Page 4 of No Romeo
Kids lingered around their beater cars while they passed joints, probably hoping to get high enough to suffer through this crap.
As if I needed any more reason to dread it, I knew Hendrix would be there, and everyone probably knew what I “did” to him.
God, this wouldn’t just be hell; it would be the innermost circle of it.
Kyle puffed his inhaler as we headed toward the entrance. “I hate this place.”
“It’s just one more year...” I held onto that thought as I stepped inside and into the chaos of people pushing and shoving their way past the metal detectors.
I took in the dicks graffitied across a row of lockers, the wordscock mastermessily painted beneath the shooting sperm.
Kyle went to join a group of band kids huddled together like that would save them.It wouldn’t. They were prey here, and they’d be ripped limb from limb, the same as always.
After I found my locker and put away my books, I ducked into the nearest restroom. I just needed a second to pull myself together before I faced the den of vipers that was Dayton High, but unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance.
The second I stepped up to the sink, the door swung open, and chatter spilled in from the hallway. The vipers had come to me.
“Oh, look, it’s the whore.”Jessica Masters.
I watched the reflection of two blondes move behind me. But the only one I paid attention to was Jessica, the girl whoused to bemy friend. One of my best friends…
I turned off the tap and faced them. “Interesting thatI’mthe whore….”
“You cheated on Hendrix. Of course, you're a whore. A massive whore.”
She was one of the few people who knew the truth—or most of it—of what happened two years ago, and she’d used it against me. Twisted it until she single-handedly had taken a match to my relationship with Hendrix, to my life.
I clenched my fists at my sides, using every ounce of restraint I possessed not to smash her face into the sink right then. “You know I didn’t cheat on him, Jessica.”
“That’s not what everyone else said.” A sick smile spread across her red lips. “AndpoorHendrix. He was so heartbroken.”
Yeah, so heartbroken that he eventually fucked her desperate ass. The thought made me sick, but I refused to let her see how much she got to me.
I may have been gone for two years, but I was still Dayton through and through… “I owe you a world of pain, Jessica. The next time you corner me in the bathroom like the bad little bitch youthinkyou are, I’ll make that bird nose of yours even more crooked.” I flashed her a nasty grin. “That’s a promise.”
Before she could respond, I shoulder-checked her hard enough that she stumbled into the trashcan, then I made my way out of the restroom.
I just needed to keep my head down, finish my final year, get my little sister out of foster care, and move on with my life. No matter how much I wanted to go in there and bleed her of every drop of retribution I was owed, I couldn’t afford to get arrested.
I rounded the corner and walked right into someone.
“Shit.” I crouched to collect the books that had scattered the floor, glancing up at the underclassman guy wearing an American flag shirt. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
I passed the books over just as Kyle hurried up, his glasses slightly skewed as he tapped the guy on the shoulder. “If you value your life,” he whispered, “run.”
“What?” The guy frowned at Kyle, and I got it. Kyle seemed extremely dense right then.
The chatter in the hallway dimmed like birds quieting in the presence of danger, and I tensed. I knew exactly who that hush hailed.
“Run!” Kyle whisper-shouted before shooting past us toward the men’s restroom.
The guy glanced over his shoulder, then took off, too. People in the crowded hallway fell over themselves to get out of Hendrix’s way.
I’d been too shocked at seeing him last night to really take him in, but as his gaze homed in on me like a lion selecting a wildebeest from the herd, my heart thumped out a broken beat in my chest, limping and wounded. The boy who used to be mine was more devasting than I remembered. Taller and broader and, if possible, even more beautiful.
The litany of tattoos that crept beneath the sleeve of his black T-shirt was old, but the ones winding their way up one side of his neck were new. Thick and black, like the taint of Dayton had leached into his skin, spreading like a disease
