Falling

Chapter Twenty

Owen knocked on her door and the moment she opened it and saw him, it was slammed in his face.

"Come on Nola let me in!" He pleaded. Nola huffed as she opened it again.

"How nice of you to show, you ass." She went to slam the door again but he caught it and she knew the danger of breaking an archer's fingers, you faced the wrath of Amelia.

"What do you want Owen?" She hissed, finally letting him in. She crossed her arms and glared at him. Her mother gave her a strange look so she dragged Owen through into her bedroom.

"So, what do you want?" Nola gave him a vision of ice that chilled his very soul. She was good at this glaring thing, she should do it professionally. Do they have professional glaring?

"How is she?" Nola snorted at that.

"How is she?" She questioned the question and Owen fought the urge to roll his eyes. Don't poke the grizzly bear that is your only source of answers.

"She's having to face him in court. You have no idea what it took to catch him and now she's going to have to watch him deny everything and, not that we say this to her, but by recent events, he'll probably get away with it. What else? Oh yeah, she's valedictorian, in case you were interested, the speech is the week before Nationals. Oh but you'll probably be too busy with your girl." Owen opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Nola kicked him out.

#

Ten Months Earlier

Nola was not happy with her maths book, it never seemed to run out of stupid maths questions. Why should she need to know how to get from ax^2+bx+c to -b+or-the square root of b^2-4ac all divided by 2a. Honestly, she had Sarah for this.

Sarah was staring unblinkingly at the wall as Nola was raging inside her head. All of maths was getting battered and bruised, poor thing. Nola tapped on Sarah's shoulder but was ignored. Unable to stand for that she shook her shoulder and Sarah seemed to jolt out of a trance.

"You okay?" Nola asked, concern pushing all mathematics abuse far away. Sarah looked across the field at younger students happily doing cartwheels, others happily talking to boys, there was a group playing scrimmage, so many happy people. She felt like her dark cloud was invasive on the whole scene, a totally destructive force.

"I'm fine." Sarah responded on instinct. She checked her phone and should have been overjoyed that the daycare had sent her a picture of Mica looking gorgeous asleep. Instead she felt empty. Sure, Mica was fabulous when she was with her, but when she was without her little girl she could barely think straight.

Sarah lay back down and lent her head against her arm, breathing in the scent of the grass and pretending she'd never made him go. All of this pain was self-inflicted, she knew that, but that didn't make the hurt go away, that didn't make her heavy heart beat with more ease. Instead she was desperate for his voice, but knew he wouldn't want to talk to her. She had broken up with him, she had broken up with the most amazing guy she had ever met. A guy willing to stay in his hometown to protect her and to help raise her daughter. A guy who was giving up far more than Sarah could accept, it was too terrifying.

She didn't know if he would wake up one day and feel bereft of experience. What Sarah didn't know, was that the only thing he woke up feeling bereft of, was her.

Nola's eyes widened as the pack of jackals surrounded them. The jackals being the super popular girls that the pair avoided at all costs.