Page 43 of The Sun
“It wasn’t like that.” I diverted my attention to a loose thread on my comforter and twirled it around my finger. “I got sick then blacked out. When I woke up, he was over there.” I pointed to my half-open closet with dirty clothes spilling out.
“He stayed the night? That’s brave. Very brave.” Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t. . .you know?”
“No. Definitely not.” My finger swelled around the tightening thread, the skin changing to a weird, purplish-red. I thought about how Elias looked at me like he hated and loved me all at the same time before I finally unwound the string.
“So what are you gonna do?” Daisy pointed the remote at the TV, and the movie resumed.
“About what?”
“This little love triangle you’ve developed.”
“It’s not a love triangle.”
“Sure it’s not.” She smirked. “You’ve got the high school heartthrob chasing you and the tatted up bad boy sneaking in your window. If that’s not a love triangle, I don’t know what is.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You really should read more romance novels. You’d understand things like this much better.”
That MondayI’m pretty sure Elias made an effort not to look at me.
When Miss Weaver called me to the front of the class to go over the answers to a pop quiz, he kept his head down on his desk. He passed me in the hallway without so much as a glance. And maybe I deserved that. After all, I didn’t fight for us either. By the time the third-period bell rang, I’d swung between anger and sadness and why-did-I-cares a million times.
I followed the herd into the congested hallway. Lockers banged, sneakers squeaked, a group of guys shouted douche canoe at the top of their lungs before shoving some poor kid into the restroom.
Daisy came strutting down the hall, the open flannel she had on over her Ramones T-shirt ruffled with each hard step and the pleated red skirt she was wearing was one-hundred percent too short.
“Okay,” I said when she stopped in front of me. “I know you have questionable taste in clothing, Daisy, but. . .” My gaze dropped to the zebra-striped, patent leather pumps that finished off her ensemble. “You look like some grunge prostitute.”
That insult must have gone in one ear and out the other because she grinned wide and bounced on the balls of her feet like she was about to explode. “Ben smiled at me. He’s not mad at me for throwing up on him, I guess!”
I closed my eyes and shook my head once before turning the corner.
Elias stood by the stairwell at the end of the hall, and in front of him was Jenny, twirling her brown hair around her finger.
I stopped dead in my tracks, and Daisy bumped into me.
“What are you—oh.”
One of the twins came barreling down the stairwell, jumping from the fifth step and knocking Elias’ books out of his hand.
“Judah!” Elias shouted before grabbing his textbook from the floor and whacking his brother with it.
Judah waved a dismissive hand through the air and took off down another hallway, shouting about Lockhart being a bunch of pussies.
“She is such an attention whore,” Daisy said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re jealous.”
“Nope.”
But I still watched them. Watching the way Jenny kept shifting her weight from foot to foot. And I was okay, really, until he smiled at her because it was the kind of smile that lit up his entire face.
I swallowed while forcing my gaze back to Daisy. “Not at all.”
I gritted my teeth when I ducked into history class. Stupid puppy love wasn’t supposed to feel like some devastating force of nature tearing through your body, but what I felt for Elias was nowhere close to puppy love. No, it was much more destructive. It was a Romeo and Juliet type love. Tragic. Heartbreaking. And never meant to be.
