by KT Strange
It’d been nice to just hang out with him, and talk about nothing to do with boys or Shiv, or anything. Just his thoughts on what colleges I should apply to in the next year, and what classes I should take to make sure I had all the right pre-requisites. We talked like I’d be staying in Hidden River with him, and not back home with my mom. It was like he didn’t want to bring it up, and to be honest, I was too scared to ask. My life was as fragile as a cobweb, and one wrong word could rip it to shreds. I needed to protect what I had, even if I wasn’t entirely happy with where things were.
I hadn’t been sleeping well, not really, my emotions choked and confusing, coming out in the form of weird nightmares where Shiv shoved me from behind down a flight of stairs. Yeah, I was not a great person for dating her ex, but she’d been just as bad, and worse. But I’d forgiven her. Was I right to still be upset about things if I’d already told her everything was okay? I needed to be more cautious around her, maybe guard my feelings a little more in her presence. Hopefully we could return to the friendship we’d had at the beginning, without all the ugliness of everything that had happened…
“Miss Quinn?” My math teacher stood in front of me, a smile playing on her lips. “You look a thousand miles away. Good morning, do you need some coffee? They have it in the cafeteria if you need the pick-me-up.” Her teasing was gentle, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“No, not a coffee fan,” I said, and she laughed, pointing at my text book.
“In that case, please open your books so you can join the rest of the class.”
I let out a breath as she walked away, trying not to notice the way other students were looking at me. I didn’t need the scrutiny. My heart felt like it was filled with razor blades, even though I should have been floating on air from the night before with Shawn. There was too much going on, too much drama and hurt that had me feeling stuck instead of feeling like I was moving forward. Math class passed in a blur, and second period as well, even though when I looked back later I had absolutely taken notes, thank god. Shiv sat next to me for some of my classes during the day, her pretty red hair pulled into thick braids. Every time she turned to whisper to me about something, I felt the uncertain urge to tell her that I was still hurt by what she’d did and how she’d acted. The feeling followed me to lunch, and when Colt moved to steal half my fries, I didn’t even blink.
He dropped his hand, slapping it on the cafeteria table in front of my tray.
“Alright, dime-store princess, what’s wrong? You’ve got a hickey on your neck, and a frown that would give a botox-injecting soccer mom the absolute hives. Aren’t you worried about wrinkles?”
“Dime-store princess?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him, lifting a hand to my neck. Did I have a hickey? When had Shawn given that to me? I’d thought his lips were way too bruised and swollen for anything like that to happen. “What are you, fifty years old? Nobody calls them dime stores anymore.” He snorted and shrugged, before pointing to a spot low on his neck. I tugged up my collar a bit and he nodded in approval.
“I’m trying something new.”`
“Well, don’t. Just eat my fries, and shut up.” I wasn’t feeling charitable or up for games, and it was just the two of us. I didn’t need to put on a face with Colt. I didn’t need to pretend everything was okay, because Colt didn’t care about school politics. He did whatever the fuck he wanted, and in a small way I was jealous of him for it.
He stared at me, solid and steady for a moment before sighing and running a hand through his hair.
“You’re about ready to crack, huh?” He grimaced. “You’d think balancing two hunks from the football team in either hand, you’d be on top of the world, but you look more miserable than when you first came to sit at my table.”
“You’re not my gal pal,” I said. “What’s with the gossiping?”
“I’m not your gal pal, or you gay bestie,” he agreed, “but I’m only an asshole when people care. You’ve stopped caring. What’s going on?” He watched me carefully and I felt like I was on the knife’s edge. I could open up and tell him everything, but I didn’t want to be that exposed. At the same time, what I was feeling hurt too much to continue on without exploding at somebody. Better Colt than anyone else. Colt, at least, seemed to keep his mouth shut about a lot of things. When it was just the two of us, or the three of us including Boots, he was a bit of a blabber-mouth, but around the other students… I noticed he tended to shut the fuck up about the things he knew. Maybe it was safe to tell him.
