Page 12 of Unstoppable You

Delaney watched me peel away the parchment paper wrapper and bite into it. I would have preferred to have a plate, but I could make do.

Delaney sipped at her latte and glanced out the window. I did my best not to stare too much at her, but it was a challenge. She was just so gorgeous. Delaney could never know about my past crush or my current attraction. She was straight, firstly. Second, she’d just gotten her heart shattered by my asshole brother, and third, even if she was into girls, she wasn’t going to be into me, a person who had made her middle school years miserable. No fucking way. You didn’t fall for your former bully unless you were in some sort of romcom.

Any feelings I had were going to stay unrequited. Maybe that was my punishment for the bullying.

“God, I feel so shitty about it, Delaney,” I said, even though I’d already done the whole apology thing. There was no rule that said I couldn’t do it multiple times.

Delaney was quiet for a moment, looking into the box of pastries as if it would tell her how to respond.

“Okay,” she said when she looked up. “I get it. You’re sorry.”

Shit. I had pushed too far. I sat there and watched as she retreated behind an emotionless mask.

“Well, you said what you were going to say, and I’ve got my croissants and my muffins and my latte so I’m going.”

I wished there was something I could say to make her come back, to regain the soft, somewhat flirty energy we’d clasped only moments before, but it had already slipped through my fingers. She was gone and I wasn’t going to be able to get that back.

“Of course. Have a good rest of your day, Delaney,” I said, not moving from my seat. She snatched up the box and had a little trouble balancing it with the enormous iced latte, but she managed and then walked away without another word.

Guess that was that.

Chapter Five

Delaney

It was mostlywhat I’d expected, but I hadn’t anticipated how much pain I’d hear in her voice while she spoke. She hadn’t cried, but there had been tears in her voice.

Well, that made two of us. I’d spent many nights crying into my pillow and hoping my parents didn’t hear me. They’d done the best they could and had gone to the school about the bullying, but it hadn’t solved the problem.

I had to wait it out until I got to high school and for my main bully to move away. That had been James’s friend, Eva. I wonder whatever happened to her. I could look her up online, of course, but if she was doing well, that was going to be a knife to the chest. Hopefully she was single and had a bad job and lived in a tiny roach-filled apartment. She deserved it. The absolute sadism she’d exhibited as a tween was still wild to me. It had been strange, that James had been one of my main tormentors in middle school and she practically disappeared from my life when we moved to a bigger school.

I almost lost track of her, but every now and then she’d pop up in one of my classes, but she made sure never to talk to or make eye contact with me, and it wasn’t like we were sitting with each other at lunch. She’d left my social sphere, but the damage remained.

It hadn’t ruined my life, obviously, but it had really fucked me up for a few years.

I still didn’t know what to think about Delaney. I managed to get the box of pastries home safely even though I was vibrating from the caffeine in the latte that I basically gulped down because it was so good.

Met with James today and she apologized. Drinks tonight?

Larison’s response was quick.Yes, absolutely! Jo can watch Juni. She owes me because she’s going hiking with Reid on Saturday.

Perfect. We agreed to meet at the bar with the good wings in a few hours. Until then, I buzzed around my apartment in a frenzy, cleaning and doing laundry and dishes and clearing out half my closet before my energy crashed. Oops.

I also had another one of the croissants, this one filled with Nutella.

What was James doing tonight? Probably going out or doing something fabulous, but I really didn’t know. We might have spent a lot of time together in our younger years, but she was basically a stranger to me now. I didn’t know what she did or if she was seeing anyone or had weekend plans. I wanted to go to Pilates this weekend, but I wasn’t going to pick the same class for fear that she’d be in it, so I selected the Saturday late morning class instead. I’d get brunch after as a reward. Perfect way to start the day.

Did James like brunch?

Ugh, this caffeine was really messing me up. I shouldn’t be thinking about her. When I left the café, the only things I should have brought with me were the croissants and the relief that I had finally gotten an apology from a bully. I never had to think about her again, but here I was, still thinking about her.

She’d looked good, I had to admit. The new look with the piercing and the hair suited her so much better than the generic pretty-girl thing she’d had in school. She also seemed more comfortable. There was a brittleness about her that I’d noticed when we were kids. Like she was so close to completely snapping. Always on the edge.

She’d mentioned something about her family and taking it out on me, and knowing her family, I could understand that part, at least a little.

James and Connor’s parents were two people who were so mired in their own resentment and hatred of each other, they’d made it their entire personalities. You couldn’t talk to his mom without hearing what a disgusting jerk his dad was, and you couldn’t talk to his dad without hearing a list of grievances about his ex-wife.

There was a reason why I had rarely joined Connor for family dinners or holidays. The tension and resentment were painted onto the walls, soaked into the floorboards of his mom’s house and his dad’s penthouse apartment. You left feeling like you wanted to have a drink or sleep for a week or both. They were bitter, vicious people and all of that had done a number on their son. Why wouldn’t it have affected their daughter?

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