Page 9 of Shutout
I’m aware of other students getting front seats to somedrama, but I don’t want this asshole to catch up with me if I try to run again. So, I finally square up to him.
“Then what is it?” I cock an eyebrow at him, and he grabs onto the strap of his backpack slung over his shoulder in a ridiculous way I can’t believe I ever found cute. Like he’s trying to imitate a five year old when he’s 20.
“The point is that you can’t just break up with me by text.”
Vaguely I wonder if I’m losing my mind. Because even though I’ve been incapable of laughing for a month ever since that damn party, I now give out great guffaws that bend me over.
“You… you’re shitting me, right?” I speak between wheezing. “What you want to talk with me about is how I dumped your stinking ass, and not about what you did?”
Trent’s face pinches with anger, which turns him from a reasonably good looking guy into a brain-eating zombie. He points a finger at my face. “No,Idumped your sorry ass?—”
“In what reality, buddy?”
“Iwasgoing to dump you.” Trent pulls at his hair in frustration. “Ten minutes of making out with some random chick is always better than any sex with you, Olivia. If you weren’t so damn frigid and boring I wouldn’t have had to stray.”
Frigid is the figurative bucket of water that washes over me.
My brain, ever so useful, runs through his words over and over until they’re ingrained in my very being.
He’d been growing more and more distant in the final months of our relationship, never really telling me why, and rather than asking, I tried to keep acting as usual. But deep down I knew he wasn’t reacting the same way to me as he did early on. Our kisses weren’t so hot anymore. His hands weren’t on me as much. He no longer wanted to play with me.
And this was why? Because all along he didn’t find me attractive anymore, and didn’t have the testicles to tell me?
His lips curl into a malicious smirk. “No comeback, huh? Even you recognize it’s true. You’re a?—”
I snap out of the trance. My fists tighten and for once, I don’t want to hold them back.
“Eat shit, asshole!”
I sock him right in the solar plexus.
Normally, I only condone violence in manga and superhero movie franchises. And I’m also too weak to open a flask with my own hands, so it’s not like I can truly hurt someone. But it’s so deeply satisfying when he folds over in pain, the breath rushing out of him with a satisfyingoof. His backpack falls on the grass and that’s when I notice the T-shirt he’s wearing.
It’s the vintage Free Willy T-shirt I got him for his birthday two months ago.
With a roar, I launch myself at him before he can recover. Clawing at him, not caring if I scratch him, I grab two big fistfuls of the fabric and tug.
“What the—” Trent’s still disoriented enough that I can rip the T-shirt off of him. “Are you out of your damn mind?”
Someone snickers nearby. Some girls walking some twenty feet from us point at Trent’s torso. I, too, found it funny that the only body hair he has is this little tuft in the middle of his chest. But I’m not in the business of making others feel bad about themselves the way he has clearly shown himself to be.
“No, I’m just not as boring as you thought,” I say, instead of trying to bring him down like he did me. “And I’m going to be taking this back, since I bought it for you when I thought you weren’t a piece of shit.”
Erm, oops. Maybe I do want to bring him down a peg.
Still rubbing his stomach, he glares at me and says, “Fine. Then give me back my hoodie.”
“You’ll get it in the mail.” Taking a page from the girl who outed him as a cheater, I give him the finger and march off.
The abrupt sound of applause makes me falter, but it’s just the two girls who stayed for the whole show. One of them gives me a thumb up and the other one says, “Drag him, sis.”
My lips twitch. Ugh, sisterhood is the best. The encouragement of these random girls helps me walk with my head held high across campus. And if it wasn’t for Dee and Mina, I probably wouldn’t have kept my priorities straight after the breakup and might’ve flunked my finals.
I pause to ball up the T-shirt that still smells like Trent’s Axe Dark Temptation and toss it in a trashcan. My lungs work overtime to suck in fresh air and get rid of any trace of him, and the harder they work, the harder my tear glands respond.
Dabbing at my face only brings the freaking Axe smell back to my nose. I rush into the nearest building. I know it’s part of the business faculty, and I pray that I don’t run into Brooklyn. Running into a different kind of ex while I’m trying to wash off the stench of the newest ex is more tragedy than I can handle.
I make it into the women’s restroom without any encounters. A girl stepping out of a stall gives me a weird look as I furiously rub soap all the way up to my elbows. I’m only satisfied when my skin turns red like a lobster.
