Page 53 of The Casualty of Us
His brown eyes move over me curiously. “The anger is fading.”
“Not fading so much as…” I trail off while searching for the right word to describe everything I’ve been internalizing thisweek, and my brows fall when I find it. “Accepting it, I think. Moving on.”
“Damn, that’s almost worse for him though…” He cringes dramatically with a sigh. “So much for living the fake boyfriend dream. You’re crushing me.”
“You’re terrible.” I shake my head at him and grin in spite of it. “Acting like I don’t know you really like someone else.”
“Maybe.” He teases back, face softening before he lowers his head beside mine to whisper. “But it’s still been fun.” His lips brush against my cheek and he rises back up with his usual smirk in place. “I’ll text you about the fizzle.”
He gives an amused chuckle while turning around and walking back down the hall. Leaving me tracking him until a phone rings and I turn around to see Hayes standing at the other end of the hallway with a clear view of everything that just went down. Hazel eyes all kinds of dark against the anger playing out over his face and that same intensity to him that I’ve been catching glimpses of all week. Our eyes lock in the next instant and it immediately has an ache pulsing through my chest that I desperately try to push back against.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I jerk my eyes away, sucking in some air through my nose and hurrying into the classroom, scanning the seats for any available option except for the one I usually sit in beside Hayes at our table. Hoping that people have moved around enough with the new semester that I can snag something far away before he makes it to the classroom.
An empty seat across the room snags my attention, and I immediately make a beeline for it, not even letting the sight of Lisette Conners at the table deter me from sliding into the spot next to hers.
She glances over at me and pauses, arching a brow. “Unexpected choice, Fitzroy.”
“Yeah, well.” I huff, setting my backpack down and unzipping it. “My options were limited.”
“I told her not to do it, you know.”
My brows fall at her words, but I wait until I have my tablet and the copy ofThe Princewe were supposed to read over break neatly laid out on the table to turn my attention to her again. “Told who not to do what?”
She gives me a clearly confused look for a second before her eyes light up. “No one told you.”
“What are you talking about, Conners?” I sigh. “No one told me what?”
She pauses again, her gaze moving around the room before coming back to mine. “Who Hayes was with. No one told you.”
“Oh,” I try to rally with the sound, giving her the first excuse that pops into my head. “I didn’t ask.”
Ignoring the truth that…I didn’t want to know. Because a face would have added to the pain when everything was supposed to be—
“It was Josey.” She shakes her head with a dry laugh. “I told her to not be stupid when she texted me that night, but clearly she didn’t listen.”
“Right, uh.” I swallow hard as my heart starts to skip all around. “Thanks.”
“Wow,” she scoffs. “A kind word from Ophelia Fitzroy, color me shocked…”
Her voice keeps up after that but I completely zone it out, a ringing starting up in my ears while staring down at my copy ofThe Princewith the blonde cheerleader springing to life in my head. I go over every single time I’ve seen her around campus until I’m all the way back at the start of last semester.
Laying out on the dock with Hayes by my side.
“Isn’t she like a junior?”
“I don’t know, I guess.”
That motherfucker.
“Ophelia.” Lisette bumps my shoulder, and I look up to see everyone in the class pushing back tables and pulling their chairs toward the center of the room. “We’re doing a circle debate today.”
“Motherfucker.” I mutter the curse under my breath and quickly push back my own chair to stand before pulling it over to where the rest of the group is gathered. Ending up with Lisette and some junior I don’t really know on either side of me as Hayes drags his chair loudly to the spot directly across from me. That glorious new information I just learned sharpens that ache right back to a point again and leaves me tracking him through narrowed eyes. Using it to build up every bit of my resolve and needing it all when he leans back in his chair and stares right at me.
Hazel meeting blue with nothing but unsaid things stretching taut between us.
