Mentally I’m kicking myself for not heading directly to the gym for practice. Instead, deciding that I needed my English book from my locker. Like I actually thought I’d have the concentration to do homework.
As if my mind isn’t already in a million other places. Now I have an assignment that’s already days late, due tomorrow. I was cognizant enough, even in my diluted state, to request an extension.
It gets pretty easily negotiated after you remind the staff who you are.
“I don’t have time, so spit it out, Madison,” I hiss. The metal of my locker rings as it rattles off the frame. Slamming it more than closing it.
Much to no one’s surprise, she doesn’t jump or flinch or do much of anything other than observe me. That’s not Madison style, never easily intimidated. The one side of her mouth lifts in a demure smirk that does nothing but spread an angry heat up my neck.
Her mouth hooks higher and my gaze pinches.
“You know, I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew this would happen eventually.”
She doesn’t know shit.
“I don’t have time for this,” I bark. Mentally already halfway to the gym, even though my feet choose to stay planted. Betraying me. Cemented to this spot for some godforsaken reason.
Maybe it’s because she’s let out a sigh and it has the audacity to sound tortured. Like it’s her entire world that’s crumbling and not mine.
It rattles me more than I will ever admit, but she’ll never know that. My face placidly blank.
Besides, what does she have to complain about? Is she the one decaying slowly from the inside out? A cavity of nothing but absolute guilt.
A sharp pain knocks at my ribs.Doubtful.
“I know enough to know it was never going to work out.” Her chin lifts. “Not in the long run. You guys are too different.”
That pain gyrates down to my toes, curling into themselves. She doesn’t sense a thing. My tone as void of emotion as her willingness to respect boundaries.
“Are you trying to start something again with my girl?” Shrugging, I pretend everything is fine when it isn’t. Dying torturously slow inside with every new passing day Rory’s gone.
A slow, bitchy grin spreads across her face that at one time I might have found endearing. Now it only fills me with disgust.
I’d been too brass, and she knows it.
Shifting my bag, my feet decide then to actually work. Humoring this short conversation long enough.
Her feet follow, hovering closer than my own shadow.
“Cole, wait—” She reaches, clinging to my arm before I shake her off. Deliberately moving faster because I know she’s in heels. Not that it deters her, much to my irritation.
She makes borderline sprinting in those an anomaly.
“I wasn’t talking about Rory,” she huffs out and I freeze.
My pulse jumps from my skin, even though I only have that emptiness inside my chest.
“I was talking about you and the hellhounds,” she pants at my back.
My chest inflates with a full inhale.
What’d she just say? What’d she just accuse?
With menacingly slow force, my head cocks to the side. Giving her only my profile because she doesn’t deserve anything more.
She already knows what I’m doing. The silence thickens between us as she stupidly doesn’t cave. Her mistake.
I’m not surprised that she’s noticed the tension between the hellhounds. The girl has had a hard-on for me since forever, but I don’t appreciate being belittled. This is not her problem, therefore I do not wish to hear her opinions.