Mismatched

Chapter Sixteen

I helped Reed out of the park back to the main road. He waved me off with a see you later as he walked to his car, never looking back. I highly doubt he wants to be my friend now. I found my Corolla in the restaurant parking lot and climbed in. My body is still humming with anger. Who does that asshole think he is? Picking fights. Attacking everyone. What the hell is his problem?

I fumed and mumbled to myself the entire way home. Parking in the driveway, I lock up and then storm up to the house. Realizing I'm acting a bit like Ivy, I pause before entering the house and take a breath. Calm down, Dahl. I walk in, normally this time, and head up to my room, successfully, having not caused a scene. Bryony is out on a date with Shale, so my room is empty when I enter and allow myself one more act of Ivy-ness and throw myself onto my bed in a huff. I turn to my side and stare at the wall for a while. It takes my glare well, never shuttering under the flame of it. But walls can be judgey bastards too. Throughout all my silent fuming, one single phrase comes back to me. Over-reaction. Who, me? Surely not! Not possible, I'm as cool as a cucumber. Snort. Okay, maybe a habanero. Bryony is the cucumber of this little vegetable patch. Okay, I maybe, kinda, sorta, possibly over-reacted. But he started it! He.... should have known that he didn't need to rescue me! Sigh. He thought I needed help. I should have at least thanked him for his concern. What if I really did need help? I think back and realize he probably only saw Reed leaning over me, holding my wrist while I was saying I was in pain. What if I had walked up to someone leaning over Bry like that? I would have torn his face off with my fingernails after I kicked him twenty times in the junk.

Over-reaction.

Shut up, stupid wall. I turn to stare at the ceiling instead, my glare now softened to a pout. Instead of anger, guilt now sat like a rock in my gut. I didn't need to say all those things, I let my mouth run away from me and sputtered all this anger at him. I knew he wouldn't hurt Bry.

I heard the front door downstairs open and shut, I quickly turned back to the obnoxious wall. I didn't want Bryony to ask any questions right now. I wouldn't even know where to start to try and explain my night.

My bedroom door opened and shut quietly and I closed my eyes and let my body go limp, taking deep even breathes. I her Bry's soft steps cross the carpet to my bed and she lingered a moment and softly whispered to me.

"Dahlia?"

When I didn't answer she retreated back to her bed and quietly got ready for the night. After what seemed like hours, when I finally heard the soft dream-filled breathing of Bryony asleep in her own bed, I allowed the darkness to pull me under as well. That night my dreams were filled with images of lonely ice blue eyes and a baritone voice.

"I couldn't let that asshole hurt anyone else! Especially you!"

Especially you

Why me?

~ ~ ~

The next day at school, Axl was noticeably absent in homeroom. Or maybe it was just noticeable to me as I had been working up the courage to apologize to him all last night and this morning. Now his desk remained empty as Bryony and Shale murmured and smiled at one another before class began. The final bell rang and Mr. Murphy called us to order and took attendance, I kept glancing at the empty desk to my right. No matter how hard I looked, it stayed empty. Axl was still gone at lunch. I imagined entire conversations in my head with the missing person at our table. I kept thinking of sarcastic retorts to answer surly comments I'd imagine he'd be saying. Bryony kept giving me worried glances so I knew our weird twin telepathy was working and she could tell something was off with me. She probably even knew last night when I was pretending to sleep but Bryony was never one to push. She knew when I wanted to talk, I would. By Biology, I finally accepted that he really wasn't coming.