Page 4 of Knot Forgotten

Other students congregate around the front lawn, a few tossing a ball around. But I turn away from them for the time being. I’m a day late for move-in and I hope my suite-mates haven’t taken over the whole room by now, and I'm left with at least a place to sleep.

An anxious feeling makes my limbs feel heavy, and I stop to take a breath of the fresh, late summer air. I'll just go to the room and hopefully find an empty bed; then, I can enjoy the last remnants of summer before fall descends and brings the depressing overcast skies of a long winter soon after.

With a steadying breath, I take another step. At least the descenter is doing its job because my perfume and the bitter scent of my anxiety are absent as the wind blows my ponytail off my back. Not that I typically perfume out of the blue, mainly when my heats are close, but never for the right reasons, like finding an alpha attractive.

Someone rams into me from behind, knocking my possessions all over the grass and me to my hands and knees. Both sting as I brush them off and look to see who hit me like a runaway train.

“My bad. Are you okay?” His voice resonates in my chest like a bass drum, leaving behind a strange fluttering in my stomach before I even look up at him.

Up. Up. Up, my gaze travels over long, thick legs that look like each one is the size of my head. Then, further up, after snagging on his gray sweats, to chiseled abs that start way too low on his bare stomach. Over muscular arms, tossing a football back and forth between large hands—that send naughty images through my mind—even further up to a chin dusted with day-old scruff, followed by plush wide lips, a crooked nose, and glittering hazel eyes.

His dark, curly hair is held back with what looks like a sparkling headband. And his curls bounce as someone calls out to him from behind, and he twists to look at whoever it is.

"Just a second," he replies before turning back to me, looking at me as if he's never seen a female before.

Shock. I have to be in shock because, for a second, I think I know him, and he knows me, recognition flashing deep in his eyes. Or maybe he finally realizes there is a female on the ground in front of him, and he’s the reason she is there.

He doesn't offer to help me up, so I push to my feet and start gathering my things. I grumble to myself as I shove one of my books back into my container. The cover is scuffed, and it irritates me. I paid good money for that. His silence adds to my irritation. I'm not a stranger to hot guys randomly being assholes, but normally they use their words. Not that he hadn’t acknowledged me, because he did with the ‘my bad.’

I reach for a pair of my lacy panties at the same time his large fingers curl around the fabric. They dangle from his fingers as he straightens, and he studies them as if he's never seen a pair of sexy underwear before. Or maybe just not any made for my size body.

My face catches fire, and I snatch them from his fingers with a muttered thanks, wishing I didn't choose the ponytail today and had a curtain of my currently straightened brown hair to hide behind.

Without looking, I shove stuff back into my tote. My ears are ringing, and my palms are clammy. And I thank whatever God there is that I wore my descenter today, and he couldn’t smell my perfume. When I unfold, my attention catches on the three guys who have joined the massive mountain of a man. Each guy is attractive in their own right.

And my world stops. Time doesn't exist anymore as it hits me square in the chest. I know them. All of them. Including the mountain. I suck in a breath that does nothing to ease the anxiety spiking inside of me. My past has come back, and the torrent of memories almost knocks me back on my ass.

Cameron flicks his judgemental gaze down my body, and it makes me want to hug myself—to hide the curves I've gained since I last saw them. I'm caught like a fly in a spider's web as he steps forward past Matt because that is who the mountain is. I can see that now.

He tilts his head to the side. "I think you broke this one. You should be more careful." His words wash over me, settling in my chest and making it tighter. He's talking to Matt but watching me.

There is no recognition in his icy blue eyes—just a derision for the curves of an unknown girl. It isn’t surprising he doesn’t recognize me. Gone are my braces, too-curly hair, and just barely developing body. Leaving behind straight white teeth earned with lots of time, money, and pain. Silky straight hair, I spent half my paycheck on products to make that way. And, of course, no longer the thin as a beanpole body, replaced with curves I didn’t hate but knew weren’t everyone's cup of tea. Not that I care.

Pair all that with who I am now and how I carry myself, and I’m not the same girl they knew. She was brave and would have been in their arms already. I’m different now—awkward and reserved—I feel it as I push a stray hair behind my ear, and anxiety rises inside of me.

Still, I drink in the sight of him like he’s found me wandering the desert and offered me water. Blond highlights streak through dirty blond hair, which is short on the sides and longer on top. His face has matured into something that looks like it is sculpted by the gods themselves. His bow-shaped lips curve up at the ends in an almost cruel smile that makes my stomach quake.

He is tall and trim, corded muscles run beneath tattooed arms and ringed fingers, and he dresses plainly in an Aerosmith shirt and ripped jeans. He shoves his hands into his pockets as I take my fill of him. Gone is the lanky teen who tried to act like he could grow a beard with his newly grown peach fuzz and, in his place, a full-grown, drop-my-panties-in-a-heartbeat man. Except, I had fallen in love with that lanky teen once upon a time.

I blink away from him, dragging my eyes over Blake as I shift on my heels debating on abandoning the rest of my stuff and fleeing. My mouth dries, and I swallow. Fire scales the sides of my neck and up over my ears.

Time has graced him in different ways. He is pure emo; gone is the preppy boy who originally captured my heart. And he is entirely in black, the only exception being the metal in his face and chains hanging from his pants. Black hair flows over his forehead, appearing silky soft as it falls around his shoulders.

My fingers curl in on themselves as I imagine running my fingers through it. Dark gray almond eyes watch me curiously but with none of the derision that was in Cameron’s icy blue orbs or recognition that had flashed in Matt’s. He isn’t as tall as the other two and is probably the closest to my own five-seven height. He looks like he could have stepped straight out of a K-pop boy band.

He runs his tongue over the rings in his lower lip as he arches a pierced eyebrow. “I think Cam’s right.”

My gaze darts back to Cameron as Blake’s all-grown-up voice runs over me like a lover's touch. It is soft and raspy, as if he doesn’t use it a lot. That would be a change from the past.

Riley laughs and nudges Blake. His dark eyes run from my combat boots up to my tight ponytail. They share a look that I’m convinced is a silent conversation about me. He proves it by signing, ‘She's basic.’

“I’m not broken assholes,” I say, finally finding my voice and turning away before I can take in Riley and all of his changes. Or see the rest of what he had to sign about me. I snatch up a few more shirts and underwear and the last book, then stand up again. My mind races along with my pulse as I attempt to forget that the four of them are actually living and breathing, within touching distance, and I haven’t launched myself into their arms with joy.

How could I, anyway? The way things ended, I’m lucky none of them recognize me, or if they do, they don’t say anything.

If it weren’t for Cam and Blake, I’m not sure I would have realized that these four were the same boys I grew up with. The same ones that went from teasing me in first grade to protecting me in seventh from the nasty girls and boys that thought that because their families could afford designer clothing and mine couldn’t that I was somehow less. The same ones that I fell for the summer before ninth grade. And the exact same ones that had been my whole world until that was torn from me in one fell swoop. But now—now I’m not sure they are anything but strangers or ghosts of my past.

Even with the brief look at Riley, I had caught enough to see that he had bleached his hair white, and he also had piercings on his face and ears. A septum piercing with a loop and another loop through his dark eyebrow. He was Blake's yang to his yin, if only slightly taller.

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