Sins of Aiden

26

CHAPTER 26

Eastwood High School's PE class is the bane of my existence.

I despise everything about it—from the echoing basketball stadium that smells like rubber soles and sweat, to the way the floor is always inexplicably sticky and wants to yank my shoes away from my feet, to the whistles that are a split second from busting my eardrums, and to the fact that no matter what the activity is, it always finds a way to humiliate me.

Badly.

And today is no exception.

Because today's torment is dodgeball.

Again.

I stand near the back line of the gym, knees already aching from climbing anxiety alone, fingers twisting the hem of my oversized PE shirt. The ball bins have been dragged out, bright red and blue spheres bouncing everywhere as people warm up by pelting each other way too hard for something that's supposedly "just a game."

But I know. . .Oh, I know.

This is no game.

This is suffering. It's going to get me killed.

My heart thunders silently in my ears as I scan my eyes across the room. There aren't really any familiar students here today, for obvious reasons, I assume, so I stand awkwardly in the corner waiting for the awful game to begin.

God, what I would do to have Maddy here with me. The realization sits stout in my chest—in a way I don't want or have time to unpack right now.

Because a lot is going on at the moment.

And my muscles are trembling.

Finn, however, is here.

Which is the only reason I haven't faked a sudden illness and fled to the nurse's office yet. Though the odds of my taking a trip to the nurse's office before this class is finished are still against me.

"Okay," Finn says beside me, cracking his neck like he's about to enter a war zone. "Strategy is what we need."

I blink up at him wide-eyed, trying to force myself not to grip his shirt for comfort. "There's a strategy?"

"Yes," he says with a serious look flashing in his eyes, while snapping his fingers one at a time. "I will be the distraction while you try not to die."

I visibly swallow, life flashing before my eyes when Finn starts to jump in his spot. "O-okay."

He grins, bright and boyish and totally unfazed by the fact that someone just whipped a ball past his head hard enough to make the air cinch. "Stick close, pretty Mia, I'm very large, so people aim for me instinctively."

"That's not so reassuring."

The whistle blows.

Chaos erupts instantly.

My spine stiffens as balls fly in every direction. I hear someone scream from across the room, and it's not a comforting kind of scream either—the sound is blood-curdling. A boy from beside me, whom I recognize as being in my history class, immediately trips over his own feet and narrowly misses me by inches as his body tumbles over where I stood moments earlier. The gym explodes into noise with shouts, laughter, and the hollow thud of rubber smacking bodies.

Finn grabs a ball mid-bounce and jumps up in the air like a ninja to hurl it across the court—it nails a guy square in the chest.

"Out!" Finn yells, the sound bouncing off the walls, pumping a fist.