Denial

Chapter 4

Nash's POV

I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock buzzing again and decided it was way to early to be awake at all, so I pressed snooze for the third time. When the loud beeping began for the fourth time, my brain started working and I realized I had to be at school in 15 minutes, giving me exactly 3 to get ready. I leapt out of bed, threw on some jeans and the first shirt I could find, and brushed my teeth as fast as humanly possible before grabbing my jacket and sprinting out to my car.

On the car ride I realized that my mom didn't come home last night because she would have woken me up with the sound of her singing while cooking pancakes in the kitchen, and the realization made me tear up.

I had gotten so used to the routine of waking myself up that I had almost forgotten the old way, the good way, when my mornings always started with my mom's beautiful voice and always ended with us all sitting around the dinner table laughing together about everything or nothing. I missed it. I made myself stop thinking about it because I was getting close to school and I sure as hell was not going to walk in crying, that wouldn't blow over well.

I tried to forget about it before remembering my little sister would need a ride to her pre-school again. "Shit," I muttered, that meant I'd have to skip second period for the second time this week to get her there on time.

I had only actually attended second period six times this year, so I had to depend on cheating off my friends' homework to keep my barely passing average in that class. I knew I would get detention for skipping yet again, but it was just another thing I'd deal with later.

Most days I'd have to skip because I could never count on my mom being home in time or sober enough to take her to pre-school, and I'd rather die than take the chance of putting my baby sister in the car with my drunk mother.

I pulled into school with 2 minutes till first period started, and with my horrific parking skills I accidentally took up two spots before leaping out of the car and running through the front doors and colliding head on with someone else rushing through the hall.

I looked down and saw I had collided with Cameron Dallas.

"Shit shit shit oh my god," I whispered too quiet for anyone to hear. I would not have cared at all if I had hit anyone else in the entire school, but why did I have to hit him?

I'd been avoiding Cameron since that day last November partly because I was still guilty for not sticking up for him, partly because I didn't even know what to say to him, and partly because he'd been in the back of my mind since that day and I found myself thinking about him a lot, or at least a lot for someone I hadn't even seen in months.

Occasionally in bed when I was at the place between asleep and awake and I found my brain replaying memories on its own I would see the time when he walked down the hall and turned back and smiled right at me. Over and over.

"Hey, uh, it's fine," I found myself saying to him before getting away from him as fast as I could. Hey, uh, it's fine?? God could I have said anything more stupid than that? I had bumped into him why did I tell him it's fine, I should've apologized. God, God, God, I was such an idiot. I found myself examining that tiny phrase I said over and over for all of first period before the bell ringing made me return back to reality.

I gathered my stuff and walked into the bathroom and waited for passing period to end. After the bell rang I peeked my head out the door to make sure no one saw me speed walk out the front doors. I was unlocking my car when a familiar voice behind me said, "Where are you going?"

I whipped around and saw Cameron Dallas blowing smoke from his cigarette and looking straight at me.