Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(40)

“Can I talk to you?” I asked.

Lauren gave her this look like What do I do?

“It’s okay,” Claudia told her.

“I’ll be right over there,” Lauren replied.

She shot me this unreadable stare before walking over to stand by Gavin. The two of them just hung out by the corner and watched us, like we were about to burst out singing. Claudia turned to her locker and started rearranging books.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi.” Her voice was strained.

“Um . . . hey,” I said again. God. This was not going well.

“That’s what you came over here to say? Hey?” she asked.

I cleared my throat. “Um, no. I just . . .” The scent of her flowery perfume was making my head fuzzy. “Can you just look at me, please?”

She hesitated a second before looking into my eyes, then she nervously looked away.

“This is how it’s gonna be now?” I asked. “You can’t even look at me?”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re the one who broke up with me.”

Yeah, but I take it back, I wanted to say. I take back every word.

But when I opened my mouth, the words choked in my throat. Because if we got back together now, we’d just have to break up again in a few months. Besides, she’d already moved on. And so had I, I told myself, trying to up my spirits.

“I know. I know. But can’t we . . . I don’t know . . . be friends or something?” My heart was desperate. I wanted more than anything to just reach out and touch her. Take her hand, pull her into me, kiss the top of her head. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed to anymore. And it was my fault.

She made this soft but sort of strangled noise, then slammed her locker. Her eyes darted past my shoulder, and she paled. I glanced over and saw that Josie, Jessa, and a couple of their other girlfriends had joined Gavin, and they were watching us with a disgusted kind of glare.

“How would that work, exactly?” Claudia said. “You’ve always had your friends,” she added, nodding over at the cheerleaders. “And I’ve always had mine. At least now we don’t have to make them pretend to like each other anymore.”

She started to walk away.

“Claudia,” I said. “Come on.”

“Friends is not something we were before, Peter,” she said quietly, looking at the floor. “And it’s not something I want to be now.”

Then she walked over to Lauren, grabbed her arm, and steered her around the corner, before I could even come up with another word to stop her.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


Claudia


I could feel my cells bouncing around inside my veins and under my skin as I waited for Liza to announce Peter’s name at our last pep rally run-through before the real deal. The whole football team was out on the basketball court in one long line, facing the bleachers, having already heard their positions and names announced. Now they were just waiting for their leader. The boosters stood behind them, between the locker room and their backs, lined up to face each other, since we’d be holding pom-poms and pennants and signs for the players to run through tomorrow. Flanked out on either side of our two lines were the cheerleaders, a few varsity and JV on each side. My sister was behind me. So was Josie the Big-Lipped Girl. I held my breath as Liza called him out.

“And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for!” I looked at Lauren across the way, and she rolled her eyes. “Number Eleven, your starting quarterback and senior captain, Peter! Marrott!”

Everyone on the court cheered, and it was pretty loud considering it was just boosters, players, and cheerleaders. Peter bounded out of the locker room with a big smile on and jogged down the center aisle created by me and the other boosters. Watching him in his element, so larger-than-life and happy and carefree, made me want to cry. He was my boyfriend. Mine. I wanted to reach out and grab his hand, or throw myself into his arms so he’d pick me up and twirl me around and kiss me. But I couldn’t.

Because he wasn’t mine. Not anymore.

He did look at me as he jogged by. A passing glance. It felt like death.

Then he was with the team, huddled up, bouncing up and down on their toes doing their throaty-voiced chant.

“Rams! Rams! We are the Rams!

Who’s gonna win?

Rams! The Rams!

Gooooo, Rams!”

The cheerleaders screamed like some celebrity had just walked into the room. I glanced over my shoulder at Casey, and she was shaking her blue-and-silver poms in the air.

“Perfect!” Liza shouted. “After we’re done with this, you’ll all sit down. Football players in the front row, boosters behind them.”

I made a move for the bleachers, but everyone else stood there watching her.

“Go! Bleachers! Now! Sit!” she ordered, waving her hands at us. She shook her head as everyone did as she said, then turned to the cheerleaders. “This is where we do our dance routine, girls. Everybody ready?”

Lauren and I came together as we headed for the bleachers. The players had already sat down, taking up the first two rows, and Peter was right at the center of the middle, watching the action on the court. His eyes were trained on something, and I was sure it was Josie, but I refused to turn around to check.

“How’re you doing?” Lauren whispered to me as we shuffled across the bleachers.