Page 45 of Beyond the Lines
But Lea had acted like I’d personally attacked her.
Like I’d written “this is garbage” across her work.
I kick at a loose stone on the path. The rational part of my brain knows I’m being stupid and unfair. I wrote that comment in a moment of jealousy, not because it was what I actually thought about her work.
And I know she’s sensitive about her art—she told me that at the diner, how her mother constantly compared her to her grandmother, how she struggled with confidence.
But the more vindictive part of my mind, the part that’s winning, tells me thatthatLea—the girl I spent Saturday night with, the one who seemed to get art on a level most people don’t—wouldn’t have been sofuckingsensitive.
That Lea was open, curious, and funny. The one I just encountered was cold, angry, and judgmental. Like she’s already made up her mind about me based on one mistake, and all I get from now on is anger and abuse.
We’re not friends, her words from earlier scream in my mind.I don’t spend time with liars, assholes, or athletes.
“Yeah,” I mutter to myself. “Well, I don’t date judgmental bitches who won’t give someone a chance to apologize, or a second chance…”
Maybe I dodged a bullet with her.
Well, either way, fuck it.
And fuck her.
nine
LEA
I hate hockey.
I’ve hated it ever since Mike dragged me to his first game at age ten, where I spent the entire time with my hands pressed over my ears trying to muffle the sounds of bodies slamming into the Plexiglas, the crack of sticks against the ice, and the roar of the crowd…
Yuck.
But here I am, squeezed between Em and Ping on the cold metal bleachers of the Pine Barren rink. I promised Mike months ago I’d come to this game, and I promised Em and the other girls I’d join them only a few days ago, but now there’s a million other places I’d rather be.
“Oh. My. God. There’s Declan the Dick,” Em’s voice cuts through the screams of the Pine Barren faithful as number fourteen flies across the ice in a blur of scarlet and black. “I mean, I know we’re mad at him, but damn he’s?—”
“Not helping,” I grumble. “Stop ogling the enemy, Em. He’s dead to us.”
“Dead, but still hot,” she says with a shrug. “It’s tragic, really.”
I pull my coat tighter around me, the frigid arena giving me yet another reason to hate the sport. “This isseriouslyworse than hell.”
“Well, either way, your brother and his friends are warming me up…” Em shrugs, taking a sip from her supersized soda. “I still can’t believe you kissed him.”
“Do we have to keep bringing that up?” I stare daggers at her. “I’m trying to forget that night ever happened.”
“Sure, but you guys were practically soulgasming over how much you both love art, and then?—”
“And then he turned out to be a lying asshole who thinks my art has no soul.” I cut her off. “End of story.”
If only.
In the few days since Declan knifed me in the art class, again revealing his true colors, I know I’ve been an insufferable cow to Em, Ping, and Marnie—whowassitting with us, until she moved off to find Trevor and his perfect jawline elsewhere in the stands.
So instead of subjecting Em and Ping toanotherdose of Declan hate with just a pinch of self-loathing, I just cross my arms over my chest as Declan takes the puck, and keep my thoughts to myself.
It’s not just that he lied about being on the hockey team. It’s not just that he wrote that scathing critique on my drawing. It’s that I let myself believe, for one stupid night, that I’d found someone who really saw me, who understood me.
Technically proficient but lacks soul.
