Beautifully Yours: A High School Bully Romance (Voclain Academy Book Three) Page 11

  I’m alone in the darkness.

  There’s a light on up ahead, but I’ve missed the light switch on this end of the windowless corridor. Even without the stares and the finger pointing and the squawk of gossip circling me like vultures, I still can’t breathe. It feels like I’ll never catch my breath again.

  I stumble forward farther into the darkness. My shoes slap against the unforgiving marble floor and echo. My hand wraps around the base of my throat like it wants to reach in and pluck out whatever is suffocating me.

  I do as Dr. Murray taught me. I try to calm.

  One breath.

  Two breath.

  Thr...thr...three.

  I wheeze, my palm finding the wall and keeping me upright as the world rolls again.

  I reach into the small pocket sewn into the skirt of my uniform, where I keep my emergency pills—a tiny Ziploc bag of my anxiety medication

  Please be there, I think, squeezing my eyes shut as I feel around for it. Please!

  At first, I think I’ve once again left them in my dorm room or my backpack or my car, but a tinge of relief falls over me when I pull out the bag.

  Two little white pills, one dose of sanity.

  With fumbling fingers, I open the bag and dump it into my cupped palm. I nearly drop them before I pop the pills dry into my mouth and swallow them whole. The chalky taste catches at the back of my throat and chokes me. I gag as they make their way down.

  I try to wait. I try to give them time to work. The flat of my palm finds the cool, level surface of the wall again as I push away the darkness back toward its pit and tell myself to calm.

  One, I think, repeating the mantra Dr. Murray taught me. T...two. Three. F...four. Blue!

  Nothing happens. The darkness has swallowed my brain whole, and I am in the darkest of night.

  Fuck. I’m going to be sick. I don’t want to be sick.

  One, I try again.

  T...t...t...two.

  I start over, squeezing my eyes shut tightly as I try to imagine the numbers forming in my mind. I whisper the words in the quiet of the hall over the muffled voices of the students and staff outside.

  “One,” I whisper, keeping my eyes squeezed shut as I imagine the number forming like a cloud of mist coagulating inside my brain.

  The imaginary number immediately pops, vapor disappearing into nothing. My eyes open too as I heave for breath, my heart thudding in the hollow of my chest, sweat dampening the nape of my neck.

  “One,” I try again, squeezing my eyes shut. “Two. Three. Four. Blue!”

  One forms from the mist.

  Two from the mist.

  Then three and four, but no blue, no calm in the darkness.

  The door swings open behind me, briefly illuminating the long corridor as it squeaks again on its hinges.

  “Harlow?” Molly asks. Her voice sounds loud in this cavernous hallway.

  I wheeze in response and raise a shaky hand. Her shoes clap on the tile like mine did before she gently places a hand on my shoulder.

  I draw in one deep, shuddering breath.

  “Harlow,” she says again, softer this time, “are you all right?”

  “No!” I shake my head with my wail, the word broken and nearly shouted.

  Her hand stays steady on my shoulder as I inhale another deep breath as far as I can into my lungs. The pills are starting to work. I can feel it in the weight that’s being lifted from my chest and the slowing of my pounding heart. I can finally breathe. I stand there for a long moment and do just that, breathe, one hand against the wall and Molly’s hand on my shoulder.

  The roll of the world slows to a gentle current. My pounding heart stutters in its return to a normal beat as the darkness retreats. Yet tears prick at my eyes that I am helpless to control.

  I turn so my back is against the wall and Molly and I stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

  “I’m tired of being broken,” I say finally to the wall ahead of me. I look over at Molly, and there’s no pity in her gaze, no judgment, just concern. “I want to be strong. I want to be strong enough to not need the pills or the therapy.” Tears slide down my cheeks. “I just want to be normal.”

  Molly stares at me for a long moment, her brows bunched together and gaze pensive.