“Did you ever feel like you forgave people too quickly?” I dragged a fry through a splat of ketchup on my plate. “Because that’s sorta where I’m at.”
Colt raised an eyebrow.
“You’re still mad at Shiv for being a massive cunt to you, and no, I’m not sorry for using that word. She’s normally a pretty nice girl, and I’ve known her for a long time, but she was a cunt, sorry not sorry. I think that if you weren’t upset with her still, even though you two have been all buddy-buddy in the last little bit, there’d be something wrong with you.” He reached across, stealing one of my fries, his hand lingering close to mine for a moment.
“Pretty much.”
“And why not Buck?” He asked, and it was like a punch to the gut. I lifted my head from staring at the pattern I was making with my ketchup.
“What?”
“That fucker completely abandoned you for days, leaving you to my mercy, and the mercy of all those evil little bitches on the cheer squad,” Colt snorted, his amber eyes flashing with irritation. “If I cared more I would have punched him right in that pretty face of his to protect your honor. Too bad I don’t care about anything.”
I rolled my eyes. Colt did care. Or he wouldn’t be talking to me. He liked to pretend his heart was a shriveled up fig, but I was starting to realize that he was more than just the shield of bitterness and sarcasm that he liked to wear.
“Seriously, Mia, you need to have words with your boy, or I will. Because that was not okay. How long did he ghost you for?” Colt wasn’t eating, and neither was I, the uncomfortable feelings in my gut making me a bit ill. “Neither of those two idiots deserve you, and I think they’ve figured that out, so they act like dicks so you think you don’t deserve them.”
“They don’t,” I protested weakly. Colt raised a skeptical eyebrow and I glared. “They’re not awful.”
“But they could be better, and they didn’t have to leave you hanging when the whole school thought you were a slutty little home-wrecker. I’m not saying they don’t have their own damage and that they wanted to hurt you like that, but the end result was the same. They hurt you whether they wanted to or not. You’re hurt, and now you’re sitting here, trying to date two of HRA’s hottest dude-bros, and wondering why you’re not ecstatic about it.” Colt’s words hurt so hard because they were true. I was feeling raw. I wanted to open up to both Buck and Shawn, throw myself completely into this weird little relationship thing we were doing, but it felt like I couldn’t. I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel like they had my back, like they’d protect me no matter what.
“Isn’t it selfish to ask someone else to put you first, though?” I tried the only argument I could think of to convince myself that they hadn’t just thrown me under the bus when things got hard.
“There’s putting yourself first, Mia, and then there’s not letting your girlfriend get assaulted in the middle of a school assembly, or letting all her friends turn their backs on her and treat her like garbage,” Colt said with a finality and iron in his tone that made me look up at him. His lips were pressed in a thin line, and one of his hands was fisted on the table. His eyes blazed, and he looked furious.
“Why do you care?” I asked. He blinked, and then snorted.
“I don’t.”
That was a bullshit line. We both knew it. He eyed me up, challenging me to call him out on his lie. He absolutely did care. It didn’t make sense otherwise. We’d known each other for barely a few months, and
maybe I’d been taking shelter at his lunch table, because nobody fucked with Colt Lawson, but we weren’t close like that. I didn’t even think you could be close with a guy like that and not be in a relationship with them.
“Well thanks for the words of wisdom,” I said, clearing my throat.
“You tell Buck he’s an asshole, and that he needs to grovel. Get him to buy you something nice. The guy’s loaded. Why don’t you get him to buy you a new laptop, and you can give it to me,” Colt said with a smirk, like he hadn’t just hollowed out all the toxin inside of me and laid it out on the table for me to see what was really going on.
I made a face at him. He pulled my tray towards himself and started eating my leftovers.
“Well, it was worth the try.”
“Uh huh,” I said, “I’ll see you later.”
“Mmhmm, later, sweet-cheeks.”
I rolled my eyes, and left.
A cluster of girls were near my locker at the end of the day when I went to grab my books that I’d need for homework. They eyed me up, and I eyed them back for a moment before turning to my locker, my fingers flicking open the combination. A burst of laughter made me look up. Paige’s perfectly spiral-curled hair tossed as she looked toward me and smirked. Could she have been any more obvious? She wanted me to look at her and think she was gossiping about me.
