Broken Promises

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

"It's time we break up."

I was putting my things away in my locker when Brody came up to me out of nowhere and said those words. The textbook I was holding slipped out of my hands, falling to the floor with a soft thud. It was too loud in the hallways for it to be heard, but a few people did glance in our direction.

I turned to face Brody, my eyes wide. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. He wanted to break up with me? What for? The other day when I went to visit my brother? If he was still mad about that and that was the reason why he was breaking up with me, then maybe he wasn't worth keeping.

"Excuse me?"

He shrugged and leaned against the locker beside mine, shoving his hands in my pockets. "I told you the other day. You've been avoiding me and hanging out with Oliver. You said there was nothing going on between the two of you, but I saw y'all all cozied up in his truck."

Was he talking about the convenience store?

"Brody, it wasn't like that." I grabbed onto his hand, but he snatched it out of my grip. Like my touch had burned him or something.

Brody sighed. "It wasn't like that? It didn't seem that way, Sierra."

From his point-of-view, I could understand where he was coming from. He saw his girlfriend – me – in the arms of another man. He didn't see that I was crying, and that Oliver was comforting me. He saw two people embracing one another. I couldn't be mad at him for that. But he could at least give me the chance to explain.

However, he didn't. I wasn't able to say another word before he walked away from me, and I couldn't find myself to follow him. For some reason, I felt like him breaking up with me was a good thing. Because someone wanted to kill me, it could put him in danger, and that was the last thing I wanted. I just wished he didn't break up with me at school.

Because if I thought the whispering and pointing was bad before, it was worse now. I could already hear some of the things people were saying. Things like I was cheating on him with Oliver. And then things like how I was becoming like my brother, doing drugs and that Brody wanted no part of that. The rumors were going to be bad.

I sucked in a breath and closed my locker door. This was the last place I wanted to be right now. With that said, I pushed through the crowd of students, earning myself a few glares and choice of words, but I ignored them and kept going until I was outside the school.

There wasn't really a place I could go right now. Not home because my father took the day off. Not the library because the owner knew my parents. Maybe the park? Yeah, the park would work. It took me twenty minutes to walk there.

There was nobody there. I took a seat on the bench underneath the tree and wrapped my arms securely around my body. Birds chirped in the distance, a few of them walking on the ground. It was a beautiful, crisp day out. Maybe ditching school today was a good idea.

I didn't know how long I sat there. The park was beginning to get a little more traffic. Whether it was a mom bringing her two or three-year-old child to play. Or the two guys running down the track. Or maybe even the lady walking her dog. But it was probably time for me to go before some recognized me. Surely they would because my parents knew everyone in this town, and someone was bound to tell her I skipped. I wouldn't hear the end of it.

But before I could even drop my legs, someone sat down beside me. They stretched their legs and arms out, popping their neck. My breath caught in my throat when I recognized the guy being the same one my brother invited over that one night. That same guy being Rodney.