TORTURED SOUL | abby littman

𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿.

    
    
    
   
    

chapter forty four

{ extremely unedited }

      
     
    
    
    

IN HINDSIGHT, SHOWING UP TO SCHOOL HUNGOVER WITH A CRAVING FOR ALCOHOL WAS NOT THE BEST IDEA. Then again, Rowan seemed to have a knack for terrible decisions lately so was it really that much of a surprise when she strolled into the school, clothes creased from the night before, flickers of blood across her shirt?

She should care.

She really should've cared.

But Rowan did not give a shit about the stares and mumbles that were being directed her way, music in her headphones blasting loud enough to block them out. It wasn't like she intended to show up in these clothes, but she had been taken down to the station and refused to call someone to bail her out so she spent the night there. Sure, she probably should've gone to change in the morning or even skip the day completely but she did not want to see Acree first thing in the morning and she did tell Abby she'd be here.

She missed Abby.

In all honesty, she was craving Abby more than she was craving alcohol right now.

Rowan didn't understand it.

Rude as it sounds, Abby hadn't been on her mind at all for the past week, with Rowan busy with Camilla to avoid being alone. Sure, Rowan missed her but not as much as she used to do so in the past. But now that she knew Abby was here again, within reach? Rowan couldn't pull her thoughts away from her. She needed to be by Abby's side as soon as she could and not leave from there, to just stay in her company even if they didn't talk.

Rowan couldn't wait to see Abby again.

But, as always, life seemed to have other plans.

Camilla was waiting by Rowan's locker, something Rowan had never expected to happen in a million years. It's not like there was a reason she shouldn't, they were friends after all, but Rowan had just assumed Camilla would act like she doesn't exist in school the same way Abby used to until she was called out on it.

It was a pleasant surprise to see Camilla standing there, head in her phone.

"Castillo," Rowan greeted as she stopped beside her, pulling her headphones off so they hung around her neck, the muffled sound of how to disappear heard between them. Camilla looked up from her phone with a smile but it dropped as she took in Rowan's dishevelled appearance.

"The fuck happened to you, Rivera?"

"What?" Rowan asked, choosing to pretend nothing was wrong as she looked down at herself before meeting Camilla's gaze with a shrug. "Nothing happened."

"There's fucking blood on you. Come with me." Camilla didn't wait for a response as she turned on her heel and walked away, not looking back to see if Rowan was following. Rowan was tempted to walk in the other direction to find Abby but, after how much Camilla had helped her the past holiday and made sure she wasn't alone, she did not do that, rather following behind Camilla closely, pushing past the obnoxious students whose eyes never seemed to leave her.

It'd been weeks, did they not have something better to gossip about yet?

Rowan stopped walking when she spotted Abby in the red area, Ginny to her left and Max to her right. She was laughing at something Ginny had said and, even though Rowan couldn't hear it from where she was, she could feel her breath being knocked out of her chest from just imagining how it sounded.