Page 146 of Edge of Unbroken

“I’ll pick her up, too,” Ronan says. “I’ll stay with her until you get back.”

My mom wraps her arms around him with a heartfelt sigh. “Thank you, Ronan,” she says, steps back, and looks at me while pointing her index finger at my boyfriend. “Jackpot.”

Ronan and I make the walk to school holding hands, and by the time we arrive, that spot behind my ears hurts from smiling so much. Despite our now nine months together, Ronan has never walked me to school, and I never fathomed such a little gesture would bring me so much joy, yet here I am, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“What are you going to do today?” I ask him before parting ways.

“I’ll be spending my hours pining for you,” he says with that half smile that always makes my brain turn into goo.

“Oh, so both of us, then. Good to know,” I say, returning his grin. “But seriously, any plans?”

He shakes his head. “No, not really. Gym, probably, then shower—”

I hum appreciatively. Naked Ronan is still one of my favorite things to picture in my head.

He chuckles. “Probably some food, and then hopefully it’ll already be time to pick you back up.”

“I’ll be counting the hours,” I say, then place a gentle kiss on his soft lips.

I reluctantly leave Ronan behind, looking back over my shoulder four times before I finally make it into the building and meet Vada and Tori.

Both look at me apprehensively, and I’m immediately alarmed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Yeah, so, someone on the team apparently got a video of yesterday’s happenings. It’s making the rounds,” Vada says, and the blood drains from my head.

I look around, only now noticing the quiet whispers and stares. I spot a group of girls with their heads together, glancing from me to a cell phone. I march over to them and grab the phone out of the middle girl’s hand.

“Hey, what the hell?” she asks, but makes no attempt to take the phone from me.

Vada and Tori join me as I stare at the screen in horror. “Oh no,” I whimper at the video of Ronan atop Adam, hammering his fist into Adam’s face while expertly avoiding Adam’s flailing hands.

“How… how did you get this?” I ask the girl whose phone I’m gripping so tightly in my hands, I wouldn’t be surprised if I crushed it like She-Hulk.

The girl’s eyes are wide. She’s obviously scared of me. “I… I…”

Summer strides toward us, her face set in a pissed-off but deeply hurt kind of way. “Cheyenne. It was Cheyenne. All of it.” She comes to a full stop in front of us. “The rumors, the gossiping. Cheyenne.” Summer throws her hands up in apparent resignation. “I’m so sorry, Cat. I didn’t know.”

I clench my teeth. I should’ve known. She has been way too nice to me ever since Ronan left.

I hand the unnamed girl her phone back and look around for my target. I spot her maybe fifty feet further down the hall, shoving her locker shut. I ignore Tori, Vada, and Summer, as well as their half-hearted efforts to stop me from beelining it for Cheyenne, and charge at her.

I grab the back of her jacket and spin her around. “Who took this damn video?”

“Fuck you, Cat,” she says, and makes to turn away from me.

I force her back around. “Fuck me? No, fuckyou, Cheyenne! Who took this video?”

“God, Leanne took it and sent it to me last night, okay? Calm the fuck down,” she says with an exaggerated eye roll, trying once again to turn away from me as if the matter is done.

But I don’t let go of her. “And you decided to spread it around to everyone? What the hell, Cheyenne? Why would you do that? Why would you spread bullshit lies about Ronan and me?” I’m so damn done with all of this.

“Let go of me!” she snarls.

“Why, Cheyenne? You know none of the shit you said was true! You knew Ran didn’t get hurt because of me.”

“Did I, though? You guys never fucking told me what happened to him. He was just gone one day, and apparently I wasn’t good enough, even to my best friend”—she throws an accusatory look at Summer—“to get the full damn story. And you know what, Cat? You fucking deserve it. We all saw you with Drew. And there was obviously some shit between you and this guy Ran beat up yesterday. You fucking deserve it.”

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