Page 6 of We Shouldn't Be Together
“Did Coach Oliver like the view of you all alone?” Cammy asks, buttoning her white blouse.
“She’s so sick,” Yvie adds, brushing out her white-blonde hair. “Imagine wanting alone time with one of your students.Ick.”
So now we’re back on the predator storyline? I can’t keep up. I’m certainly not taking the bait. If I open my mouth, Cammy will turn the story on its head and say something magnificently vile, like I was alone in the gym with my phys-ed teacher, making out with her.
I eye Cammy as I unzip my bag. She licks her lips, waiting for me to step into her trap. It’s right there in the glint of her eye. She’s dying to put me in an unspeakable situation with my teacher.
I clear my throat and pull off my gym T-shirt. “Actually, she didn’t stay. I just finished running laps because I need to get fitter.”
“What?” Cammy splutters. “Coach Oliver just left? And you still ran?”
“Yeah.” I look down at my flat torso. “Like, I’m skinny, but I’m not in shape. I should work on that.”
Cammy snorts and mutters something I can’t hear.
Yvie throws her bag over her shoulder. “Whatever. I’m heading to lunch.”
“Are you going like that, Tabby?” Cammy smirks. “Topless is quite a look.”
“I’m heading to the shower. I’ll catch up.”
“I guess we’ll see you when the next bell rings,” she jokes.
“Yeah,” Yvie says with a giggle. “You really lagged behind back there in the gym.”
When the girls leave, and their echoing laughter fades in the hallway, I finally let out a shaky breath.
For the first time all day, I’m safe.
No more looking for excuses or distractions.
I’m finally out of the firing line.
2
“WhyamInotsurprised to see you here again?” the emergency room doctor says, scribbling notes on his clipboard.
I give him a cheesy grin. “I didn’t want you to miss me.”
Dr. Jones is highly unimpressed. “You think I want to see the same teenagers coming through these doors due to one-hundred percent avoidable incidents?”
The smile leaves my lips as I gulp from his goosebump-inducing tone.
We were only about fifteen minutes out of school when I wrecked it at the skatepark. A serious waste of an afternoon.
Dr. Jones checks over the stitches that an intern sewed above my elbow. “These look fine.” He then applies a bandage over the top to protect them. “Your parents can take you home now.”
I roll down my blood-splattered sleeve to cover the large square bandage. “Thanks, Doc.”
His eyebrow raises and his mouth twists. “Mm-hmm.”
Okay, he’s clearly not my biggest fan. But lighten up. Some stitches on the back of my bicep have to be better to deal with than something life threatening like a heart attack.
“Show me your wrist,” he says, and I comply. “It’s only been a few months since the fracture healed. Any residual pain?”
“Nope, it’s all good.” Actually, I get a dull ache every time it rains, but I’m not telling him that.
“And what about the knee? It was a close call on that injury.”