I opened my locker and grabbed my books. Buck was waiting for me down in the parking lot, and my stomach was already churning from what I was going to say to him. I was seriously gonna rock the boat, if I ended up confronting him the way Colt wanted me to.
Except… okay, I wasn’t being entirely honest. It wasn’t just Colt pushing me. It was like by him talking to me about his own feelings on the matter, it had opened something up inside of me that gave me permission to be upset about how things had gone down. Yeah, Buck had fucked up. I wanted him to know that I thought he’d fucked up. And I wanted him to make it right. Because him leaving me to deal with everything, not answering my texts when I was pretty much begging to know how he was, if he was upset with me over my uncle’s decision… it had really beat me down. It’d just taken me awhile to see that.
If he expected to have any kind of relationship with me, where I trusted him, then he needed to own up to it, and promise to do better next time things got tough.
From the way Paige Farra was sending smug little grins my way as I loaded my backpack, things would never be easy for us at HRA until her and her little crew of hangers-on graduated, so it was going to get tough again for me and Buck. And adding Shawn into the mix? I had a double set of targets painted on my back. I knew that.
“She’s suuuuuch a slut,” the whispered words floated over to me. I slammed my locker shut. Fuck it.
Without missing a beat, I marched right over to Paige and her group of friends, a few of them who’d been on the cheer team with me.
“You know, I thought maybe I could take a little break and then come back, but I was thinking about it, and honestly? Fuck your cheer team,” I said to Paige, just as her mouth opened. Her lips pressed shut. “Fuck your cheer team, fuck your little group of shitty friends who give waaaaaay too much of a shit about my life than is healthy, and fuck your nasty grudge you have against me because Buck picked me instead of you. In fact, it wasn’t even a competition.” I took a breath, ignoring the hissing and gasping noises from the girls. I was done. These bitches had pushed me way too far. Paige was pale, except for two spots of color in her cheeks. I knew she wasn’t blushing because she was embarrassed. She was furious I was humiliating her in front of her friends. “What’s wrong, Farra? Nothing to say now that you don’t have everything planned in advance? Man it must be hard not to be smart enough to think on your feet, huh? You know what really must burn you? Knowing that even if I never came to this school, even if I wasn’t here, Buck still wouldn’t have you. Having nobody was literally better to him than dating you.”
I stepped closer to her and she stumbled back, her movements jerky.
“If you touch me, whore,” she spat, her fists balling at her sides.
“Oh you’re not even fucking worth it, you absolute casual,” I snapped back. “Where I come from, they’d chew you up, steal your Chanel handbag, and throw you in the gutter. You’re lucky I was raised knowing better than to touch hot garbage. I know crazy when I see it.”
“C’mon, Paige, let’s go.” A girl at the back grabbed Paige by the shoulder, but Paige shrugged the touch off.
“No, no, I wanna hear how little Mia Quinn grew up, with her mom doing drugs every night. Awww, Mia, were you playing at being Hermione Granger, reading books and trying to be smart to get yourself out of the crack house and into whatever state college would take your broke-ass charity case? You’d have had a pretty rude awakening when you found out they wouldn’t let you bring your druggie mother along with you to class,” Paige paused for breath for a moment, then laughed.
I saw white at the edge of my vision and I jerked back just so I didn’t slap the grin off her face. Because she wasn’t worth the trouble I’d be in, or how tough it’d make things for my uncle. I knew the school admin was looking for a reason to kick me out, and if I was gone then I wouldn’t be near Shawn and Buck every day.
“Say that again,” my voice was steady, even as my insides were trembling hard. “Say it again and watch me not give enough of a shit about your opinion to do anything.”
Paige’s eyes sparked with anger, narrowing.
