"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter One-Hundred-And-Thirty: Lunchtime Meetup
(The Hellfire Club, Pt. 3)
***
Rowan watched the hands of the clock tick, barely hearing the voice of her teacher.
Her classes had blurred together, paying only the barest amount of attention to what was happening. The anger had died down by Rowan's second class, but in its place the worry Rowan had over Chrissy and their conversation sat like a lodestone, weighing her down. The only thing that helped distract her from it was her plan for tomorrow—and her plan for lunch.
As she eyed the clock, Rowan's stomach flipped as she thought over it, and it was all she could do to keep back her smile, her gaze drifting to her backpack resting by her feet before snapping back to the clock.
Come on, come on, tick over now...
Almost like she willed it, the clock ticked over and the bell blared for lunch.
Chairs scraped against the floor, papers rustled and the teacher shouted to remember the homework no one cared about with spring break being literally hours away. Rowan rushed to shove everything into her backpack before swinging it over her shoulders and marching to the door, being swept away momentarily by the crowd before wrestling free. When she did, Rowan gave a quick wave to Robin and Valerie—they'd shared the class—before going in the opposite direction, her destination in mind. But as she did, Rowan saw a familiar head of red hair, headphones slung over it.
Rowan frowned and headed over to her. "Max!"
Max stopped and looked over to her. "Oh, hey Rowan."
"Hey," Rowan returned. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," Max said, voice carefully void of emotion. Rowan's frown deepened.
"Hey, are you okay? What Jason did... it wasn't fucking right, bringing up Billy like that in his speech," Rowan inquired, resting her hand on Max's arm.
Something flickered over Max's face—pain, grief, guilt?—but it slipped away under a blank mask as she said again, "I'm fine."
"You sure? You know you can talk to me—"
"I'm fine, Rowan," Max interrupted curtly as she pulled her arm away from Rowan's hand. She sighed and went on, "Yeah, it sucked to hear that, but I'm fine. You don't need to keep asking."
"Max, I care about you. You're like a sister to me, I just want to—"
"I know. But I already told you, I'm fine. So you can stop asking."
Hurt prickled at Rowan—and understanding—but she hid it down as she said, "Okay. But... if you need to talk, I'm here, okay? I'm always gonna be here if you want to talk."