  “Even strong people have moments of weakness,” Molly says to me. “Having an illness doesn’t mean you’re weak, Harlow. It doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means that you are human. No one is strong all the time, and if you think they are, well, you’re just not seeing them when they’re not.” She pauses, looking at the wall before her gaze finds mine again. She gifts me with a shy grin. “Plus, you’re like the most badass person I know. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

  I choke out a laugh as I cry. Me being described as badass seems as realistic as a kitten being called an apex predator.

  “I’m serious,” Molly says, chuckling along with me. “Last year, I couldn’t stand up to Finn until I saw you did it first.”

  She sags against the wall beside me as I continue to cry, wiping away my tears with a sleeve of my cardigan.

  “Ok, examples it is then,” she muses, chewing on her bottom lip. “First,” she raises a finger and begins her count, “you always have a comeback when I’d be like staring stupidly and unmoving, a human potato, if you will.” I snort and wipe my cheeks with my sleeve again. “Second, you always keep Ian on his toes, which is something I’ve never seen anyone do. He’s basically like a god around here, and he didn’t give one flying Froot Loop about anyone’s opinion before he met you.”

  She raises a third finger. “Three, erm, I mean third, you stand up for what you think is right, even when it makes you a target. Just like you did with Finn last year. Most people aren’t like that, Harlow. They stand back. They watch. They talk about it, but they don’t intervene, ever.

  “Fourth, you get scared, or at least I think you do, but it’s always after the fact. In the moment, you are like a blonde Xena Warrior Princess. You show no fear, which I’m totally jealous of, by the way.” She circles her hand in front of her face. “This face always shows everything. I’m like an open book.”

  I sniffle and wipe my nose. “Thank you, Molly...” I begin.

  “Wait,” she holds up a finger to silence me, “one more. You,” she pins me with a serious stare, “went through a lot when you lost your brother. When I lost Darcy…” A flush of red sprouts on her cheeks before she clears her throat. “What I’m saying is most people don’t go through anything like that until they are much older than we were. It’s okay to grieve, and I don’t know when it’s over, but it’s okay to move on when you’re ready.”

  She frowns. “Wait, that last part is sort of creepy in the brother context. It only applies to me, huh?”

  I nod, choking on my laugh. “Thank you, Molly. It means a lot.”

  “It’s nothing,” she says, “just being a friend, but you better believe I mean every word.”

  I nod. “I do.”

  “Hey,” she says, “one last thing.”

  She grabs my hand and squeezes it tight, her fingers warm and comforting.

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what happened with you and Ian, but whatever it is, no judgment here.”

  I nod because tears threaten to wash away my voice.

  I give Molly’s hand another squeeze as I tilt my head back against the wall.

  “You’re pretty badass yourself,” I say after a beat. “How much time you got? And I’ll tell you all the reasons why.”

  Molly laughs, and it is light in the darkest of dark.

  15

  Ian

  I jog out onto the field beneath the buzz of the stadium lights and the hum of conversations from the bleachers. My gaze rolls up from the manicured lawn and locks immediately on the spot where she should be. Directly behind the fifty-yard line, halfway up in the rafters, sandwiched between Molly and Raven on the silver stadium rows. This time when I look up, I d
on’t find her there. The only thing between Molly and Raven is a plate of devoured, I’m assuming, nachos and two soda cups.

  It’s fine that she’s not here, I tell myself. She shouldn’t be here anyway. This is my territory, my turf, my goddamn domain. Yet knowing she’s not here, not watching me, not cheering along with the rest of the fucking donors and students and Academy staff, this is somehow worse.

  Screw her for not being here. For doing whatever she thinks is more important.

  Screw her for infiltrating my one reprieve from her existence without even trying.

  Just…screw her!

  Anger bleeds with the adrenaline in my veins. The heat of the day fades from the field, but I’m hot all over, my skin blistering in the cool of night. Sweat slicks my face and sticks to my skin beneath the knit fabric of my jersey. It’s some fancy shit Coach special ordered that’s supposed to keep you cold when it’s hot out and warm when it’s freezing. Right now though, it’s uncomfortable as fuck, itchy, sticky, and absolutely annoying.

