Battle of the Captains

turnover

"Hey, I've been looking for you."

I glanced at the window that I'd left open where Austin struggled to get through. When I was sure he wasn't going to make a stupid move, resulting with him seriously hurting himself, I allowed my gaze to rest on the freckled, night sky once again.

"I was hiding from you, actually," I said. "And everyone else." I hugged my legs closer to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. "How did you find me?"

"I asked your cousin and she said that you might be here," he answered.

"Did she?"

"Yeah, I was looking for you and–"

"Yeah, I know. You found me. Is there anything else you wanted?"

"Look, Kody," he started, his tone changing slightly– from tiptoeing around glass shards to forcefully gathering them up. "Drop the act. You're not angry with me– not this time." I bit my bottom lip, hating that he was right. "I just came up here to make sure you were okay after... you know."

"I'm fine," I said, and then added so that I didn't sound like such a witch, "but thanks." Adding another title like that to my already damaged reputation was not on the top of my list.

"Are you sure? Because I read somewhere that when a girl says she's fine, chances are she's not."

"No offense," I said. "But I really don't care about what you've read."

"Definitely not fine, then," he muttered under his breath and I fought the urge to roll my eyes because the poor guy was just trying to help. He carefully sat down beside me. "Can I sit here?"

Aside the fact that he'd already sat down, "It's a free country."

I tried to pay little attention to him. I didn't really want him to see that I'd been crying– crying because I'd never been so embarrassed, crying because I was afraid to be treated differently. Thankfully, I wasn't full out sobbing and my eyes weren't puffy enough to be obvious in the dark. My tears were slow, one by one sliding down my cheek mostly because I'd tried to blink them away. But Austin was persistent, leaning forward to get a good look at my face.

"How's your hand?" I asked, taking that opportunity to look down at his knuckle that he'd used to protect my dignity.

He fisted and un-fisted his hand for me to show that it was perfectly fine though even in the dark, I could see it was slightly bruised. "Blake has a soft face."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I've wanted to do that to Blake Richardson for a long time. You just gave me a good enough reason to." When I didn't reply, he continued, "It was really fun for me."

"You're such an animal," I teased, though my voice was humorless. Then I took his hand, trying to make it better like he'd made a lot of things better for me back inside the house.

He laughed and turned to face me once again. "Kody, don't worry about anything Blake said. He's just an ass. We all know that. He's just angry that you dumped and embarrassed him in front of all his groupies. Nothing he said matters. You know that right?"

"Nothing he said was true."

"I know. I believe you." As if he'd only realized that we were on a roof, he moved his head to see how far up we were. "What are you doing out here anyway?"

I shrugged. "It's a really good thinking spot."

Back when we weren't too caught up with our own lives, Alyssa's family and mine visited every Sunday. I knew every single spot of this house like it was my own. The roof outside her bedroom window wasn't as ridiculously dangerous as it seemed. It was flat and sturdy enough to sit on. As long as you weren't trying to fall off, you wouldn't. "Alyssa and I stayed out here every time I came over and we'd run back into the room when we'd here her parents coming upstairs."