my tongue along it… but I won’t. She isn’t that sort of girl. There are plenty of girls I can do that with any day of the week. Lucie is my friend only.
“Erm, hey.” I sound quite shy as I reach out to Lucie. “It’s Lucie, right? I don’t know if you remember me…” She turns to see me and I get lost in the depth of her piercing blue eyes for a moment.
“Oh yeah, I remember.” She extends her hand out to me in a gesture that’s way too formal. I take it, not sure what else to do and we awkwardly half shake, half just hold it there. There’s a weird fizzle in my stomach as we do this, so I force myself to grin brightly to try and disguise it a little bit. “Kade Roberts, next door.”
I laugh and let my hand fall down by my side. It hangs there awkwardly as I rack my brain trying to work out what I’m going to say next. Maybe this is something I should have prepared beforehand. Even with the booze sloshing about in my system I can’t seem to find the right words. I want to warm her up to me.
“So, it’s quite crazy that we’re both here, isn’t it?” I chuckle like an idiot. “Who would’ve thought it.?
??
“We planned it once,” she reminds me. “We made a pact, didn’t we? To never leave one another’s sides.”