Page 28 of Blocked Score

A dark emotion clogs my throat. Scarlett’s been here long enough to be going out with some fucker from the basketball team, and I haven’t noticed her until now?

Whatfucker from the basketball team?

“Who?” I bark at Rhys, my head whipping to him with more force than I have self-control to restrain. “When?”

My jaw is set firm and hard while Rhys regards me blankly without answering—until his flat expression cracks into laughter that billows into the chilly air.

“Oh, man,” he says, slapping his knee. “You’ve been keeping secrets from me, dude. That’s not cool. But I’ve never seen that girl in my life. Just wanted to confirm a suspicion.”

Tuck throws his head back and lets out a guffaw. Sebastian only looks back at me with a smarmy smirk once Scarlett’s walked far enough to be out of eyesight. Even Hudson’s eyes light up with amusement.

“Damn, now I kind of regret moving out. Something tells me things might start getting interesting around here.”

My brow lowers, and my lips press into a straight line.

I should be telling my so-called friends to go fuck themselves, but my brain is too full of zig-zagging thoughts.

Is Scarlett a Brumehill student now? Since when? How haven’t I noticed her around campus? Did she just move here?

Has she been doing well for the last year and a half?

Does she even remember me?

That last question is like a bucket of ice water rolling down my spine.

Considering how we left things, she might still remember me if she tries, but I doubt she spares many of her thoughts for me anymore. Not eighteen months after we met.

Certainly not the way I spare way too many of my thoughts for her. Still.

I push up from my chair and snag the truck keys from the ledge of the railing.

“Alright, let’s get a move on,” I announce, striding forward. “I’ll drive.”

15

SCARLETT

Iwalk off campus energized after my first day of classes. After stagnating for way too long, it feels like I’m finally building up momentum in my life.

Honestly, I feel like a dork because I wish my class sessions today really jumped into the material rather than just being the laid-back syllabus reviews that everyone takes for granted on the first day. I’m itching to deal with material that’s a step above what I had in my community college classes.

Maybe around midterm season I’ll be cursing myself for feeling that way now, though.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this optimistic. Maybe never?

Definitely never.

I’m far away from all the things in my life that were holding me back and tying me down.

From people like Caleb, who wanted to make himself feel better by discouraging me from doing more with my life than he was doing with his. From people like my parents, whose physical proximity paired with their emotional distance made me feellike there was something fundamentally wrong with me for the longest time.

I texted my mom after I got my acceptance letter to Brumehill, so she’d at least know that I’m moving to Vermont. I got back nothing but a thumbs-up emoji, the bare minimum of basic acknowledgment, several days later, after a couple days of my message sitting on read.

Oh, yeah, she’s thrilled for me, alright.

The fact is, my mom hasn’t given a shit about my existence since I was about ten years old, when she married her current husband who already had two children, and decided she liked her new family a whole lot more than she liked me.

Before that, I would split my time between her and my dad. Afterward, I was only with my dad, who was, if anything, even less enthusiastic about having a daughter around. We lived more like roommates who don’t get along than father and daughter.

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