Revolution (Collide, #4)(85)

“Are you worrying about Charlie again?” Rachel huffed.

Ari threw her a 'don't start' look.

“Let’s go to lunch,” A.J. interrupted, dodging any conversation to do with Charlie. He thought Charlie was a loser and hated that Ari ‘wasted’ so much time and anxiety over him.

Stemming a wave of anger at her friends and their attitude, Ari pulled away from them. “I’ll catch up in a minute, save me a seat.”



A frown appeared between Rachel’s smooth brows. “You’re not going over there?”



Clenching her jaw, Ari turned her back on them. “Just save me a seat,” she called over her shoulder, dodging students in her path.

“You need to give her a break about him,” she heard Staci say, but A.J.’s response was muffled as Ari moved further through the throng of teenagers.

Bursting out of the front entrance, Ari inhaled a lungful of warm summer air, shaking her hands out as if the gesture could shake out all her worries with it. Her eyes scanned the parking lot for Charlie but she couldn’t see him, which meant he was out behind the lot in the trees where the teachers couldn’t see. If he wasn’t careful he was going to get kicked out. He’d already been held back a year. Not that he cared. A rush of angry wasps awoke in her stomach as they always did when she was about to face him. That hadn’t been the case in the past. In the past, just the thought of him used to relax her. Pulling her shoulders back, Ari started off across the lot with a determined stride. She just had to know he was alright. They hadn’t spoken in two weeks which was officially the longest they had gone without speaking.

As if coerced onto the scene by a sad Fate a little boy of nine or ten years old with dark brown hair and eyes shot towards her, puffing out of breath.

“Have you seen my sister?” he wheezed.

Concerned by his appearance at the high school during the day Ari stopped, grabbing his arm before he could shoot off without an answer. “Who’s your sister?”



“Gemma Hall.”



Ari frowned. Gemma was a junior. “I’ll-”



“Bobby!” They both spun around to see Gemma rushing down the school steps towards them. “Did you bring them?”



“Yeah, but you owe me, like, twenty bucks…”



Satisfied that there was nothing dramatic going down between the siblings Ari left them to it, only glancing back once at the kid. He looked so much like Michael.

Michael Creagh. Charlie’s kid brother. And the reason Charlie was so effed up. Two years ago, on Ari’s 16th birthday, Charlie had taken his parent’s SUV out to pick up his little brother from Little League. He was hurrying, trying to get Mike home so he could head over to Ari’s to pick her up and take her out to celebrate. The cyclist came out of nowhere. Charlie had swerved onto oncoming traffic and the passenger side took the full impact of the collision. When Charlie had come to... Mike was already dead. Everything changed that day. The happy Creaghs stopped being parents to Charlie and Charlie stopped being…Charlie. He blamed himself for his brother’s death and Ari wasn’t so sure his parents didn’t either.

Ari felt a rip of pain across her chest at the thought of how much agony her best friend was in. How did you live with that kind of guilt? Ari stopped hanging out at the Creagh’s because Charlie didn’t want her to. He told her his dad had started drinking and his mom had gotten her old job as manager at FoodLand back to keep them afloat financially and to avoid her husband and the son who hadn’t died. Eventually, Charlie started hanging with a new crowd: slackers, potheads. He started skipping school, dropping grades. She’d even on occasion found him wasted in Vickers' Woods. She’d hoped he’d snap out of it eventually, that it was just his way of grieving. But it had been two years…



Before it happened… Ari had been psyching herself up to talk to him that night… the night of her 16th. After confiding in Rachel, her new chem lab partner, she had been persuaded it was time. She had been moping after Charlie for three years. Ari didn’t know when her feelings for him stopped being platonic. There wasn’t a moment when everything shifted and suddenly she loved him. It was more that she turned thirteen and suddenly boys were cute and gave her butterflies. Charlie gave her butterflies. Not raging wasps like he did now. But tickling, exciting, beautiful creatures that fluttered their wings against her stomach, kicking her heart into a wild dance that matched their beat. She had been sixteen years old and in love.

And she still loved him.

Even though he wasn’t Charlie anymore.

Ari’s skin cooled as she stepped into the trees, winding her way over the worn path that took her into the clearing that was popular with stoners. Surely the faculty knew about this place but they were either too lazy to do something about it or just didn’t care. Her eyes washed over the gathering, finding mostly sophomores and juniors. She only knew a few people by name and she nodded at them warily. They were lounging around on the grass, leaning against one another and rocks, their pupils dilated, their features slack. Drifting through them, Ari headed towards a guy she recognized. He was tall, his long legs stretched out before him in dirty, ripped jeans, his Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt wrinkled and worn. His expression was blank as he gazed up at her, brushing his unkempt dark brown hair out of his deep brown eyes. He had a nice face, handsome in that boy next door kind of way. As she stopped before him, he tilted his head back and the corner of his mouth quirked up. A flash of emotion sparked in his eyes transforming him from cute guy next door to sexy and dangerous ‘anything is possible with me’ guy. Before her was a boy who could hurt her more than anybody else.