Page 22 of A Fool's Game
She’s sitting on top of a table not ten feet from where I’m standing, feet on the bench as she tosses her head back and laughs. She’s facing away from me, but I’d recognize her anywhere.
“Gem,” I call, part of my brain still lagging behind, not believing that this is really happening.
She turns, and her whole face lights up with her smile. “Hey,” she calls, swiveling on the table to drop down to her feet and walk toward me.
I hold my hand against my forehead to watch her. A mirage. A vision.
“Hey,” I repeat stupidly. “How are you?”
“Bummed you never called.”
Her statement is like a slap in the face. I guess I should have Facebook stalked her after all. “Yeah, sorry about that. I got jumped on the way home, and the guys took everything from my pockets. Including your number.”
Concern flashes across her features, and I almost flinch. I want to tell her it’s okay. That I’m okay. But I don’t get the chance.
She reaches up and touches the slowly healing cut across my jaw and lip, biting her own as she frowns. “Damn. I guess I should have walked you home instead.”
I laugh at her words, but in all honesty, I feel more like crying. Why does this girl feel so much like coming home? Why, when virtually nothing in my life has changed, do I feel like so many of my petty problems just disappeared?
The feeling is short lived.
“Hey, pretty boy.”
Taylor walks up behind Gem, stopping when his chest is close to her back. Too close.
I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. All I can do is watch in horror as one of his arms snakes around her chest and she leans back into his body.
“W-what?” I stutter out the question, unsure of what I even want to ask. I force the words out, no matter how stupid they sound—or I look. “What are you doing with that guy?”
Gem glances up at Taylor, who hasn’t taken his eyes off me, before meeting my gaze once more. “Taylor’s my boyfriend.”
Andthere it is.
The perfectly shitty ending to the most epically shitty week.
I feel my mouth open but there are no words, so I close it again, gaze falling to the ground in front of me. I shake my head, nod, and consider whether I’m having a mild nervous breakdown.
I gotta get out of here.
“Okay,” I hear myself say. “Right.”
And then I’m turning and hurrying toward the bookstore door. I hear my name behind me but it’s like it’s coming from the other end of a wind tunnel, the sound distant and barely audible over the rushing noise in my ears.
She was the one.
I’ve practically planned our whole lives together over the last few days. Thoughts of her were the only thing that kept me going in that hellhole kitchen.And now I have to go back there on Monday and take shit from that guy knowing that he’s the one who gets to?—
“Ainsley!”
A shout in my ear and a firm hand pulling on my shoulder finally shake me out of the doomsday trance I seem to be in.I blink down at her a few times before the world comes back into focus.
“I…I’ve gotta get my books.” I can’t talk about this right now.
She no doubt chased me down to explain why she failed to mention the fact that she had a complete douchebag of a boyfriend, and I just can’t hear it right now.
“Is that why you ran off so quickly? To get your books?” she asks, as if she hadn’t just dropped the bomb that shattered my entire psyche.
I turn back to the rack of textbooks without answering.
