Page 20 of Barbed Wire Fences
But now, knowingshe’sback in town and at this same stadium makes it feel suffocating to stand here.
I glance back at the crowd, my eyes scanning for Jael and Owen like I’m some kind of detective searching for the answersto the crime. The stands are packed, people still standing and cheering, and I can’t see them. My jaw tightens as I picture them somewhere else now laughing, catching up, him feeding her some smooth line to get in her head.In her pants.
She’s not your problem anymore, Rhett.I chant it in my head like a war cry.
She stopped being that the moment she ignored all my warnings, broke my heart, and walked away.
???
Rhett:If you’re not out here and inside my truck in the next sixty seconds, I’m leaving your ass at school, and you can walk yourself back to the trailer park.
Once again, I’m parked out front of the high school, waiting on Jael.
Late. Again.
It’s starting to feel like some bad cliché—me stuck here in my truck, engine ticking, expensive gas I can hardly afford burning, while the rest of the lot empties out one car at a time. Everyone else gets to go home. I’m just the idiot still sitting here. Waiting on a girl. Except the sad part is that she isn’t even my girlfriend.
I lean back, pressing my head against the seat, thumb hovering over my phone before I finally sigh and hit send.
And right then, the double doors to our school slam open.
Jael comes flying out, flustered and breathless, clutching her books to her chest like they’re the only thing keeping her upright.
“Sorry, Rhett! I got caught up talking to Mr. Alston about our biology exam,” she says as she slides into the passenger seat, fumbling with the seatbelt like it’s a race to get it clicked in.
I roll my eyes—extra dramatically, just to make sure she notices how much she’s inconvenienced me—then shake my head like she’s a massive disappointment. This whole favor to my mom with driving Jael now that I have my license, is starting to be more like a pain in my ass than anything.
Without a word, I put the truck in drive and ease out of the parking spot.
“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it,” she snaps, her tone full of attitude for someone who she’s come to depend on. She could take the bus home if she wanted to, and I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it.
Well, maybe that isn’t entirely true. The kids who ride the bus to our trailer park are some of the roughest and I wouldn’t feel great knowing Jael would be sitting with them.
She drops her books onto the seat beside her and starts shuffling through a chaotic mess of paper quizzes and tests, looking like she’s on a scavenger hunt with no map. Then her phone lights up on top of the pile with a ping loud enough to annoy me all over again.
I sigh loudly and steal a glance at it. The screen flashes with a photo of her kissing a familiar blonde guy on the cheek and nope, now I’m pissed.
“Ugh, Owen, Jael? Really?” I say, as I turn out of the school’s parking lot and onto the main road that runs through our small-town.
She glances at the phone, and her face instantly softens, breaking into a big, goofy grin as she swipes up to readthe text that just came through. She types back a reply, her fingers moving quickly over the screen, all while wearing that ridiculous smile like nothing else in the world matters.
When she’s done, she powers the phone off and sets it on the seat beside her like it’s no big deal, like she hasn’t just rubbed salt in a wound I’ve been trying to forget even existed and she’s completely unaware of.
“He’s like a young Brad Pitt,” she says, sighing dreamily.
“He looks nothing like him. Except maybe the version of him in Fight Club where his face is all fucked up.”
She smacks my arm. “Even if his face was fucked up, he’d still be hot.”
“Are you sure you really feel that way or are you just like every other girl in our high school who’s attracted to guys who treat them like shit?”
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t answer. Sure, Owen might be objectively attractive, but the way some of the girls at my school fan over him? Frankly, I don’t get it. His personality is shit and even worse, he treats the girls he dates like they’re dirt.
“So, what is this, are you two dating now?”
She grins. “It’s new, but I think so.”
“How do you think you’re dating someone?”
