But fuck it all now.
Fuck what she wants.
If she wanted me to stay away, she shouldn’t have lied. She shouldn’t have angered me, made me furious enough to hurt her like that. To make her bleed over my dick, my thighs.
To not only hurt her but to get inside her all bare, all thoughtless.
So fuck what she wants.
I’m seeing her again.
There’s something wrong with me.
For the first few days I try to deny it.
I try to deny that I’m sad. I try to deny that I cry in my pillow at night. That I can’t sleep or focus. And that I’m just bone tired.
I try to deny that all of this is because it’s over.
Because I’ve had closure now and because I’ll never see him again.
Because it’s crazy.
That I’m sad about that. That I’m sad about never seeing him when I didn’t want to see him in the first place. When it upset me so much that I saw him at the bar and that he was back in my life.
When I asked for him to promise me.
I asked him for closure. I told him that I wanted this to end, that I wanted to forget him.
But somehow, despite everything, this closure thing has become the most painful experience of my life.
Even more painful than a broken heart.
So much so that it’s hard to even get out of bed and go to classes. It’s hard to muster up the energy to sneak out to Ballad of the Bards when Friday comes.
My friends think I’m acting strange but I deny it to them too.
Besides, my friends have their own problems.
Especially my one friend.
Salem Salinger, and her problem has a name: Arrow Carlisle, our new soccer coach.
Yes, we have soccer here at St. Mary’s.
It’s more or less a team-building exercise that every student has to participate in. We get a choice to pick from a couple of sports. We play those sports as a team and learn how to live in a society.
Anyway.
With his dirty blond hair and blue eyes, that guy is a sun god. All the girls at St. Mary’s are crazy for him and his good looks. He started at the school right around the time Salem did and it’s been pretty apparent that she’s crushing really hard on our new coach.
She hasn’t said anything about it to anyone but I can tell; I have boy problems too, after all.
I’m not interested in soccer at all but even I know who Arrow Carlisle is.
According to my brothers, he’s one of the best pro soccer players in the country, the star of the L.A. Galaxy team. He was the reason why Galaxy won the championship trophy last year and they were on track to win again this year.
Until Arrow got injured and was told to sit out a few games as a precaution.
He’s here to recuperate, and meanwhile, he’s coaching our sort of lame soccer team as a favor to his mom.
Who also happens to be the principal of this reform school and Salem’s guardian who sent her here in the first place.
As I said, problems.
Salem has a lot of them.
And so instead of worrying my friends, I decide to go out with Wyn when the weekend arrives. Just to prove to them and to myself that things are okay.
That closure is a good thing and I got exactly what I wanted.
Freedom from him.
Only it backfires when I see him at Buttery Blossoms.
With a girl.
To be fair, that girl — Teresa — works there and I know her. She’s pretty easy-going and fun. And hence super popular with the patrons. And from the looks of it, she’s super popular with him too.
Because he seems very engrossed in what she’s saying.
Which is probably why he can’t see me.
Again, to be fair, I’m not inside the shop yet. I’m across the street from it and I was about to cross when I saw him, his dark head and his white hoodie.
That shines when the rays of the sun fall on him.
I’m never going to see that hoodie again, am I? I’m never going to touch it or feel it. I’m never going to touch his hair, smell his scent.
I’m never going to taste him or feel him.
Or dance for him.
No one’s ever going to watch me dance like he does, like I really am a perfect ballerina.
No one’s ever going to call me Fae…
Despite explaining this to myself for the thousandth time, a great wave of sadness grips me. It grips my heart and my body starts trembling. I tell Wyn that I can’t walk. I tell her that I need to get out of here.
To her credit, she doesn’t ask. She simply goes with me.
God, I love her and I hate that I’m making her skip out on her favorite brunch place. But I can’t. I can’t go when he’s in there. With a girl.