Page 4 of Loathing Ryan
Before we left Bennett this morning, my mother had given me a phone call as a way of a heads-up. She said that she and her boyfriend had something to tell me once I got home from camp, and she didn’t want to catch me off guard.
I was already thinking the worst.
She and her boyfriend, Derek, had been together for over a year. He was a decent guy, but he still wasn’t my dad. Though I liked him, it was sometimes difficult for me to reconcile the fact that he might easily become my stepfather someday. Probably sooner rather than later.
That’s what I suspected she wanted to speak with me about. She and Derek probably got engaged over their recent long weekend at the beach, and they would try to break it to me gently.
So, the significant changes that were inevitable in my life were taking a bit more priority in my head than coming up with games to play with Izabel. Yet, I still had a role to fill. I bet I could come up with a few tame jokes to play on her the first week and maybe just slowly wean off the teasing. Maybe the guys would be able to stomach that better than me just straight up refusing to follow through on their expectations.
My mind was a flurry as I walked to my dorm room to unpack my things. Mulling it all over, I wasn’t sure why I cared at all about what my friends thought of me. Sure, I was the king of the school—thanks to a few soccer championships under my belt and a consistently high GPA—but we had exactly four weeks until graduation. Then we’d all be dispersing to the next chapter of our lives.
Would it really be so terrible to want to put the shenanigans that happened at this camp behind me?
Someone knocked on my door once I was just about finished putting my clothes away. I looked up to see Todd with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Hey, man,” he said with an excited hint to his tone. “The Hawthorne bus is pulling up now. Might wanna get downstairs.”
Todd didn’t linger longer than he had to. I heard his laugh echo through the stairwell on his way to the ground floor as I gave my dorm room a good once-over. I still had a few things to organize, but this would do for now. With that, I walked downstairs and returned outside just as the Hawthorne Academy bus stopped in front of the girls' dorm building.
I stayed near the outskirts of the pack of guys waiting for the girls to depart their bus. Liam came to stand next to me and nudged me with his shoulder. I knew he was excited to see his girlfriend, Juliet.
It seemed unfair that my best friend would be dating Izabel’s best friend. I didn’t doubt Izabel found it just as ironic. But Juliet and Liam had been together for a few years now and were absolutely crazy about each other. I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t slightly jealous of their deep attraction to each other.
Back at Bennett, Liam and I shared a room. He would be up all night, catching up with his girlfriend throughout the semester. It wasn’t very often that the two schools got together, so camp was always something for the two of them to look forward to.
As soon as Liam caught sight of Juliet, he raced off. If Juliet was near, Izabel likely wasn’t too far behind her.
The minute Izabel stepped off the bus, she looked around the camp, taking it all in.The moment I saw her, my throat seemed to close in, and swallowing became slightly more difficult. I tried to take a deep breath to calm my ever-increasing heart rate, but it continued to climb. Subconsciously, I recognized that my palms were starting to sweat, and I clenched them tightly, shoving them in the pockets of my shorts before I could think too far into it.
I contributed this weird reaction to the pressure of my classmates as they waited for the moment Izabel set eyes on me. It was like a heavy weight resting on my shoulders, knowing they expected me to behave a certain way whenever she was in my vicinity.
Finally, Izabel’s bright blue eyes landed on me, and her face instantly fell into a scowl. I held her gaze for a second before making a show of dropping from her face and giving her a good once-over. She wore a pair of light-wash jean capris and dark tennis shoes that had dust covering them. A light purple shirt hung from her shoulders and accentuated the dips and curves of her figure.
Putting on the mask and stepping into the role all my friends anticipated, my lips curled into a sneer.
Izabel’s frown deepened as she stared right back at me, and finally, as if she knew what she was in for, her shoulders deflated. A knot twisted deep in my belly, but I kept my face neutral, not outwardly indicating my inner turmoil. As far as anyone else was concerned, this was just another summer and another round.
We just had to get through these three weeks, and then I would never have to put on this show with Izabel again.
Let the games begin.
3
IZABEL
Ryan wasted no time,sauntering up until he was in my space. He leisurely walked a circle around me, like a lion stalking its prey. My assumption that he had grown since last summer had been correct. Ryan now towered over me, providing yet another power imbalance between us. I could smell his cologne on him–that hadn’t changed either. It was a bold mixture of spice and cedarwood. It sent up red alerts inside my head, my body urging me to get away from him, to go literally anywhere but here. I supposed years of being stuck in fight-or-flight mode around him would be to blame for that reaction.
“Well, well,” he said as he continued his slow steps. “You’ve changed a lot, Bells.”
I scowled. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why? I like it. It’s endearing.” He winked as he came to stand right in front of me, his arms crossed over his chest. His biceps bulged slightly out of the sleeves of the heather blue t-shirt he wore. I averted my eyes, not wanting to give him any more ammunition.
“I’ve told you this before, Ryan. You can call me Izabel, or you can call me Izzie. Not Bells,” I told him, hating that my voice wavered a little.
“Izabel Sanders, are you taking a tone with me?” he prodded, his smirk still plastered over his face. I wanted to punch that stupid expression right off.
“Seriously, Ryan? She’s been off the bus for all of two seconds. You can’t give her a break?” The sound of Jules’s voice had a sense of peace washing over me. She walked over hand-in-hand with her longtime boyfriend, Liam, a look of irritation settling on her normally angelic face.
To my surprise, Ryan did take a step back. I didn’t blame him. Juliet was a force to be reckoned with—she didn’t play around, and Ryan knew that. Her presence, however, didn’t manage to wipe the smirk off of his face. “Aw, Jules, I’m just saying hello to my favorite person in the whole wide world.”
