Page 26 of Keep Me Still
He holds his hands up and looks at me like I’m nuts. Probably because I am. “My bad, dude. I didn’t realize.” I want to ask him what he didn’t realize, but at the same time I don’t want to know.
He doesn’t hit me back, but pain thumps me hard in the chest, because hell yeah she was hot. Better than hot. Amazingly breathtakingly, fucking gorgeous. So much so that the first time I saw her I was pretty sure I was going to have to fight some guy, or maybe several guys, just to talk to her. Shocked the hell out of me that not only was she always alone, but that everyone at Hope Springs High School avoided the shit out of her. The most beautiful girl on the damn planet and she was isolated in her own little world day after day.
Freaky Flaherty.That’s what I overheard some of other girls call her. I heard them because they said it loudly. On purpose. One thing I learned from moving around so much was that at small town schools, girls had a habit of waging wars on one another with a military precision that would’ve made the Colonel proud. I half-expected her to be one of them. But Layla had been a target, blacklisted her freshmen year by girls with less than half her beauty and none of her class. My sweet girl, an angel who never hurt anyone, was so used to being ignored and avoided that she had a really hard time letting me in. By the time I convinced her I was worthy, it was time to move again. So all I proved to her was what she knew all along. Everyone can leave.
“Ohwe are so doing this,” Corin informs me as we reach the stadium. There’s a dozen flyers covering the concrete kiosks surrounding the entrance, so I have no clue which one she’s gushing over. If it’s sorority rushing or some crap like that, she’s on her own. Dropping my nearly empty cup in a trashcan, I step closer to see which flyer she’s talking about.
She pulls one off and hands it to me. “I did this in high school and one of the floats I worked on was in the Macy’s parade. Seriously, it’s so much fun. We have to sign up.”
Skimming the purple and gold writing on the poster promisingFun!Free food!And a chance to express ourselves creatively and meet our peers! if we sign up to decorate floats for Homecoming. Oh joy. But Corin is practically twitching with excitement, and this was the whole point of coming here. Leaving the old me, the one who never would’ve decorated a float for Homecoming, behind. “Okay. Sounds good to me.” I hand her the flyer back, watching as she shoves it into her huge purse.
“I never went to any dances back in New York. Did you go to Homecoming? I bet you were like Homecoming queen or some shit, weren’t you?” she asks as we continue walking towards the Grecian-style arena.
“Far from it,” I tell her, once again trying not to think about that year. That night especially. The way Landen looked when he picked me up. So handsome in his tux that he took my breath away. The way his full mouth quirked up in a nervous smile when I told him I was ready to go—ready to be his. The pain in his eyes when I woke up in the hospital and kicked him out because I was humiliated. Of all the nights my stupid seizures could have ruined, they ruined Homecoming the most. “I went to Homecoming but left…early.” Via ambulance.
“You know, I never thought I’d be jealous of a cheerleader,” Corin says as we make our way to some open seats in the arena.
“And you are now because…?” I glance down the field at the overly bronzed girls standing at attention with smiles plastered on their made-up faces.
“Becauseday-um, they’ve got a nice view.” She nods, and I can see cheerleaders surrounding groups of athletes with flags labeling their different sports. Soccer and football are together.Wonder which one he ended up playing?I force myself to look away.
“Definitely didn’t have you pegged as a football groupie,” I say, nudging her as we sit.
“Oh, I’m not. Emo boys are way hotter. But there’s something about all that blind aggression. Muscles and sweat and testosterone. Yum.” Corin fans herself with one of the programs we were given detailing the agenda for orientation.
I can’t help but laugh. “Down, girl.”
She kicks her feet up on the seat in front of her. “So what’s your type, Georgia? Jock? Emo? Nerd? I bet you’re really into super smart guys, huh?”
“Eh.” I shrug, praying she’ll drop it. But we live together. Probably going to have to throw her a bone. “I dated an athlete once.”
“Really?” She leans back and looks at me like she’s trying to picture me with a football player on my arm. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Didn’t last long. I pushed him away and he…left.” Damn you, throat lump of tears to come. I swallow hard and focus on the program in my hand like there’s going to be a test on it.
“Hey, I get it. You’re kind of…closed off. I can totally see you pushing some hottie away. But aren’t athletes supposed to have like superhuman endurance or something?”
Oh, he had some endurance all right. Enough endurance to turn down all the girls who threw themselves at him the minute he moved to town. Enough to wait for me to be ready to let him in. Enough to enlist the help of the entire varsity soccer team at Hope Springs High School to hold up signs asking the school freak-show to Homecoming.Pretty please, with cherries on top.
“Think they’re actually going to make us sing?” I shrug and point out the corny lyrics to the alma mater, hoping to change the subject. But in my head all I can think about is how much time I wasted pushing Landen O’Brien away. And how much it hurt when he finally left.
The marching band is warming up, and the President of the University is making her way to the podium. A few other official looking people surround her, and I’m tempted to take a picture with my phone even though Corin would probably make fun of me.
But this is it—the start of my new life. The one I am going to live, loud and full and without regret. Because that’s all I have in my past. Pain, shame, and soul-stinging regret.
I’m done with that now. As soon as this orientation ends, I’m moving on. Letting go of the anger at the man who killed my parents and the pain of missing them. While I’m at it, it’s time to move past the bone deep ache that paralyzes me every time I think of Landen O’Brien tricking me into trusting him so he could bail.
But when the marching band clatters into song, I’m shivering despite how warm it is in the stadium. Because I’m not in the stadium anymore. I’m at home, standing on Main Street, watching a Christmas parade. With a boy who’s about to break my heart into so many pieces that I’ll never be able to put it back together again. Not that it was in such great shape to begin with.
“We’vestill got nearly an hour before orientation,” Skylar informs us, checking his watch as we finish up at the field house. “Let’s run by that diner we passed and grab a shake or something.”
“No,” I say before I can stop myself. I just want to get in my damn truck and avoid this conversation altogether.
“Yo, O’Brien, you cuttin’ weight or something? No shakes and now you’re a speed walker?” Austin calls out after me.
I sigh and turn to face them before climbing into my own personal peach-scented hell. “If you guys really want to go, we can. But I don’t want to hear any of you bitching at workouts tonight when you’re puking your asses off.”
“Dude, you got something against shakes?” Skylar says, finally reaching the truck. Some girls walk by and he’s momentarily distracted. Guy has the attention span of a fucking goldfish.