“You’re crazy-”
“You’re the one who’s letting me live in your head, rent-free, Paige.” I lifted an eyebrow and smirked. “You give such a shit about what’s going on in my life, it’s like you’re obsessed with me. Better put that on your extracurriculars for your university app, ‘warning, is so desperate for attention that she needs to stalk other people and drag them down just to make herself feel better.’”
Paige made a noise like an angry tea-kettle and the girl at the back snapped.
“Paige, fuck this bitch, c’mon, let’s go-”
Paige cut her off with a shove, pushing herself toward me instead.
“You might be screwing them both, but you’re trash and they know it. As soon as they’re outta here, you’re done. Everyone comes into our lives for a reason, Mia, and for them the reason is to get their dirty little hijinks out with a cum-dumpster. Everyone’s waiting for you to come crashing down. Why do you think we’re letting you fuck them, huh?” The vitriol in her tone almost had me stepping back.
“What the fuck?” Garrett’s voice cut through the little bubble of rage we’d been standing in. Paige snapped her head up, and I followed the path of her gaze. Garrett stood there, his eyes blazing, staring her down. Behind him stood Cael, his arms crossed over his chest, and Reid, his tousled dark hair messier than usual.
“Well this looks fun,” Cael drawled.
“I always did like a good cat-fight,” Reid added.
“Not now, assholes,” Garrett ground out from behind his teeth.
“Paige, do you need a ride home?” Cael asked, stepping around Garrett, offering Paige his hand. His gaze flicked to me for a moment, and I moved back at what I saw on his face.
It wasn’t hatred or even disgust.
It was something like… pity.
How dare he feel bad for me. Did he think he was saving me? I grabbed my bag and shoved past him, thudding my shoulder hard into his arm. It hurt, he was built, but he made a soft oof noise that filled me with satisfaction. I stormed past Garrett, ignoring him as he called to me, and I glared at Reid who stood in my way. He stepped to the side, hands up in the air, ceding the hallway to me.
Good. It was about time these cashed-up, over-priced brats learned a little lesson about common decency. If I had to teach them, one student at a time, then so fucking be it.
Seventeen
Two giant duffle bags thumped down on the ground next to my camping backpack and sleeping bag. I looked up from my book. Buck grinned at me.
�
�Hey babe,” he said, bending down to sit next to me. I leaned into him, even as my heart squeezed painfully. I’d been too pissed off the other day after school to talk to him on the way home. Paige had me wound up and I’d vented about it all the way home. Buck had frowned a lot and asked me if I wanted him to talk to Paige to get her to back off.
My answer had been a resounding no. I wanted to deal with her myself.
Now we were waiting for the school bus to come and pick us up for our camping trip. I was looking forward to it. It’d be nice to see my perfectly coiffed classmates look dirty for once in their lives. Apparently the camp ground didn’t have shower facilities.
I’d talk to Buck about things later, maybe once we were back from our trip… or if I could grab a private moment with him while we were out in the woods. Then I could air out my feelings, and hope he understood.
I needed him to understand. It’d been eating at me for days since my talk with Colt. Speaking of Colt.
“Ugh, fuck, are we really doing this?” Colt asked, lugging along an old duffle bag after him. It was dirty and beat-up, compared to Buck’s new, pristine bags. “I hate the outdoors. The sun is my enemy.”
Buck snorted, and hugged me tight, pressing a kiss to my temple.
“It’ll make a man outta you. We get to wash up in the glacier lake,” Buck said, with a grin down at me. “Naked, in the morning, if you wanna join us. All the guys do it.”
“Yeah you get to see who’s a grow-er and a who’s a show-er,” Colt said. I groaned.
“Gross. I’m good, thanks.” I threaded my fingers with Buck’s, enjoying the touch and just letting the moment breathe. Later was later. I would talk to him later. For now I just wanted to be close to him.
Shiv joined us, Shawn close behind her. She gave him a tight smile and put her bags down with mine, not saying much. She’d sent me a text message the other night, telling me she’d heard what had gone down between me and Paige and to not listen to her. Shiv had a good heart, underneath it all, and things were slowly warming up between us again. It was fragile and delicate, but we’d get there.
