I felt the breeze from her head snapping in my direction. “Is St. Mary’s your first school? Like…ever?”
“No.” I followed Isaiah’s tall, lean frame as he jogged down the field, holding a stick. I wasn’t sure what sport they were all playing, but it actually looked kind of fun, even if this small, angry part of me wished that he would trip.
Turning to look at Sloane again, I found her watching me intently with her hazel eyes, obviously hungry for more information. “What sport is that?” My head tilted toward the field.
Her face blanched. “Um. It’s lacrosse.”
I nodded, tucking my hair behind my ear to watch them again. One guy flung his stick hard toward another one who was standing in front of a net. A ball went flying through the air. The girls behind me cheered loudly before erupting in gleeful laughter. I jumped at their shrill outburst, and then my shoulders slowly dropped. A feeling of despair snuck up behind me, like a ghost coming up and brushing its translucent fingers over my flesh. My heart sank as I let myself feel the envy burning my blood.
I’d missed out on so much, and in the past, I’d never really let myself dwell on that because when you’re in an internal battle with yourself, filtering through what was the truth and what was a lie, resentment over not going to a real high school and having normal experiences seemed so trivial in the grand scheme of things.
But standing here, without Richard looking over my shoulder and no threats being whispered into my ear, I felt it. I felt that unbending amount of loss and anger, all wrapped up in one atomic bomb, ready to unleash at the first taste of freedom.
“Gemma?” Sloane saying my name kicked me out of my troubled thoughts. My eyes refocused as I landed on her soft expression. “One, I have so much to teach you.” My cheek twitched as the bitterness slowly disappeared. “And two”—her eyes sparkled as she glanced back down to the field—“Isaiah is totally walking up here right now.”
I gasped, a breath getting stuck in my chest. My head whipped to the right, and there he was, shirtless, striding up the field with a wicked grin sitting right between his high-arched cheeks.
“And he has his eyes on you.”
Chapter Ten
Isaiah
My attention never once left hers. From the moment I saw her standing up above the lacrosse field, my plan seemed to get brighter and brighter in my head. Like a neon sign, blazing its iridescent colors in my direction.
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She was beautiful, even more so as I got closer to her, and I didn’t use that word often. I stopped walking for a second. I didn’t think that I’d ever used that word to describe a girl.
But fuck, Gemma’s face was beautiful. Even the air around her was beautiful. It was as if the sun was shining directly on Gemma and no one else.
I noticed Sloane standing beside her, turning her attention to me and then back to Gemma a few more times before nodding. A leaf crumbled beneath my shoe, and just like that, Sloane was glaring at me.
Wonder what I did to piss her off?
I quickly thought back to the last party, but nope, definitely didn’t get caught up in her at any point that night.
“Sloane.” I dipped my head as I brought my hands up around my neck, pulling my bundled-up shirt tighter as it draped around my shoulders. I was shirtless and sweaty, but neither Sloane nor Gemma seemed to be affected by that. Weird.
Flicking my eyes to Gemma, I noticed that she wasn’t looking at me. It was as if I didn’t exist at all to her. If only she knew that that made her much more alluring to me.
“Don’t you Sloane me!” Sloane snapped, placing her hands on her hips.
I heard a snicker behind my back, telling me that Cade and Shiner had finally caught up to me.
I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and leaned my forearms on the metal fence, falling in between the two girls. “Why the cold shoulder, Sloane?”
She huffed as I looked toward Gemma again. The sun caught a few strands of her hair, making the chestnut color even richer. “Because!” she snapped, clearly irritated. “Poor Gemma over here is stressing because of your little show earlier this week! The whole school thinks she’s a slut.”
Cade wandered up beside me, running his hand through his sweaty hair. “Oh, now, come on. Isn’t that every little girl's dream? I heard that being a slut in high school nowadays is like being prom queen. It means you’re popular.”
“Not every girl wants to be popular.” Gemma finally turned herself toward us and leveled me with a stare that touched every single cell in my body. My stomach dipped, and my tongue darted out of my mouth as I licked my lips. Oh, I like her.
“Hmm,” Cade murmured beside me, leaning back on the fence as he looked out toward the field. The girls were on one side, us on the other, but I suddenly had the urge to jump over the metal rod so I could be on the same side as Gemma.
“Make it go away.” Her voice was soft and hesitant, but I could sense the fierceness lurking behind with urgency.
Silence fell over the group of us. We were all staring directly at Gemma who had dropped both of her arms down to her sides. She was on the taller side, at least taller than Sloane, with lean, long legs. The skirt she wore fell to about mid-thigh, much like all the rest of the girls at St. Mary’s, but Gemma seemed to wear it best. Her skin was creamy and smooth, her cheeks flushing with the tiniest bit of pink.