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Slowly sinking to my knees, I place my hands on the edge of the bed and run my fingers over the yellow stars poured across the deep blue background of the comforter. I stare at the stars until they begin to blur from the tears that are clouding my vision.
With one swift movement, I stand up, scream and rip the blanket off the bed, throwing it across the room.
watch as the girl in the mirror stares back at me, sobbing pathetically. The weakness in her tears infuriates me. We begin to run toward each other until our fists collide against the glass, smashing the mirror.
I’m throwing whatever I can find in front of me at whatever else I can find in front of me. Every time I open my mouth to scream, I taste the salt from the tears that are streaming down my cheeks.
“Sky.” His voice is steady and unaffected. “You need to leave. Now.”
I’d like to think most of the decisions I’ve made throughout my seventeen years have been smart ones. Hopefully intelligence is measured by weight, and the few dumb decisions I’ve made will be outweighed by the intelligent ones.
But I realize that our separation is inevitable and I can only go so long before I’m forced into the real world where other people besides Six and Karen live.
There are seventy-six of them. Stars, that is. I know this because for the last few weeks I’ve had ample time to count them while I’ve been in this same predicament.
“Funny how we’re whores because you didn’t get laid. Assholes.”
“You like to read?” I ask, pointing at the book peering out of the top of his backpack. It’s not a textbook. It’s an actual book-book. Something I thought was lost on this generation of internet fiends. I reach over and pull the book out of his backpack and take a seat across from him. “What genre is it? And please don’t say sci-fi.”
“Should it matter what genre it is if the book is good?” he says.
“I went with black because it best depicts my mood today. Maybe after you agree to join me on my quest, I’ll switch to something a bit more cheerful. Perhaps yellow.”
“Sure. But if the book sucks, we’re re-evaluating the friendship.”
My eyes trail from his hand to the tattoo written in small script across his forearm. Hopeless
Absolutely
“I beg to differ. Lust sucks. I think you’ve played it up all these years. My vote is still with gluttony.”
“Dean Holder? Messy brown hair? Smoldering blue eyes? A temper straight out of Fight Club?”
“Why Sky? Of all the guys you could be attracted to, why the hell is it Dean Holder?”
"Why HIM? "
I don’t know him that well, but I know enough about him to know he’s not boyfriend material.”
God don't i know that? And he made it pretty clear
Despite the familiar despair that my body is currently in, I still can’t seem to shut my mind off. I keep running in hopes that I’ll get to that point, but it’s taking a lot longer than usual. The only thing that makes me decide to stop going is the fact that I still have to cover as much tread going home, and I’m almost out of water.
“You stalk,” I deadpan.
Ofc
Should I stay? Should I run?
He grabs my chin and tilts my head back. “Who did this to you?” The same hardness I saw in his eyes at the grocery store returns behind his scowl. “Your eye wasn’t like this earlier.”
He doesn’t smile. Instead, he takes a step closer and gives me a hard look, then brushes his thumb underneath my eye. “You would tell someone, right? If someone did this to you?”
His hand is on my cheek. I can’t think, I can’t speak, I can’t breathe. The intensity that exudes from his whole existence sucks the air out of my lungs and the strength out of my knees.
“Do me a favor?” Anything. I’ll do anything you ask me to, so long as you’re shirtless. “Yeah?”
“Well, you make it sort of difficult to stalk you,” he says. “I couldn’t even find you on Facebook.”
He tilts his head toward mine and narrows his eyes. “You have no idea how bad I want to get up that early.” He flashes me his dimple-laden grin, and I faint.
“Just in the right place at the right time, I guess.”
No wonder those abs looked familiar.
“I know I don’t have to do this, Sky. I do what I want.”
“If I ask you something, will you be honest?” He tilts his head toward me. “That’s all I’ll ever be.”
It’s crap that you’re letting one bad year determine your fate for the rest of your life.
Holder shifts his eyes away from the tattoo that we’re both staring at, and he looks back up and nudges his head toward my house. “You’re here,” he says matter-of-factly. He turns away from me without so much as a smile or a wave goodbye.
Am I happy about the fact that I may have changed his mind? Because I sort of feel nothing but regret.
breaks out into a smile as soon as he spots me in the back of the room. He winks at me and I immediately want to crawl under my desk and hide. I give him a quick, tight-lipped smile, then look down at my desk as soon as other students begin turning around in their seats to see who he’s staring at.
Now he’s smiling at me like he’s just seen his best friend for the first time in years. Yep. He’s got issues.
“You want me to be honest?” “That’s all I ever want you to be.”
“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. You flirt and say things like you have intentions with me that I’m not willing to reciprocate. And you’re…”
“You’re…intense. Too intense. And moody. And a little bit scary. And there’s the other thing,” I say, without saying it. “I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea.”
Is being intense a bad thing? So what exactly does this mean? Have i got the gist of it with coming on too strongly or is there more?
“In those two days, I’ve seen five different sides of you, and only one of them has been appealing. The fact that you think you have any right to even voice an opinion about me or my decisions is absurd. It’s ridiculous.”
“Did he hit you,” he says without any inflection in his voice. He keeps his head trained to the floor, but looks up at me through his eyelashes. “Has he ever hit you?”
“Sky, if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t do vague. I told you I’ll only ever be honest with you, and to me, vague is the same thing as dishonesty.”
love your indifference. I love how you really just don’t give a shit what people think. I love how you are focused on your future and everyone else can kiss your ass.
“It’s real, Six. You can’t get mad at a real ending. Some of them are ugly. It’s the fake happily ever afters that should piss you off.”
I’ll never forget that, because you were right. And I know you weren’t trying to teach me a lesson, but you did. Not everything is going to go my way and not everyone gets a happily ever after. Life is real and sometimes it’s ugly and you just have to learn how to cope. I’m going to accept it with a dose of your indifference, and move on.
sigh. “What do you want, Holder?” He either needs to get his point across about why he’s here, or he needs to leave.
he’s looking right at me, waiting for a reaction. Or a response. Neither of which he’s getting for a few seconds, because I need to process this.
he’s not crazy, then he’s definitely trying to make a point. But what point? He comes over here, uninvited, to defend his reputation and insult mine? What would be the point of even going forth with the effort? I’m just one person, what does my opinion matter?
“You’re intense. I’m right about that, at least.” “I may be intense, but I’m not mean.”
“I’m sorry, Holder,” I say quietly. He sighs heavily. “I know, Sky. I know.”
