She’s no good for me, Adalee.
Or maybe I’m no good for her.
“I missed you,” Dana purrs, but my cock isn’t even a little bit hard. It’s not stirring beneath her touch at all because all I can think about is the way Adalee looked when I talked about her mom. All I can think about is the devastated look on her face when I called her pathetic.
Why the hell did I have to do that?
I’ve teased her for our entire lives. It’s been a sort of game of cat and mouse between us. At least, that’s how I’ve always thought about it. In my mind, it’s always been a sort of playful banter, but today, I took it too far.
Today I was a complete prick.
I’ve got a reputation around here as a bully, and I’m not so dense that I don’t know why. I’m mean to people. I push them away. I’m cruel and callous. At least, that’s the persona I present to other people.
Why?
Because of my fucking dad.
He’s a tough guy to please. Impossible would be a better word. There’s not really anything I can do to make him see the world differently than he does, which is as a cruel, heartless place.
Now he’s cruel and heartless, and I’m that way toward others, too.
“What’s wrong?” Dana asks. She’s practically rubbing against me like a cat in heat, but I feel nothing at all for the girl in front of me. No: the woman in front of me. That’s what Dana is. She might come across as a ditzy young bad girl, but she’s not. She’s clever, and she’s shrewd, and I don’t want her to know that I think of Adalee as so much more than a classmate.
She can never know because Adalee is sweetness and light and Dana would fucking destroy her if she thought that Adalee was standing in her way, which she is.
Adalee is perfection in a schoolgirl skirt.
She’s lovely.
“I just have a lot on my mind,” I lie, and I gently push her away. Dana is rightfully pissed, but I can’t bring myself to care.
“What’s the matter?” She glares at me, no longer pretending to be interested in me or what I’m doing. I know why, too. She suspects that I was sneaking off to talk to someone, which I absolutely was, but I don’t owe Dana anything.
We aren’t dating.
We aren’t even friends.
We definitely haven’t slept together.
“I told you,” I say, and now it’s my turn to glare. I turn on my asshole persona: the one that keeps me safe. “Are you fucking deaf?”
Dana’s eyes narrow.
“Or are you just an idiot?” I say. “Stupid fucking cheerleaders,” I shake my head, and I walk away from Dana. Even as I leave, I hate myself for the words I’ve just thrown at her. Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have been so shitty, but what was I going to do?
I can’t have her thinking I’m a softie. That’s the absolute last thing I need.
Lunch is almost over, so I go to my locker, grab my next book, and head to study hall. This is one of the few classes of the day that I actually look forward to because it’s just me and a bunch of nerdy kids hanging out. None of us has to interact very much. We all just focus on our own things.
Study hall is the one place where I don’t have to play up my shitty personality or pretend to be mean and cruel to everyone around me. Here, I can just sit and read, and nobody thinks twice about it.
Only, today, something feels different. I can sense a shift in the atmosphere when I walk in, and I’m surprised to see that we have a different teacher than we usually do.
“Hello,” she says to me, but I don’t reply. I just look from her to the other students and back again. “I’m Miss Amber,” she says.
“Is that your first name or your last name?” I ask.
Someone snickers.