“Do you need help …” she starts in again, and I’m quick to shut it down.
“No.”
“And what about that girl?”
My body tenses and I hesitate to answer, but say, “What girl?”
Julie’s eyes roll as she puts her hands on her hips. “Don’t give me that shit.”
I let the anger simmer, not knowing what to say, but I settle on the truth. The bare truth. “She’s just someone I used to know,” I answer her.
She opens her mouth to give me her opinion or something, I don’t know what, but I don’t care to hear what she has to say. “I need to be alone right now,” I say curtly. I’m basically telling her to get out.
The anger comes back in response to my cold return as she snaps, “Well get it together, Hart. I don’t have time for this and I’m not going to be humiliated because you can’t play a role.”
The sound of the door slamming barely registers as I sit down on the bed and think about what I’m going to say to her.
The first question that comes to my mind is: What is there left to say?
And that answer is easy: Everything.
* * *
September 30
* * *
“Tell me what’s wrong?” she keeps asking me over and over like she thinks I’m hiding something. If this is what being together entails, I’m good on my own. I don’t have to tell her what a shitbag my mother’s boyfriend is, or that we can’t afford rent this month because he wiped out my mom’s bank account. I don’t have to, and I won’t.
“I told you,” I say as I slam the locker door shut and then face her. The wounded look in her eyes makes my anger wane. My words stay in the back of my throat, suffocating me as she visibly swallows.
“I just want to know,” she tells me softly as her doe eyes gloss over.
I run a hand down my face and let out a sigh as I clench my fists and lean my forearms against the cold metal of the locker. I can almost see my reflection in it. Almost, but I can’t. I can see hers though. The way she looks at me like she’s hurt.
“Is it because I told my friends you’re my boyfriend?” she asks me and then pushes the strap to her bookbag higher up on her shoulder.
If only it was that easy. The thought makes the corner of my lip twitch up into a smile as I turn back to her.
It’s stupid. Holding her hand and putting a label on us. I don’t get it. Anyone who looks at the two of us knows we’re not going to work out. So why put a title on it? Why fuss over the details of something that isn’t going to last?
“It’s not that,” I tell her simply and she looks back at me like she doesn’t believe me. I’m on the verge of telling her. Of confessing. It’d be a relief to just tell someone, but not her. I don’t want her to know.
“So, you’re my boyfriend then?” she asks me, cocking a brow.
Fucking hell. I give in. “Sure,” I tell her with a forced smile and she kicks me in the shin.
“Ow!” I mock yell at her and smile. “Yes, I’m your boyfriend,” I say jokingly.
“Thank you, Nathan,” Hally says sweetly, getting onto her tiptoes to wrap her arms around me. She does it so easily. Like she doesn’t see everyone watching. And if she does, she doesn’t care. I keep my arms down, careful not to hug her back, but then it all changes. So suddenly, I almost don’t realize what she’s done.
She plants a soft kiss on my neck. It’s wet, just a little, but it’s the sound and the way that her hair brushes against my chin that make me wrap my arms around her waist. She does it again on my jawline. A small kiss and I find myself tilting my chin down and hoping for one on the lips, but she doesn’t give it to me.
Instead, she rests flat on her feet and then smiles as her cheeks turn bright red. Before I can even utter a word, she grabs my hand and says, “Good. I can tell you need me to be your girlfriend.” With a nod, she starts walking and I follow behind her.
That’s the power she holds over me, but she wasn’t prepared for the harsh reality of what being my girlfriend meant.
Neither of us were.
Chapter 8
Harlow
* * *
This is exactly what I needed, I think as my shoes click against the floor to the dressing rooms by Stage Three. My body is on fire with anger. And embarrassment, but I push that aspect aside. The anger is so much easier to hold onto. It fuels me to keep walking with purposeful strides.