Before I Forget

Rabbit Hole

Rickenberger won't be bothering u again

Sky stared at the message on her phone for a couple of heartbeats, forgetting to breathe.

It was from Hawk. It was the first text she had gotten from him in a week, the first since the breakup. Hawk had respected Sky's wishes and had not tried to call or text, had not sent her desperate love letters, had not shown up under her window crying and begging her to take him back. Even when he had talked to her in class today, he had kept his distance and hadn't tried to apologize or beg for another chance.

Sky had a feeling it meant that Hawk realized he had fucked up so monumentally that there was no point in apologizing. Sky would never take him back and they both knew it.

So to receive a text like this from him was... bizarre. It left Sky shaken and annoyed. She was pretty sure Hawk was expecting she texted back to ask what he meant, but she sure as Hell wasn't going to do that. She had told him very clearly that he should let it go, that it wasn't his damn business, but the look on Hawk's face when he had left the classroom and had gone after Rickenberger was still haunting Sky.

Her thumbs hovered over the screen and she bit her lip. Maybe she should just ask Hawk what had happened. Maybe she should call him, and–

And what? Do I really want to fall down that rabbit hole again?

"Sky, is everything okay?" asked Sam, who was sitting next to her at the table.

Startled, Sky looked up from her phone, realizing it was still the lunch break and she was sitting in the cafeteria with her friends, her untouched couscous salad in a bowl on the table in front of her. She had forgotten to breathe while reading Hawk's message and now she felt light-headed, out of place, as if there was a  wind blowing right through her.

"Yeah, it was nothing," Sky replied, stuffed her phone back into her pocket, and turned her attention back to her meal, but her appetite was gone. She could only think about Hawk, the sharp line of his jaw, the darkness in his eyes when he had glanced at her before leaving the classroom.

"You sure about that?" Sam asked with a frown. "You look pale."

"Yeah, it's just—" She stopped talking and glanced at the table where Hawk usually sat with his friends. That table was empty now, there were no Cobras in the whole cafeteria and Sky didn't know what to make of that.

Why do I even care? This is exactly what he wanted when he texted me. I shouldn't have even read that thing. I should have blocked his number.

"Is this about what happened in the English class?" asked Moon, leaning closer with a sympathetic look on her sweet face.

"How do you know about that?"

"I heard it from Maya," Moon replied. "You remember Maya? She's in the cheerleading team, and has English with you."

"Oh, yeah, I think so." Sky had a vague memory of a pretty, blond girl whose mouth always seemed to be too busy with bubblegum to form words. "Wait, what did she tell you? And when?"

"I ran into her on my way here," Moon explained. "And she told me the boys were calling you names in the class. She felt really awful about it."

Sky let out a desperate groan and leaned her elbows on the table to hide her face in her hands.

"Great. This is just great. So, everyone knows?"

"I don't know," Sam said sharply. "What are you talking about?"

Sky sighed and slumped back in her chair, her appetite completely gone now. She picked up her fork and started to push the couscous and the pieces of chicken back and forth in the bowl, as she told Sam a short version of what had happened.