Page 45 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

“Apparently, this is the fourth fight so you have a bit of time before the sixth and final one starts.” Nera throws over her shoulder at me.

“I’ll get us beer,” Thayer adds.

I grab her arm before she can walk away and look at both of them. “You two better be front and center in that crowd when I come out. I want to see your faces pressed up against the ropes if you’re going to make me do this.”

“Where else would I be, Six?” Nera tells her with a wink.

“Same, and I have to get good footage for Bellamy so when you look into that crowd, just expect to see me filming you like the mom inMean Girls.”

“I never want to see this footage.” I say with a fake shudder.

“Maybe not you,” Nera replies, “But I think I know someone who would kill to see it.”

“Oh, he’d definitely give you more than just a hate glare if he saw you wearing this.” Thayer agrees.

“Maybe we should text it to him.” Nera suggests and I jump in before Thayer can say anything else.

“We’re absolutelynotdoing that. We hate him, remember?” I say, giving her a pointed look, “Plus, he wouldn’t want it. He’s probably hooking up with a girl right now.”

There are no words to describe the sharp pain I feel in my stomach when I think about him sleeping with other girls.I know because I’ve Googled it at length, trying to find a name for this feeling.

For the two years when he ignored my existence after he caught me kissing Max, he made sure I knew about every girl he fucked. I’m honestly not sure if it was intentional, maybe his new way of punishing me when our fights stopped, but either way the result was the same.

It fucking hurt.

I couldn’t think about meeting anyone else when all I could think about was who he was with and if she made him smile like I used to.

“He’s a hoe?” Thayer asks, dismayed.

“He’s been a bit of a hoe, yeah.” Nera confirms with a nod, before adding, “That was last year though. Before you guys started talking again, maybe something’s different now?”

“No, he hates me. He’s always hated me; he willalwayshate me. Nothing’s different.” I say, “I’m going to go get changed.”

I give them a small wave and head in the direction of what I hope are the locker rooms.

I remember the way he’d tweaked my nipple, the way he’d breathed on my neck. He’d wanted me, that much was obvious based on the way he looked at me, but it must have just been a temporary lapse in judgment.

If he’d felt some type of way, I certainly hadn’t heard from him. He’d been mostly MIA this week, only attending a couple of our classes, but I’d seen him.

He could have talked to me if he wanted to.

I ask for directions to the locker room and end up making a couple of turns deeper into the bowels of the building.

I’m lost and about to turn a corner when I hear a voice that stops me. I look around the bend just in time to see Gloria, a girl I know from RCA, playfully push someone against the wall.

“Let me make you feel good,” she coos, holding the man against the wall with both her arms extended out. “Come on, you know what I can do with my mouth.”

His face is in the shadows until the moment he tilts his head to look down at her and my stomach sinks when I recognize Phoenix.

He looks as disinterested as I’ve ever seen him, his gaze unmoved and his hands still at his side, and yet he does nothing to push her off.

She brings her face into the crook of his neck and kisses his throat, and it takes everything in me not to tackle her off him and strangle her to death in front of his eyes.

To scrub the places she touches his bare skin with the shitty side of a sponge until I’ve scrapped all traces of her off him.

I take a step back, away from the scene.

Talk about proving my point.

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