Puck (Kickstarting My Heart #3) (COMPLETED)

Everywhere I Go

The last thing I wanted to do was spend Friday night perched on the top step of my best friend's front porch, watching passively as teens poured in and out of the building.

Half of the senior class was in the front yard before me, a few of the football players tossing a ball back and forth. Two or three couples making out without a care in the world. There was even a few people I couldn't help but relate to. They stood in front of the long line of cars, facing the house, faces buried in their phones, black solo cups in their free hands. They looked as if they didn't know where they belonged. Inside or out.

That's how I'd ended up in between.

I loved my best friend more than I loved myself. He and my family were my entire world, especially after Vanessa died. Jordan had been all I had in the warzone my house had become. If it wasn't my parents arguing, it was Vic acting out and running away, leaving us all on a hunt to find him before the cold front came in.

It was Jordan who loved me inside and out, and through all of my bitchiness and mood swings.

But there was no way in hell that I belonged at a high school party full of jocks and cheerleaders, and the annoying little pests of the student council. I wasn't popular, nor did I have any desire to me. I was here because I had to be. I was also the one that had to get my hungover best friend up the next morning to clean before his parents got back home.

"You look so lonely." A quiet voice broke through my thoughts. I didn't bother to look up, but kept my eyes trained on the football players tackling one another, barely able to keep themselves upright for longer than a few seconds.

"I don't understand you, Ronnie." The girl didn't get the hint and sat on the stair beside me, tugging at the bottom of her dress as she did so, crossing her legs so none of the horny high school boys around us would get the wrong idea. "You could be like this. Like us. You know everyone, everyone knows you. Everyone likes you, even if you are occasionally like a giant bitch. But you choose this. Being alone."

I finally pried my eyes from the idiots before me as they toppled over on top of one another, deflating once I took in the girl beside me.

Chelsea Fernandez had been popular since kindergarten. She'd starred in the school play and everyone had loved her. It was hard not to. She was beautiful, even back then. With her long, silk black hair and piercing blue eyes. She wasn't just beautiful though; she somehow was able to radiate the beauty. Though she had braces in middle school, she'd still found a way to rock those, and of course had finally grown into her gorgeous looks in high school. She was one of the few cheerleaders I talked to, as she was just a kind person. She accepted each person for who they were, never tried to start rumors or talk shit. She was just a genuinely beautiful person inside and out.

I had questioned why Jordan nor Chase had ever made a move to ask her out, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. She was far to focused on school and cheerleading to be dealing with the ignorance of young males.

"It's better this way." I shrugged. "No drama. No petty fights over boys. No getting blackout drunk."

She frowned. "You literally have two of the hottest guys in school at your fingertips and you want nothing to do with them. Why?"

I shot her a look. "I could ask you the same thing."

She smiled a little, messing with a loose thread on her royal blue dress.

"I tried with Puck. Didn't work. He was an arrogant asshole." She sighed. "Not that he is anymore. I don't even know who he is anymore. But you, girl, you have this whole god that is so in love with you he can't see straight, but you ignore it."