  The referee calls for the lineup, but I’m hardly paying attention, wondering what the fuck she is doing that’s more important than being here, wondering who she’s with and what she’s doing with them. She’s probably on a date with some fuckboy. I bet he pops his collar and says a lot of bullshit words about how sports are just so midtown and the new coffee shop in the 212 is straight deck.

  I hate the fucker already, and I just want this shit over with so I can get out of here. Two weeks since the dining hall incident, and I still haven’t learned my lesson.

  I take my position by Davenport and eye the defensive line across from me. I find a Hornets linebacker already staring at me in his puke-yellow and black uniform.

  “Hey there, pretty boy,” the guy calls. “Try to throw better than your mom this time.”

  It’s not the worst I’ve heard. It’s not even original, but for some reason, I immediately want to throw down on this field and run out the clock by beating the guy’s face into the dirt.

  Why the fuck can’t he take a knee or go ahead and forfeit? The Pine Preparatory Hornets have no hope left, down by twelve with less than thirty seconds on the clock.

  He won’t though; none of them will. Maybe it’s the same reason I never do—pride—or maybe it’s because we both have coaches that are assholes who would never allow it, even if we were down by thirty with five seconds left in the game.

  I keep my face impassive, a stone wall with zero cracks. I’m not going give this jackass the satisfaction of so much as an eye twitch.

  “Hurry it up!” the ref calls from the sidelines. He’s probably ready to go home and get away from this already decided game.

  “Red 82,” I call behind Davenport, the best damn center in New York state. “Red 82. Ready. One. Two. Three. Hut!”

  Davenport snaps the ball to me, and everything slows, just like it always does. We’re on field time now.

  Grunting and colliding sound as each side fights for dominance. Paverson is the first to fall on our side, and he goes down off to my left, leaving an opening for Pine Preparatory’s outside linebacker to get uncomfortably close. Davenport takes the guy out though, and it’s a game of human dominoes as I run backward, my cleats light on the field. The play may not matter, but I’ll end the game like I am expected to, on a high mark.

  Archie has a Hornet cornerback about to barrel through him, literally. The guy’s massive and breathes so heavily I think I can almost hear him from here. Chase, my other wide receiver, already lies on the field, taken out, but then there’s Everett, free as a bird, standing at the twenty-yard line and waving his arms.

  I smile as the ball leaves my hands in a perfect spiral. Sweat falls into my eyes as it sails down the field. Everett catches it without so much as a Pine Preparatory linebacker blinking an eye. They are so bad at football it’s almost embarrassing to be playing against them. The crowd roars as Everett catches the ball. We don’t need the touchdown, but it’ll make for a nice news article about how we crushed the competition.

  He runs, and although he could lightly jog at this point, he still gives it his all, his legs pumping against the field.

  Fifteen-yard line.

  Ten.

  Five.

  The crowd cheers and claps as Everett crosses into the end zone and the buzzer sounds.

  “The Voclain Academy Vikings win!” the announcer yells into the microphone.

  Everett raises his hands in triumph, and I’m still smiling when I look up into the stands again. She’s still not there.

  Fuck. I had almost forgotten, but now the win tastes bitter on my tongue. Why does it hurt when I don’t even want her here anyway?

  My teammates clap my back as I head off the field, skipping the shake-hands-and-be-a-good-sportsman bullshit. My dad will be pissed, and I’ll definitely hear all about it later, how I missed a perfect photo op, how I skipped out on a postgame interview with the local newspaper, how real men keep their cool in public until it’s no longer beneficial to their business to do so.

  I will wonder if that’s why he only leaves bruises on my mother when he thinks people aren’t watching, when he blames her for his business dealings gone wrong, for his bad day at the office, for the shitty traffic on the way home. But I won’t ask him that because his mood will sour even further, and I know what will happen then. My mother will pay the price.

