I often said that the only way that you'd ever find me hanging around Luca Donahue, was if there was a loaded gun pointed at my head. For three years I actually meant it. I meant it right up until my best friend started ditching me and forcing Luca...
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I stand awkwardly in the room that feels too small for the four of us and try not to look at my roommate.
"It's half cheese, half pepperoni," Jace says with a huge smile. "Rai insisted on the cheese, said that you hate pepperoni. Everything okay at home?"
I give him a small smile and tentatively walk towards the bed that they're all seated on.
Rainn gazes at me through long mascara'd lashes. I can sense her sorrow as I sit beside her and it takes everything in me not to reach out and hug her.
As the minutes trick by, Jace tries his best to get me to lighten up, but the more he tries, the less feel like, and as I sit there munching on a slice of cheese pizza, I feel like a killjoy.
"Where should we go tonight?" Jace asks, but once again he's directing his question at me and my jaw tightens.
My answer is a simple shrug of the shoulders. I long to have fun after being upset for the better part of the week, but this group is the very last one that I want to do that with.
"B, come with me to the bathroom?" Rainn is already on her feet and doesn't wait for my response before she walks away.
I sigh and follow her, already knowing that she's about to tell me to stop ruining everything with my gloom.
"Can you at least try to act like you don't hate him?"
I close the lid of the toilet and take a seat. Rainn is the kind of person that could stretch a two minute argument into an hour and I don't feel like standing for all of it. "Who?" I ask just to rile her up further. And also because for the life of me I couldn't pretend to like Luca either, so it really is a valid question.
"Don't do that." She crosses her arms and gives me a hard look. "You know who."
I shrug and strum my fingers on the wall. There's so much that we need to talk about, but I don't want to open that box of issues in this cramped hotel bathroom with Jace and Luca on the other side.
"Blaise, please stop this. I know that you're upset with me, but that doesn't give you the right to treat Jace like crap when he's done nothing but be nice to you."
I stare at her and scoff at her bold statement. "Nice to me? Are you for real? This is the same guy who acted like I was invisible for no fucking reason."
She throws her hands in the ear. "Oh my fucking gosh, B! Are you hearing yourself? You're mad because he ignored you when you were a Freshman? He didn't even know you. You have your bone to pick with Luca about that, which I think is also so fucking immature, by the way. How can you just ignore him when he's been trying so hard to make things right between you two? And how can you be so mean to Jace when he's not even the one you're mad at in the first place?"
I don't answer her. I'm shaking and can actually feel the room begin to spin. I can't believe that she could be so cruel and discard my feelings so easily. She diminished my fight with Luca like it was nothing and thinks little of the the fact that all of his friends, including her precious boyfriend had made my introduction to high school a nightmare by purposely making me feel like I didn't even matter.
