Unbroken

Twenty

Skye

Was there such a thing as dying from embarrassment?

Because that was what was happening every morning Kurt would drive me to school, making sure I was there at the nick of time.

Also making sure Leo was at the drop off zone to escort me to class.

And if he wasn’t, I was positive Kurt would have walked me to the doors himself. That hadn’t happened yet, thank God.

“I will not have you be truant like that boy,” Kurt explained. “Leo will rub his goodness off on you. Got it?”

I rolled my eyes every time he made his speeches right before I stepped out of the car. Kurt would purposely sit idle, waiting for us to disappear into the school, and even then I wouldn’t hear his car zoom off until seconds later.

Little did he know that the very boy he was encouraging me to be around was currently my accomplice for skipping school.

Every once in a while, Leo and I would take the day off. We would walk a few blocks from the school to a coffee shop, and I would drag him to the same bathroom stall to messy his hair up and make him wear one of Hunter’s band shirts (I’d stolen an infinity amount of them every time I crashed his bedroom). You could still see it was Leo if you looked hard enough, but in passing he was just any other kid instead of Brown Bay’s Golden Boy.

I was currently in said bathroom, running my fingers through his hair, and he was looking at me intently, asking, “You ever think of running away?”

My movements slowed as I looked into his blue eyes. “Run away?” I repeated, questionably. “To where?”

He shrugged. “Away.”

I paused, thinking. “I don’t want to be away from you and Hunter, so no, I don’t think about running away.”

“What if we ran away together?”

I studied his serious expression, trying to read his strange mood. “All three of us?”

He nodded once, slowly. “My dad has a lot of money laying around. It wouldn’t be hard for me to…” His words trailed off as he watched me.

I turned away and twisted the faucets over the sink, washing my hands from the light gel he used. “Where would we go?” I mused, feeling a strange heat course through my body at the thought of it—thethreeof us, leaving for good.

“Anywhere,” he said. “You name it.”

I cracked a soft smile, watching the scalding water run over my hands. “It would be fun, to always be on the move, I mean.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “It would. We could be anyone we want, Skye.”

“Then I wouldn’t have to hear all the rumours—”

“I wouldn’t have to fake it with everyone—”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t have to hear Kurt threatening my funeral, either.”

I hated going home to his wise-ass remarks. I needed him to get over what happened, but Kurt was being stubborn.

Now Leo’s voice was quiet. “Are you going to talk to me about it?” He’d prodded me about this for a week straight since the incident with Hunter in my room went down. There was a curious edge in his voice, and I could tell he was growing impatient, which was odd for Leo because usually he was a ball of patience.

I avoided his stare, and for once it felt good not to have to avoid everyone else’s, too. Here, in the bathroom, it was just us and I didn’t have to strain not to listen to the whispers flowing around us like rivers of bullshit.

On a sigh, I ran my wet fingers over my lips, finally admitting, “Hunter was in my room, and Kurt caught us.”

I could feel Leo studying me intensely as I squirted more soap in my hands and washed them again for no other reason than to prolong having to confront him face to face.

“Kurt’s never been so angry, Skye. Did something else happen?”