Page 7 of I've Walked Where You've Been
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Matty could grudgingly admit that it wasn’tthatbad.
Sure, the classes were a lot harder, but they were given study periods and study groups, and there were student-tutors on hand if need be. Now he got what his mom was saying about these places being different—apparently, rich people had means that the lower classes simply didn’t, which was a real bummer to find out firsthand, even if he was benefiting from it.
Also, the sports programme turned out to be pretty sick. He could participate in different ones to start off with, not having to try out for any one team until later in the year. Matty was pretty sure he’d choose basketball—soccer wasn’t really gonna get him any scholarships, and he was tall and athletic enough for shooting hoops.
The people at the school, too, weren’t as obnoxious as he’d feared. Well, okay, correction—somepeople weren’t as obnoxious as he’d feared. Some were so intolerable that Matty wondered how they didn’t get punched in the face on a daily basis.
Amongst all the gross privilege, though, he managed to find a handful of people he clicked with right away. There were Josh and Jessica, who were both on different athletics teams and would join Matty when he needed to run around and kick a ball for a while or race in the fields surrounding the boarding school. And there was Carly, who was studious and boisterous, laughing easily and loudly in a way that always brightened his day. And she never made him feel stupid either, no matter that she was leagues smarter.
In the end, even his concern about being stuck in a room with Ethan didn’t really result in anything more than a little awkwardness. They each had a different group of friends, obviously, but Matty was barely ever in the room, preferring to study with Carly or be out in the field when it wasn’t raining. Thankfully, Ethan never asked about his grades—they weren’t bad, it turned out, but there was no way they were as good as Ethan’s.
The bond simmered in the background, a low hum of flat emotions. There was homesickness, sometimes, and discomfort, and worry, but that was Ethan’s business, not Matty’s.
Matty had to make his own way in the world, and Ethan had to find his.
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Ignoring Ethan would be a hell of a lot easier if he didn’t live in Matty’s goddamn head.
The spike of sudden distress—fear and embarrassment and anger tangled all together—went through Matty like a spear. He clutched his chest as if it werehisheart that was racing.
There were times when Matty would feel a spike of feeling from Ethan—lust, or anger, or sadness. Even fear, on a couple of occasions, but nothing likethis. There was a pull to this emotion he had never felt before—he had to find Ethan.Now.
“Shit. What the fuck?” He did a one-eighty in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the grumbles of protest from the students around him.
Something bad was happening to Ethan. Something bad was happening to his bondmate.
Never in his life had he justfoundEthan, not the way some bondmates could do, following some subconscious impulse until it led you straight to them. But now, Matty didn’t even have tothinkabout it.
“What the fuck?” Matty growled as soon as he slammed into the bathroom on the fourth floor. The two guys cornering Ethan against a cubicle turned to look at him.
“Oh great,” one of them taunted. “The freak’s other half.”
Matty didn’t pause to think. He walked over to them, grabbed the closest one by the neck of his shirt, and swung him so that he stumbled into the sinks. The other one he punched in the face before doing the same thing.
If there was one thing about prissy rich kids that was universally true, it was that they didn’t know how to fight.
Matty stood between Ethan and them, glowering at the two shocked-looking idiots holding their respective bruises. “You so much as look at him again,” Matty said through clenched teeth, “and I’ll fucking cave your face in. You got me?”
The first one Matty had thrown into the sinks scoffed. “Figures that the freak would need his bondmate to—” the guy flinched away as Matty faked a lunge.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
The two of them glared for a moment, giving in eventually with another scoff and walking out.
Matty had to take a moment to collect himself, the rush of Ethan’s distress and then Matty’s own anger having left him reeling.
When he turned around, Ethan was staring at him with incredulous eyes.
“You okay?” Matty asked, resisting the urge to touch Ethan’s cheek for no reason whatsoever.
“Yeah,” Ethan muttered, looking away, face red.
Matty looked at him critically. “Your elbow’s bleeding. They fucking push you?”
“It’sfine.”
