Every Last Breath - Armentrout Jennifer L.. Страница 74

By the time I got my tongue to form that one, stupid little word, she’d already spun and was halfway down the hall, and I was murmuring at air. Feeling about ten kinds of slow, I rolled my eyes and closed my locker door. Turning around, my gaze landed on the back of a guy heading in the opposite direction.

I don’t even know why or how I ended up looking at him. Maybe it was because he was a good head taller than anyone around him. Like a total creeper, I couldn’t pull my eyes away from him. He had wavy hair, somewhere between blond and brown, and it was cut short against the nape of his bronzed neck, but was longer on the top. I wondered if it flopped on his forehead, and there was an unsteady tug at my chest that made me think of a boy I used to know years ago, whose hair always did that—

fell forward. A boy it kind of hurt my chest to think about.

His shoulders were broad under a black T-shirt, biceps defined in a way that made me think of someone who either played sports or did a lot of labor. His jeans were faded, but not in the expensive way. I knew the difference between name-brand jeans that looked well-worn and jeans that were simply old and on their last wear. He carried a single notebook in his hand, and even from where I stood, the notebook looked about as old as his pants did.

Something weird wiggled in my chest, a feeling of familiarity, and as I stood in front of my locker, I let myself think something I hadn’t allowed myself to really consider.

I might actually know some of the people here. Kids I’d grown up with, slept in the same house with. Maybe they wouldn’t remember me. It had been four years since I’d seen any of them, but I’d remember them and I especially remembered him.

* * *

Most of my classes were AP, and I blended right in, taking my seat in the back. No one talked to me.

Not until before lunch, at the start of English, when a dark-haired girl with sloe-colored eyes sat in the empty seat across from me.

“Hi,” she said, smacking a thick notebook on the flat surface attached to the chair. “I hear Mr.

Newberry is a real jerk. Take a look at the pictures.”

My gaze flickered to the front of the classroom. Our teacher hadn’t arrived yet, but the chalkboard was lined with photos of famous authors. Shakespeare, Voltaire, Hemingway, Emerson and Thoreau were a few I recognized, and I probably wouldn’t recognize them if I didn’t have endless time on my hands.

“All dudes, right?” she continued, and when I looked back at her, the tight black curls bounced as she shook her head. “My sister had him two years ago. She warned me that he basically thinks you need a dick to produce anything of literary value.”

My eyes went wide.

“So I’m thinking this class should be a lot of fun.” She grinned, flashing straight, white teeth. “By the way, I’m Keira Hart. I don’t remember you from last year. Not that I remember everyone, but I think I would’ve at least seen you.”

Sweat covered my palms as she continued to stare at me from dark brown eyes. The question she was throwing out was simple. The answer was easy. My throat dried and I could feel heat creeping up my neck as the seconds ticked by.

Use your words.

My toes curled against the soft leather soles of my flip-flops. “I’m... I’m new.”

There! I did it. I spoke. Take that, Dr. Taft. Words were totally my bitch. All right, perhaps I was exaggerating my accomplishment since I technically only spoke two words and repeated one, but whatever.

Keira didn’t seem to notice my internal dumbassery. “That’s what I thought.” And then she waited, and for a moment, I didn’t get why she was looking at me so expectantly. Then I did.

My name. She was probably waiting for my name. Air hissed in between my teeth. “I’m Mallory...

Mallory Dodge.”

“Cool.” She nodded as she rocked her curvy shoulders against the back of the chair. “Oh. Here he comes.”

We didn’t talk again, but I was feeling pretty good about the sum total of seven words spoken, and I was totally going to count the repeat ones. This was, by far, so much better than middle school. I’d made it through four classes, spoken to someone, and even though Mr. Newberry spoke with an air of pretentiousness that even a newbie like me could pick up on, I was floating on a major accomplishment high.

Then came lunch.

For the most part, I was a complete fail at it.

Nerves had twisted my stomach into knots, and even though I made it through the lunch line, all I grabbed was a banana and a bottle of water. There were so many people around me and so much noise—laughter, shouting and a constant low hum of conversation—that I was completely out of my element. Everyone was at the long square tables, huddled in groups. No one was really sitting alone from what I could see, and the smell of disinfectant and burnt food was overwhelming.

As I left the cafeteria, I thought my gaze drifted over Keira sitting at a half-full table. For a second, I thought she saw me, but I hurried out into the somewhat quieter hall and kept going, passing a few kids lingering against the lockers and the faint scent of cigarettes that surrounded them. I rounded the corner, and at the last moment, avoided a head-on collision with a boy not much taller than me.

He stumbled to the side, bloodshot eyes widening out of surprise. A scent clung to him that at first I thought was smoke, but when I inhaled, it was something richer, earthy and thick.

“Sorry, chula,” he murmured, and his eyes did a slow glide from the tips of my toes right back up to mine. He started to grin.

At the end of the hall, a taller boy picked up his pace. “Jayden, where in the fuck you running off to, bro? We need to talk.”

The guy I assumed was Jayden turned, rubbing a hand over his close-cropped dark hair as he muttered, “Mierda, hombre.”

A door opened and a teacher stepped out, frowning as his gaze bounced between the two, and I figured it was time to get out of the hallway, because nothing about the taller boy’s face said he was happy or friendly, and the teacher sort of looked like he wanted to cut someone.

I ended up in the library, playing Candy Crush on my cell phone until the bell rang, and I spent my next class—history—furious with myself, because it probably was Keira in the lunchroom and I could’ve approached her table. She seemed nice enough, but instead I hid in the library like a dork.

Doubt settled over me like a too-heavy, coarse blanket. What if I couldn’t do this? What if I was always going to be this—whatever this was—for the rest of my life? Maybe school was a bad idea.

College would’ve been different, less pressure to fit in, and I could’ve eased into it. My skin grew itchy by the time I headed to my final class, my heart rate probably somewhere near stroke territory, because my last period was the worst period ever in the history of ever, ever.

Speech class.

Otherwise known as Communications. When I’d registered for the school, I’d been feeling all kinds of brave while Carl and Rosa stared at me like I was half crazy. They said they could get me out of the class, even though it was a requirement at Lands High, but I’d had something to prove.

Ugh.

Now I wished I had employed some common sense and let them do whatever it was that would’ve gotten me excused, because this was a nightmare waiting to happen. When I saw the open door to the class on the third floor, it gaped at me, the room ultrabright inside.

My steps faltered. A girl stepped around me, lips pursing when she checked me out, but I wanted to spin and flee. Get in the Honda. Go home. Be safe.

Stay the same.

No.

Tightening my fingers around the strap of my bag, I forced myself forward, and it was like walking through knee-deep mud. Each step felt sluggish. Each breath I took wheezed in my lungs.