That Night

Chapter Fifteen

"I'll see you at three?" Mom asked out the window of her car.

I turned back to her, nodding brusquely. "Yeah."

She sighed, frowning. "It'll be okay, Dash," she assured me in a soft voice.

"Okay," I muttered back, not wanting to talk about it in the middle of the parking lot at school.

"Have a good day," she said as she put the car in drive. I gave her a weak smile but said nothing, knowing already that a good day would not be possible. Slowly, she drove away, leaving me on the curb in front of school.

I began walking towards the building's entrance, keeping my head down. I couldn't shake the feeling that everyone was staring at me. Like they all knew about my appointment later that day. Like they all thought I was fucked up. They didn't know it was a dumb formality. I was only doing it to get Gabe off my back. Screw Gabe. What did he know?

Shaking my head angrily, I pushed the door open and walked towards my locker. My mind was so distracted I didn't even look up when I walked by Juliet's locker. I mindlessly dragged myself down the hall, stopping in front of my locker to gather my books as quickly as possible. Harrison was probably lurking around somewhere, and I didn't feel up to dealing with him yet. He wasn't at school yesterday, so I hadn't seen him since Friday.

Luckily, I made it to class without running into Harrison. It was going to happen eventually since we had a class together, but I wanted to prolong it as much as possible.

Juliet wasn't in the room yet. It was early, as my mom needed to drop me off before she went to work. I didn't know how I would feel when I saw Juliet. I still had yet to make sense of our conversation on Monday. It was too hard to wrap my head around.

Finally, a few minutes before the bell would ring, Juliet walked into the room. My heart stood still, but my mind was flooded with thoughts and fears. That wasn't my first time. I pictured the hurt and confused look on her face. I still didn't know what I was supposed to say to that.

Juliet's crystal eyes met mine, and she held my gaze for a few seconds. She looked like she was debating between smiling at me or looking away. True, we hadn't reconciled, but something had changed. For a brief few minutes on Monday, we had made strides towards returning to the way we once were. It felt so good, so right. I screwed up, but maybe I didn't totally blow it.

Her lips drew into a tight, hesitant smile, but it was gone as quickly as it came. Juliet looked away as she walked to her desk.

I slouched in my seat, releasing the breath I had been holding. It was small, but it was something.

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Before I knew it, I was walking into English, the second to last class of the day. I had skipped lunch to avoid the cafeteria, but there was no way I could avoid this.

My eyes scanned the room before landing on a pair of slate gray eyes already fixed on me. Harrison sat there smirking, arms crossed, waiting for me to come sit down. He was like a shark lurking in the water, ready to tear me apart.

"Hey there, bud," Harrison greeted me as I sat down at the desk next to him. I kept my head forward, my eyes straight ahead. "How's the shoulder? Nasty slip you had there."

I ground my teeth, biting back the series of profanities ready to burst out.

"Dash? What's wrong, friend?"

That did it.

"Shut the fuck up, Harrison," I spat, glaring at him. "I still have a free fist ready to knock you out again."