Brie Sheridan has had her heart broken way too many times. Rhett Price is usually the culprit, but, this time, he might be the solution.
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Brooke 'Brie' Sheridan wouldn't necessa...
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BRIE
My blood turns to ice in my veins.
Modesty aside, I've been doing a fantastic job when it comes to avoiding Cole around campus. I've been smart to not frequent the places where I know he'll be and, on the rare occasions I need to be there at the same time he is, I keep my distance like the emotionally mature person that I am.
I don't keep up with our old friends, the few ones that he has (I'm not being mean; it's just an objective fact), as I've never liked them much and can't imagine they'd want to stay in touch. God knows how much bullshit Cole has fed them about me, but I can picture some of it—I'm too clingy, too emotional, too dramatic, I can't take a joke. It doesn't take a genius to come up with these things; he's simply that predictable.
With all of that in mind, along with the student body's tendency to not like him, at least generally speaking, I can't fathom what he's doing here tonight. I know next to nothing about Paige, but the little I know doesn't make her look like the type of person who would voluntarily spend time with him, not even on an outer circle basis, so they might have friends in common. Either way, he's the last person I expected to run into tonight.
Though I loathe giving him this much power to ruin my night, he's responsible for multiple meltdowns and hours on end of ugly sobbing in my room, not to mention everything I've had to go through with my senior project because of him and his refusal to face the consequences of his decisions and his actions.
The mere sight of him is enough to make my insides threaten to combust and explode into flames, consuming this entire manor, and I don't anticipate it getting any better in that regard. I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to see him. I don't want to be around him or be in the same room as him. I sure as hell don't want to hear whatever he has to say, now that he has probably heard about my relationship status and who I'm dating.
I hate that I even care about him having an opinion about it. I hate that I want to rub it in his face how much better I've been feeling now that we don't talk and aren't together, how much better than him I can do—not that it's particularly hard. The bar is set so low it has fused with the ground.
"Hey, Brie," he greets.
Even after stepping back, the overwhelming stench of alcohol coating his breath hits me square in the face, so I attempt to widen the distance between us even further. It gives me an excuse to reach out for other snacks, such as the minuscule toasties I found so adorable the minute I saw someone else fill up a paper plate with them.
I do my best to ignore him and rush to fill my plate with everything I can find that won't leave me bloated, since I'm unfortunately vain enough to let things like that bother me, but it's hard to pretend someone this tall isn't standing right next to me, following my every move. He tries to get my attention like the seagulls from Finding Nemo, possessive as ever, but he lost every right to call me his the second he stabbed me in the back.
