Catch Twenty-Two (Westover Prep 2)

“Do you know Frank?” Bronwyn asks.

“Frank?”

“Yeah.” She points to the girl I can’t take my eyes off of. “We call her Frank because she has no tits and looks like a boy.”

I should open my mouth and argue with her, letting her know that Frances Young is one hundred percent woman, and that I know this from very personal experience, but I don’t. Frankie cringes when Bronwyn turns her attention to her even though she’s too far away to hear what the girl is telling me. Hatred and pain flash in her eyes and I hate the sight of it, but at the same time, I’m grateful that she feels anything for me at all.

Talking to her right now with a crowd of people around us is the very last thing I want to do. I look down at the smiling girl in front of me, and the way her breasts are nearly spilling out of her cheerleading uniform doesn’t go unnoticed. Of course she’d be the type of girl to make fun of what she considers a failure for someone else. There are girls like her everywhere, even in uptight, upper-class Westover.

“No, babe.” I sling my arm around Bronwyn’s shoulder. “I don’t know Frank.”

I turn around and walk away with a girl I don’t even know to prevent myself from having to have a conversation that may leave me crushed.

“That was an awesome catch,” a guy says as he walks up, tossing the football I threw at him from hand to hand. “I’m Lincoln. My friends call me Linc.”

I shake his hand when he offers it, but I can still feel Frankie’s eyes on my back until we turn the corner down another hallway.

“Zeke,” I offer, hating myself for being in this position right now.

“Do you play football, Zeke?” Linc asks as I pull my arm from Bronwyn’s shoulder. She doesn’t go far, keeping her body right up against mine as I pull my class schedule from my pocket.

“If you don’t,” she interjects, “you should. That was an awesome catch and throw back there.”

“Do you play?” Linc asks again before I can answer. “You can join the team. We don’t have tryouts or anything.”

I’m considering lying to them. Football was my main focus last year at school, and Mom was adamant about getting us out of Utah so I could have a normal life, one that wasn’t filled with working all day every day, but the idea no longer thrills me as much as it did before Dad got sick.

“I have athletics last period,” I tell him after looking at my schedule. “I guess I can talk to the coach then.”

“Awesome.” Linc claps me on the back before walking away.

“We have first and second periods together,” Bronwyn says as she looks down at the schedule in my hand. “Come on. I’ll show you where the classroom is.”

Even though I want to break away from her and go back to Frankie, I allow this new girl to guide me down several hallways until we’re standing in the doorway of my first class.

I’ve only been here fifteen minutes, and I already hate everything about Westover Prep.

Well, not exactly everything.Chapter 32Frankie

“Who was that?” Piper hisses the second Zeke and Bronwyn disappear down the hall together. “Was that Zeke?”

I can only nod my affirmation because surely that did not just happen.

“He can seriously throw a ball,” Dalton mutters.

Piper smacks him in the chest, but she keeps her attention on me.

“Did that really just happen?” I ask out loud because my brain is struggling to process the information.

“I’m so confused,” Piper whispers. “Do you ever plan on telling me what happened with that boy?”

“I don’t—”

Piper steps in front of me and presses her fingers to my lips to shut me up. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you’re standing in the hall with tears in your eyes, and if I don’t know what happened, how can I help you?”

I nod, squeezing my eyes closed for a brief moment and praying the threatening tears stay away until I’m home this afternoon and can cry in peace.

“Not at school though,” I argue.

Piper nods, giving me a moment’s reprieve, but I know come final bell, I’ll be spilling my guts and reliving every awful thing Zeke did and said to me this summer.

“We’re already late,” Piper says as she takes my hand. “Let’s get to class.”

Dalton splits off from us after a quick peck to Piper’s lips, and dread fills my gut as we make our way to homeroom. Westover is a small school, so there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll have at least one, if not more, classes with Zeke.

I huff a humorless laugh as I enter the classroom right behind my best friend. I honestly thought all of my problems were going to be at home with him right there every second, but it seems he’s bound and determined to torture me every waking moment at school as well.