The Fragile Ordinary(63)
It was still so weird to say that word. Boyfriend.
Boy. Friend.
Boyfriend.
Boyfriend!
Okay, I needed to stop.
“So I hear you have a boyfriend, Comet,” Steph teased as soon as I sat down.
I snorted. “You sound like my great aunt Mildred, if I had a great aunt Mildred.”
Steph eyed me in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You’re relieved. That I’m off the shelf. Spinster no more.”
More confusion.
I sighed. “You thought I’d never get a boyfriend.”
“Not true,” she argued immediately. “I thought you were perfectly capable of getting a boyfriend. I just didn’t think you wanted one.”
“Not just one.” Vicki nudged me, grinning from ear to ear. “The one. Tobias King.”
“Well, just be careful, Comet,” Steph said with all the wisdom of someone three months younger than me. “King is a little bit of a player.”
Annoyed and trying not to be, I shrugged. “You don’t know him.”
“Uh, he’s in my P.E. class.”
Vicki and I shared a look, and I pinched my lips together to stop myself from bursting into laughter.
The giddiness and laughter was somewhat squished when the bell rang for second period that morning. Tobias had made it to Spanish before me so all we could do was make eye contact across the room and smile at each other. I decided I’d never get tired of his smile.
Or the butterflies it let loose in my belly.
After class Tobias threaded his fingers through mine and he walked me to biology. That was when the giddiness was taken over by the nervousness as our classmates started to take notice of us. I squirmed, hating that feeling of being under a microscope. For most of my life I’d gotten by under the radar. The only time I’d been caught like a bug under a glass had been when Heather set out to make my life miserable. Thankfully, it hadn’t lasted long, but for those few months I’d dreaded school.
I received another sweet kiss on the lips before he left me in the doorway to biology and I almost walked into the doorjamb as I dreamily turned from watching him stride off. Hoping my cheeks weren’t blazing, I hurried to my pod and got out my jotters.
“Psst.”
“Psst!”
I frowned and glanced over my shoulder in the direction of the noise.
Jayla Hancock, a girl in the year above me, was staring at me incredulously. “Are you and Tobias King...like...dating? For real?”
Jayla Hancock had never paid me one whit of attention until now. She was best friends with Jess Reed.
Oh dear.
I nodded stiffly, returning my gaze to my books, but not before I caught her stunned expression and the gasp of surprise from the girls at her pod.
Their scandalized whispering made me want to dive under the counter and hide.
“Really?”
I looked up at my neighbor, Wendy Shen. Wendy and I were perfect pod buddies. We both talked very little and we took our schooling very seriously. “Excuse me?”
“You’re going out with King?”
I was shocked she even knew who he was, let alone seemed delighted at the prospect of my dating him. “Yes.”
Wendy grinned, her dark eyes bright. “Nice one. He’s hot.”
Her comment was so unexpected that I burst into laughter. Holy crap. You would have thought I’d just started dating a famous person!
*
The battle with myself to see the funny side of everyone gossiping about me and Tobias lost ground as I walked to the library for my free period. I’d dawdled a little in the girls’ bathroom before it, so by the time I’d started making my way there the halls had emptied out again.
When I saw Stevie turn the corner at the bottom of the corridor I was walking down, my steps faltered. It was different seeing him now, for many reasons, one of which was not having Tobias at my side.
Stevie froze for a second when he saw me and then he started to stride with determination toward me. For some reason a flash of warning heat scored up the back of my neck and I gasped as suddenly Stevie put his bruised face inches from mine.
Angry green eyes burned. “Ye tell anyone whit I said aboot ma mum or dad or any o’ the shit I spewed when I thought ye were ma pal, ye’ll regret it. Alana and the lasses want tae gun for ye. Dinnae give them a reason.”
I was so in shock by the sudden threat I just stared at him.
He pushed me back into the wall and slammed the space above my head with the palm of his hand, making me flinch in fear. “Understood?”
I nodded quickly, my breathing becoming rapid, wondering how things had escalated so badly in the wrong direction between us. “Stevie—”
“Just keep yer mouth shut. Ye’ve done enough. Ever since King started being friends with ye everything got screwed. They moved oot. Mum got sick. And now ma best pal has deserted me. Aw fur you.” He gave me a look of disgust and then pushed away from me. My body shuddered as I struggled to get my breathing back to normal.
Stevie’s eyes flickered over me, the anger in them seeming to waver for a moment. He screwed up his face and scrubbed a hand over his head. “Fuck!” he bit out as he hurried away from me.
I glanced either way down the hall but there was no one there to witness what had happened. Trembling, jittery, feeling sick to my stomach, I hurried toward the library and to the safety of others. Stevie was... That hadn’t been my friend back there. My friend would never have frightened me like that.