Chasing Blue

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
INDIGO

Kolby throws a punch so fast I barely have time to wretch my face away. I'm crying, sobbing, even. I know a drunk Greer anywhere, just as I would know a livid Kolby anywhere.

Someone grabs me and yanks me out of the way, holding me to their chest. I glance up and catch a sneak of a familiar tattoo, and a wiff of familiar cologne. Braden holds my head in his neck, running his hands down my hair, promising me that I'm okay, that everything's gonna be fine.

I don't feel okay.

I don't think everything's going to be fine.

I wish someone had plugged my ears too. I hear shouting, grunting, the sound of beer bottles being broken, the sound of fists hitting hard against skin.

I've watched Greer fight dozens of people, over stupider things. I've never seen Kolby fight, which is what has me rotating in Braden's arms. And what I see shocks me to my core, a sharp zap from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair buried deep in my scalp.

Greer is underneath Kolby, but here's the thing: If I didn't know it was Greer getting the absolute shit beat out of him right now, I wouldn't know. I can hardly even make out the shape of his nose, all of the blood making his face one, singular shade of deep, velvet red.

"Come on, man," someone's saying. I think it's one of the boys on the football team. He's the one farthest into the ring that had been created by all of the bodies getting the hell out of the way, not wanting to get punched themselves.

"Kolby, you're going to fucking kill him," someone else bellows out. Their close to me, I think, just there to the left. I peer over some -- it's Colton.

"Good," Kolby huffs out, throwing another punch at Greer. Greer doesn't even flinch. I think he's unconscious.

I dig my elbow into Braden's ribcage.

"Ow -- the fuck," he looks down at me, a frown very evident on his face.

"Go get him," I hiss, "He's end up in jail."

He sighs, but lets go of me, his hands brushing the lace on my stomach. I shiver. His cool, gentle touch so unlike Greer's just moments ago, which had been hot, and had left a sticky residue behind. Whether I'm imagining that or not, I still know exactly where he had touched me. It feels like someone burned me along the flat plains of my chest, the small curve between my breasts and my hips.

i watch in slight fear as Braden, Colton, and the stranger heft Kolby up from atop Greer. In the movies this would be where Kolby fights back, but he lets them lift him up an carry him outside, like they're disposing of a body.

But the most terrifying thing?

Greer doesn't move.

• • •

I find Kolby in his truck after about fifteen minutes of walking around like an idiot. I open up the passenger seat and climb in, but I don't dare to say a thing. He doesn't even look up as I close the door behind me.

He has his head in his blood-covered hands. He's taking deep, slow breathes, the kind they have you do when you're stressed out, in through his nose, out through his mouth. He doesn't even have the radio on, so the only other thing to fill the silence is the quiet rumble of the trucks engine, a gentle humming.

I lick my lips, and lift a hand, slowly, gently, to rest it on his shoulder. I feel his muscles tense up at the contact, and then slowly relax as I rub my thumb in slow, languid circles.

"Thank you," I say so quietly I almost wonder if I actually said it all. And when he doesn't react, I think maybe I didn't.

But after another heavy moment silence, he lifts his head up. He has blood on his eyebrow, right below a shallow cut, most likely caused by the dumb rings Greer always insisted upon wearing.

"You went on a date," He croaks.

I nod slowly, flicking my eyes away. His eyes look glassy, and his jaw looks like it's about to bust from the pressure he's putting it under. I'm trying to convince myself the glassy look is because he's three beers in, but God, I know it's not, and it only makes me hate myself even more.

"You went on a date," he says again, though this time with more power, " You went on a fucking date, Indigo. I am helplessly, irrevocably, so fucking deeply in love with you, and I would kill a guy just to prove it, and you went on a date."

I slowly shake my head, "It was the plan -" I choke out, but I trail off.

I lean forward, "Kolby, it sucked. It was the most boring date I had ever been on, I hated it."

"It doesn't make it hurt less," He tells me, his voice breaking and ending in the ugly and raw way only certain emotions can make you do.

"I know," I tell him, "And I'm sorry."

"Are you going to go out with him again?"

I sigh deeply, "He asked me out, again. He wants to go get dinner tomorrow night." I tell him.

He looks at me, "And are you going to go?"

"I don't know yet."

He scoffs, and turns the radio up, before quite literally throwing the truck into drive.

"What are you doing?" I ask him, my eyes wide as we pull out of the driveway like we're bandits. He doesn't answer me, "Kolby."

"I'm taking you home," he says gruffly.

"What about Sadie?" I say, "She's there all alone!"

"She's there with Braden," he says.

The rest of the ride is in complete and utter silence, I know when Kolby is mad. Kolby is mad now.

He pulls into the driveway of the house, and looks at me fleetingly, before looking back out the windowshield.

"Indigo, if you ever felt anything for me, you won't go on the date tomorrow night." He cuts of my response by opening his door, jogging around to mine, and opening it. "Text Sadie that you're home."

And then he leaves.

The tears come fast and free flowing. What had started as a night crafted from dreams itself has turned into the backbones of the worst nightmare ever.

a/n: it took me a long time to decide on this. i orginally had the idea that kolby would punch him once and then he'd grab indigo and they'd get the hell out of dodge. but this is how writing goes sometimes, and i'm not gonna lie, i have a love hate relationship with this chapter, buttttttt oh well!

also this is short cuz originally chap 22 has this in it too, but I cut it in half cuz it felt too drug out

bye :)