  No, I’ll blame it on the other team and say some asshole on the opposite side insulted Beckett Enterprises. I’ll say it pissed me off so much I thought I’d end up in a fight if I stayed on the field, and I don’t need to do that with the outstanding charges and all. He’ll frown, express his severe disappointment, and then spend the rest of the damn phone call insulting Pine Preparatory Academy.

  I shove the door to the locker room open wide, knocking it against the cement wall. I shrug off my jersey and my shoulder pads, grab a bag for the laundry service, and toss them into it.

  Ugh.

  I smell myself, and I smell like the game, sweat and wet grass and dirt. I could use a shower, but fuck, my heart is thudding against my ribs like it’s trying to break free. She’s like a damn parasite, worming her way into my brain.

  I tug on my jeans and roll on a shirt. I grab my hoodie before I shut my locker. I leave before the other guys are even back from Coach’s end-of-game talk, the one where he secretly hopes we’ll dump the water cooler over his head.

  I don’t know where I am going.

  I don’t know what I am going to do.

  But I know if I don’t get out of here soon, I am going to explode.

  — Harlow —

  I am in the library, the glimmer of the overhead chandeliers barely reaching the end of the stacks where I stand. Technically, the library closed over an hour ago, with Ms. Ephrem cawing at the stragglers before she left to “lock up before you leave!”

  That or she may have been yelling at one of the library assistants.

  I’m squinting at the leatherbound spines of the books in front of me, attempting to find the biography of a dog trainer in World War II who served in New Guinea. My history professor is offering it as extra credit for our section on twentieth-century warfare, and I wanted to get a head start on the assignment.

  My nose hovers about three inches away from the stacks as I search for the book. It’s too dark in here though, and I can’t see anything.

  “Darn it,” I mutter, digging my phone out of the front pocket of my blue jeans and turning on the flashlight.

  Ah-hah!

  It was right in front of my face all along.

  I pluck it from the stacks, pinched between my thumb and index finger. Raven swears her friend who graduated last year said this extra-credit assignment saved her from failure in Mr. Gamund’s Impact of Industrialization on Global Wars class, and I’m not taking any chances.

  I spin on my heel, ready to head back to the desk, grab my backpack, and make the trek to my dorm room, when everything stops all at once.

&n
bsp; I stop moving.

  The world stops spinning.

  My heart stops beating.

  Time glitches and freezes, the image of him plastered in front of me.

  Ian.

  He’s not wearing his football uniform, but I can tell he just came from the field. His hands are dark from the game, and his inky hair has a sheen of sweat and sticks out every which way as if he’s been tugging at it. He stands there, his hands loose at his sides, wearing his royal blue and silver Academy hoodie over a pair of dark jeans.

  Maybe he’s not real. Maybe it’s not really him.

  I blink, and when I open my eyes, he’s still there.

  “You didn’t come,” he says, the words gruff and throaty, held in an intimate embrace by the books on either side of us and the wall at my back.

  There’s the stench of disappointment in the air and his hollowed gaze.

  But I couldn’t, I want to say.

  I can’t.

  I won’t.

  The lie slips past my teeth with the ease of a swallow of water gliding down my throat.

  “It was best for the both of us.”

  His lips pull back in a sneer as his hands fist at his sides, his knuckles cracking with the effort in the quiet of the deserted library.

  “Who decided that?” he asks, the words low and lethal.

  He pins me there with his gray gaze, daring me to answer his question. I don’t. I made the choice for the both of us, and we both know it. More importantly, I made it to protect him, and maybe one day, he’ll forgive me for sheltering him in the dark.

  He takes one step forward, then another, and another. His strides are long and even as if he measured them out perfectly before taking the first one.

  Tha-tha-thump goes my stuttering heart.

  Whew goes the whistle of my breath between my teeth.